Friday, August 06, 2010
"An American Gift: Natural Gas From Shale"
Thank you Mr. Mitchell...
Robert J. Samuelson writes at Investors.com:
"In 1981, Mitchell's small petroleum company faced dwindling natural gas reserves. He proposed a radical idea — drill deeper in the company's Texas fields to reach gas-bearing shale rock more than a mile down.
Because the gas was tightly packed, most engineers believed it was too costly to extract profitably. But after nearly two decades of trying, Mitchell proved doubters wrong. The result: The world has far more available natural gas than anyone suspected.
The BP oil spill cast a cloud over almost all energy news. Well, shale gas is good news. Here's why.
Until recently, scarce U.S. natural gas reserves suggested increasing dependence on expensive foreign supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG). No more."
