Posted on 02/19/2010 5:37:14 PM PST by Kaslin
A new technique being used to drill through a type of rock known as shale has led to a surge in domestic natural gas production over the last three years and enabled the United States to overtake Russia recently as the world's No. 1 producer of natural gas.
As a result, we are seeing a remarkable turnabout in energy geopolitics: as U.S. natural gas reserves have soared thanks to advanced drilling methods, Russia's goal of establishing a world gas cartel patterned on OPEC has collapsed.
How big of a development is this?
Think back to 2003, when America's demand for natural gas was outpacing supply. Production from gas wells on the Outer Continental Shelf had fallen by 50%, and there was no surplus capacity in the U.S.
Gas prices had doubled in less than a year, and scores of petrochemical companies, in need of cheaper gas, closed their U.S. plants and reopened abroad. Alan Greenspan, then-Federal Reserve chairman, warned that natural gas shortages could harm the U.S. economy.
To make matters worse, Russia began flexing its political muscle, using a dispute over gas prices with Ukraine as a pretext for curtailing natural gas shipments to Western Europe. And Russia, in cahoots with several other major gas-producing countries such as Iran and Algeria, opened a global office for natural gas.
U.S. experts saw the move as the first step toward creating an OPEC-like natural-gas cartel.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
It can’t hurt.
They can sure help.
Answer: No, not while a Marxist and his enablers in Congress are running this country over a freakin’ cliff.
Next question, please.
Interesting. Read the whole thing later.
Congress is holding hearings on the possible environmental effects of this right now, and Obama stuck a bunch of taxation and cap’ntax in the budget bill in order to get around his DOA cap’n’tax energy bill, so we need to be careful. The United states is to RICH natural gas (as opposed to the “light” in the Eastern hemisphere) what Saudi is to oil. And we doubt The Won’s loyalties lie with the US.
God gave the people of this country many blessings. Atheists and Muslims are what Revelations predicted.
Get ready.
Obama’s failure to develop our domestic energy resources will cost us big time in terms of money and jobs: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2452864/posts
“Can Bountiful Natural Gas Supplies Make U.S. Self-Sufficient In Energy?”
Possibly not totally, but it could help us to keep billions of petrodollars at home rather than sending it to people wearing turbans and burkas who want to slit our throats.
You’d think they’d take that into account.
Meanwhile Michigan is becoming a 3rd world nation while sitting on top of a massive reserve of natural gas. There is also oil under every single county in the lower peninsula. Its low grade oil but it has its uses.
We are “rich in natural gas” so long as access doesn’t get politically cut off and the Left(which runs the government at the moment) will try mightily to cut it off.
Why do you think obama is planning new national monuments out West?Bill clinton put much of our coal off limits to benefit Indonesian coal interests.
Obumbler is looking to shove cap and tax down our throats one way or another. The one thing he cannot stand is independence.
The Left is definiteively trying to cut off access. Tehy’ve been doing it by degrees, making permits harder and harder to get every year. They demand more and more EPA regulations be followed, and then claim it’s not enough. The new talking point is that the water “they” put into in storage wells is so toxic it kills everything (there was one company that tried that, they got caught and are now banned from drilling, at least in PA) Now they’re having these hearings to assess the environmental impact. That does not bode well for the industry.
Missed the sarcasm tag?
Missed the sarcasm tag?
Next time I will be more obvious.
LOL
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