The Energy Information Administration has released “World Shale Gas Resources,” an important commissioned report providing an assessment of how much natural gas is locked in shale deposits in 14 regions around the world. (Here’s its overview of shale gas in the United States.) Here’s a map of the surveyed regions:
The report includes some pretty remarkable numbers from countries that currently have limited domestic gas options, including China and quite a few western European nations that have been held somewhat hostage by Russia. Its publication comes in sync with a disturbing article in The Times noting how much crop production, including tropical staples such as cassava, is being diverted to making biofuels.
I sent the following query to a batch of people immersed in assessing and/or developing the world’s energy menu but it’s a query for you, as well, of course (I’ve tweaked it to remove some e-mail shorthand):
I would greatly appreciate some reflection from you on the new shale gas assessment from EIA (global estimates for areas that have been surveyed) against the trends for food crops, including cassava, going to make fuels, as reported today by Elisabeth Rosenthal in The Times.
I’ve seen some fresh analysis saying this new shale report completely ices the case that gas is now (more than was already clear) a fundamental game changer.
The figures for China help explain why a team of Chinese gas experts, as I was told not long ago by folks at Oklahoma State University, has been there studying extraction technologies.
There are strong new hints that gas can play a much bigger role in energy for transport (for example LNG for big trucks) and that it will (and should?) outcompete nuclear, coal and renewables for electricity (at least in the US).
Can it compete with the political influence of big agriculture here, and, any time soon, with coal in China?
Jesse Ausubel long ago also noted that natural gas is a far better bet to link with carbon capture (through “zero emission power plant” technology), if you think carbon capture and sequestration is a serious prospect down the line.
So is this it?
One thing I note in that E.I.A. report is the big blank spots in assessed regions, many of which (like much of sub-Saharan Africa, of course) are also regions locked in deep energy poverty. How does this gas push relate to ending energy poverty in such places?
The first reply came from Ausubel, a Rockefeller University scholar who long ago predicted the ascendancy of gas as part of humanity’s move away from carbon and toward hydrogen. He stressed that more conventional gas deposits are already changing the energy game:
While the shale gas matters a lot for the overall outlook and industry confidence, my money remains on the “clean” deep gas, both offshore and continental, as the bigger source of supply delivered over the long run. Discoveries and technologies keep appearing. See [this link] – a rig for 3,000 meters of water and 10,000 meters of seafloor, delivered.
Google the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields off Israel.
I sent him this followup question:
Between the clean gas and the shale options, though, is it fair to say this is “The Gas Age”? Are we going to move off the “coal rung” of Loren Eiseley’s heat ladder more quickly?
Yes, we live in a world of Methane Abundance. Recognition is diffusing.