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Page added on May 22, 2012
Where the Shale Gas Revolution Came From
The ongoing shale gas boom has expanded domestic energy production, pushed wholesale electricity prices to record lows, and accelerated the closure of America’s aging coal plant fleet, lowering national power-sector carbon emissions. This revolution in natural gas — unleashed by a flood of recently accessible shale gas reserves, once thought to be unrecoverable — is the product of over 25 years of federal agencies and programs driving technology development in collaboration with private gas companies.
In a new fact sheet, we have compiled the long and impressive history of shale fracturing (or “fracking”) development in the United States. Through a series of investigations and interviews with gas industry executives and federal researchers, we uncovered the path that shale fracking took towards full commercial maturity.
The history of shale gas fracking in the United States was punctuated by the successive developments of massive hydraulic fracturing (MHF), microseismic imaging, horizontal drilling, and other key innovations that when combined made the once unreachable energy resource technically recoverable (see infographic below for details). Along each stage of the innovation pipeline — from basic research to applied R&D to cost-sharing on demonstration projects to tax policy support for deployment — public-private partnerships and federal investments helped push hydraulic fracturing in shale into full commercial competitiveness.
Today, next-generation advanced energy technologies — including wind, solar, advanced batteries, nuclear power, and others — face many of the same scaling and cost challenges that shale fracking faced in the 1970s and 1980s. But significant progress has been made, and if policymakers use the shale history as a model for a smart and efficient public clean tech investment portfolio, then policy support can accelerate clean tech’s march towards subsidy independence and full commercial maturity.
5 Comments on "Where the Shale Gas Revolution Came From"
DC on Tue, 22nd May 2012 10:54 pm
What a load of shyte!
Ham on Tue, 22nd May 2012 11:52 pm
Picture looks Eco-friendly. Blue sky and green, green grass. Yea, verily utter shyte!
BillT on Wed, 23rd May 2012 1:52 am
I wonder how many people know that is this is in their neighborhood, their insurance and home value is now worth little if anything? Banks will not loan to people who are near fraking operations and that means the current owners cannot sell. There is a clause in most mortgage contracts that say this, but how many of you have actually read and understood all of the fine print when you bought your home? Better read it today.
Windmills on Wed, 23rd May 2012 4:59 am
I don’t see much of a revolution here. Where is the massive, accelerating rate of adoption of natural gas powered systems, such as vehicles or power plants? Where is the huge jump in natural gas usage as a percentage of the total energy consumed in the USA by source? The latter hasn’t changed much in about 40 years. Show me the numbers and I’ll believe in your revolution. In the mean time, it seems more like another disastrous trade-off between profit and human health.
SOS on Wed, 23rd May 2012 3:55 pm
A clause in mtg contracts that says what? You cant sell? Also, how is their insurance worth little if anything? What has it been worth?
The idea that governemt stimulus is needed to advance technology is the point of this article. It is attempting to justify new billions of stimulus to alternative energy suppliers. A brand new political constiuancy that need financial reward. That would mean a much larger transfer of your wealth to these companies promoting unecomomical business/energy models.
Fracking had little or nothing to do with the government besides funding research at universities as all ressearch is funded in part by the government directly or indirectly. There was no national push as is being suggested in the article.
The explosion of natural gas supplies and its low cost are now the #1 threat to alternative fuels, coal and nuclear (dead anyway). Because its a threat to alternative electricity supplies the green movement and left in general maintain a constant stream of negativeity toward natural gas. Right now the focus is on fracking. Stop it and we are back at peak oil trough peak politics.