“Today” is the key word in your post.
Natural gas was significantly more expensive just a few years ago, before large amounts of fracked natural gas became available. The price was admittedly still much less than the $50/MMBTU that you quote for extracting methane clathrate, but no one has had a real need to seriously go after them and develop efficient equipment and techniques.
Once that need arises, the energy is there.
Yes but now shale gas is to cheap to drilling.
So, natural gas production in the U.S. has not grown since 2011.
In 2012, Chesapeake, the second-largest producer of natural gas, lost $940 million.
At the same time, natural gas consumption is skyrocketing.
In 2012, the U.S.used 25.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas used servus 22.9 trillion cubic feet in 2009.
This is why Royal Dutch Shell expects US natural gas prices to double by 2015.