there is some life yet in fossil fuel

:)


November 17, 2012

From, theage.com.au

A revolution in energy that is, well, greenish, is taking place as shale fracking transforms the oil and gas industry.

*** WHEN Barack Obama assumed the presidency of the US shortly after the peak of the 2008 global financial crisis, he would have jumped at a result like this.


*** As the President was promising that such goals could be achieved in his first term through a ''green new deal'' - where huge spending on renewable energy projects would stimulate the economy out of recession - an entirely different revolution was already under way.

Four years later, President Obama was returned to the White House this month, having made progress on many of those goals. But rather than renewables, he has fossil fuels to thank.


* Nearly 600,000 Americans will work in the shale sector by the end of the decade, according to President Obama.

* Many US manufacturers have hailed the availability of cheap energy as allowing them to consider expansion plans and compete better with rivals in Japan and Korea, where typically consumers pay three to four times more for gas.

Oil and gas veterans such as BHP Billiton petroleum boss Mike Yeager say the shale revolution is the biggest thing to happen to the sector in decades.

''It is absolutely stupendous,'' he said.

''Every single magazine, every newspaper, every conversation, every man, woman and child has this shale oil and gas thing creeping into their lives.

''It's creeping in in lower-cost energy, it's creeping in through tax revenues … It's creeping in in every imaginable way.''

And as the International Energy Agency reported this week, the world's energy map is fast being redrawn too, with the US on track to become self-sufficient in energy and overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest oil producer by 2017.

http://www.theage.com.au/business/there-is-some-life-yet-lingering-in-fossil-fuel-20121116-29hmy.html