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Natural gas may be Uncle Sam’s most ignored blessing. With resources now equivalent to Iran’s oil reserves, domestic shale gas offers a chance to meaningfully reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil, cut the deficit and even reduce greenhouse emissions.
Every modern president since Richard Nixon has paid lip service to the quest for energy independence. Similarly, the bloated trade deficit and climate change have become political obsessions over the past decade. Yet precious little has been done to deploy America’s growing gas endowment to solve these problems.
To be fair, U.S. politicians have had little time to react. Just a few years ago it looked like falling domestic gas production would force the United States to rely increasingly on imports. Instead new drilling technologies — hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling ��������� have enabled energy firms to tap massive quantities of gas trapped in rock.
Just last month, the Department of Energy more than doubled estimates of recoverable shale reserves to 827 trillion cubic feet — the energy equivalent of roughly 140 billion barrels of oil. That’s slightly greater than the proven oil reserves of Iran, the world’s third-largest repository of crude.
As gas reserves have ballooned, so has the potential to help solve decades-old policy conundrums, starting with America’s addiction to foreign oil. Last year the tab for the 12 million barrels of oil the U.S. imports daily came to around US$270-billion — accounting for roughly half the total trade deficit.
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Shale+Uncle+saviour/4100996/story.html#ixzz1BzfgfQ1D
Want to see a clear-eyed viewpoint on #shale #natgas reserves? Chris Swann offers a great point of view: http://bit.ly/dXVbza @pickensplan
Shale Gas: Uncle Sam’s Savior (Reuter’s Breaking Views) http://j.mp/entcez
#Reuters writer Chris Swann's write-up on the US #shale #natgas reserve (http://bit.ly/dXVbza) He got it right. Why can't we? @pickensplan
#Reuters Christopher #Swann throws a dose of #reality onto what the #natgas boom could mean for the US…. http://fb.me/J1a4SbZX