New Ways to Tap Gas May Expand Global Supplies

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/10/business/energy-environment/10gas.html?_r=1&hp

New Way to Tap Gas May Expand Global Supplies


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By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Published: October 9, 2009

OKLAHOMA CITY — A new technique that tapped previously inaccessible supplies of natural gas in the United States is spreading to the rest of the world, raising hopes of a huge expansion in global reserves of the cleanest fossil fuel.

Italian and Norwegian oil engineers and geologists have arrived in Texas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania to learn how to extract gas from layers of a black rock called shale. Companies are leasing huge tracts of land across Europe for exploration. And oil executives are gathering rocks and scrutinizing Asian and North African geological maps in search of other fields.

The global drilling rush is still in its early stages. But energy analysts are already predicting that shale could reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas. They said they believed that gas reserves in many countries could increase over the next two decades, comparable with the 40 percent increase in the United States in recent years.

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This could change the world political power structure. Russia could really lose out.

But you are right about the balance of power -- Russia will have a huge gas supply, but won't be able to monopolize the market.

Note: Natural gas is still carbon-intensive and will contribute significantly to climate disruption. It produces about half the carbon gases of Coal. And since Natural Gas is Methane, it's a carbon gas itself. (It's CH4)

--d!