Peak Oil, Meet Line Gas

World oil and gas reserves E are vastly, vastly higher than predicted:

The World Gas Conference in Buenos Aires last week was one of those events that shatter assumptions. Advances in technology for extracting gas from shale and methane beds have quickened dramatically, altering the global balance of energy faster than almost anybody expected.

“There has been a revolution in the gas fields of North America. Reserve estimates are rising sharply as technology unlocks unconventional resources,” he said.

Gas reserves in particular are seemingly immense – and, being a clean-burning fuel already, should obviate the need for “clean coal” (which is still on the drawing board).

Downside; pundits are seeing this news and saying it pre-empts the need for new nuke plants.  Let’s not get cocky, here…

18 thoughts on “Peak Oil, Meet Line Gas

  1. Yeah, good news on the energy exploration front only means that conservation is stupid, not that we don’t need nuclear plants.

    Your neighborhood instead of mine, though, m’kay?

  2. Not sure where you get that. I’m Norwegian and Scottish; I could make 60 years worth of gas last for 100.

    Bring the nukes!

  3. You have to be a little careful with the term “clean coal.” Most of us think that means coal with all the nasties taken out of it, like sulfur and nitrogen and heavy metals. But to liberals it means coal that doesn’t produce that terrible pollutant CO2, and that’s just not possible. Of course, natural gas and ethanol produce CO2, too, and in essentially equal amounts, but that doesn’t seem to worry them. Nor does the fact that burning these hydrocarbons also produce H2O, which is a greenhouse gas every bit as much as CO2 is.

    As for nukes, let me just ask the clown one question. Which is safer, from a radiation point of view: sleeping next to a nuclear reactor, or sleeping with your wife?

  4. That’s kinda an unfair question: Clown is married to Chernobyl Girl from the freak show.

  5. Clown is married to Chernobyl Girl from the freak show.

    I heard she hates it when someone tells her that she looks radiant.

  6. She did, Kerm. It was in 1986: “I’ve Been to Krasnoyarsk (But I’ve Never Been to Me).”

    Her career was cut short by vomiting. hair loss and death from leukemia.

  7. Actually Kerm I was concieved around Christmas 1985 so I was already in the hopper when Chernobyl happened. Believe me though my Dad has mentioned that quite a few times.

  8. One of the odd things you need to believe to be a liberal is that all the oil is going to run out in a decade or so but you still need rules that cap its use a half-century from now.

  9. I’ve got friends who’ve been to Krasnoyarsk, but it’s nowhere near Chernobyl, if I remember correctly. It is very polluted, though. Top down control like Comrade Obama wants will do that to you.

  10. You forget, comrade Bubbasan, pollution is a result of capitalists exploiting the commons to make a quick buck. What your friends saw was the inevitable byproduct of social progress. Some of it was necessary to retain military parity with the aggressive, capitalist West. Since there was no exploitation for private gain, it cannot be considered “pollution”.

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