Tag Archives: shale oil

French fracking fracus

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Michael Giberson

There is oil in shale formations in France, possibly even shale oil under the Eiffel Tower, and at least for now it looks like that is where the oil will remain. According to a report by Bloomberg News, a parliamentary committee agreed on a proposal to ban hydraulic fracturing in the country, the full parliament is slated to vote on the issue later this month and the proposal could become law by July.

A parliamentary committee yesterday agreed on a ban that removed the possibility of fracking even for “scientific experiments.” Both houses of the French parliament are slated to vote on the bill this month and it could become law in July.

Companies that were planning to use the technique will have their permits canceled under the proposal, which also includes jail time and fines for fracking and the creation of a commission to oversee research and evaluation of unconventional oil and gas exploration.

The view from Paris:

“I’m against hydraulic fracturing,” French Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet has said. “We have seen the results in the U.S.,” with its “devastated countryside” and “sullied water tables.”

The French Environment Minister concluded remarks to developers with, “Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time.”*

*Just kidding, but really – “devastated countryside” and “sullied water tables”? I guess if you know no more about fracking than you saw in Gasland and the New York Times maybe you’d think so, but surely standards for policy analysis should be higher than that.

[HT to FuelFix.]

Matt Ridley writing up the shale gas shock

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Michael Giberson

Matt Ridley, esteemed science writer (The Red Queen, The Origins of Virtue, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, Nature via Nurture, Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code, and most recently The Rational Optimist), turns his prodigious writing talent to a short booklet on the prospects for shale gas to remake the energy landscape: The Shale Gas Shock.

At Knowledge Problem, we’ve covered bits and pieces of the  shale gas story and the policy and market consequences, but now you can get a current, thoughtful and well-written assessment from Ridley. Among other things, he addresses resource estimates, costs, shale gas skepticism, environmental concerns, and effects on electric power, transport fuel, and other markets. It is an excellent overview and introduction to the topic for the general public and (especially) folks in the public policy community.

Ridley also had a column on this topic in The Times which appeared earlier this week.

The international possibilities of petroleum from shale will reshape markets

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Michael Giberson

There is a lot of natural gas locked up in shale in the world. Once shale gas was mostly a footnote to the energy industry, known about but inconsequential because mostly inaccessible. But the technology, and hence the economics, of shale gas development has improved. And those improvements are reshaping the world’s energy markets.

The Energy Information Administration has released a preliminary analysis of several regions throughout the world which concludes the now-producible shale gas resources are vast:

Although the shale gas resource estimates will likely change over time as additional information becomes available, the report shows that the international shale gas resource base is vast. The initial estimate of technically recoverable shale gas resources in the 32 countries examined is 5,760 trillioncubic feet… Adding the U.S. estimate of the shale gas technically recoverable resources of 862 trillion cubic feet results in a total shale resource base estimate of 6,622 trillion cubic feet for the United States and the other 32 countries assessed. To put this shale gas resource estimate in some perspective, world proven reserves of natural gas as of January 1, 2010 are about 6,609 trillion cubic feet, and world technically recoverable gas resources are roughly 16,000 trillion cubic feet, largely excluding shale gas. Thus, adding the identified shale gas resources to other gas resources increases total world technically recoverable gas resources by over 40 percent to 22,600 trillion cubic feet.

By the way, the U.S. Department of Energy wants you to know that its early R&D investment in shale gas technology is producing results today.

But it isn’t just natural gas.

Technology is improving access to oil from shale formations as well. A story in the Wall Street Journal yesterday suggests that Israel may have the potential to become a major oil producer based upon its shale oil potential. See “Could Israel Become an Energy Giant?” In the U.S., oil from shale is one of the reasons North Dakota is booming, and their are several other oil shale efforts now new-and-improved as technology has improved.

It isn’t that everything you once thought you knew about the oil and gas industry is wrong, but you do have to pay attention and allow yourself to, reluctantly, learn something new once in a while.