“Peak-gas” moves further into the future as recoverable reserves of shale-gas are found in more countries. The coming gas glut is getting ever more real. Now the UK – which was thought to have little shale gas – has found reserves of about 5,700 billion cubic metres of shale gas in Lancashire. Poland -which was thought to be the richest in shale gas resources in Europe has recoverable reserves of about 5,400 billion cubic metres. Till now the British Geological Survey had thought the country possessed only about 150 billion cubic metres.
The map of the world’s shale gas reserves is changing rapidly as exploration for this previously ignored resource intensifies. The gas glut is going to provide relatively cheap options for the use of gas based electricity generation into the foreseeable future. In fact the increase in the cost of electricity which has been driven by the use of renewables and misplaced penalties for fossil fuel could finally be reversed. Needless to say the “environmental” industry – instead of welcoming the finding of new resources – is in a state of denial – and looking for every possible objection to the use of shale gas. The use of intermittent wind and solar power – apart from being so expensive when deployed – always needs back-up capacity and gas fired power generation is the only real option. The gas glut comes just in time for the recovery of the world economy which is now badly needed.
Wall Street Journal: An area in northwest England may contain 200 trillion cubic feet of shale gas, putting it in the same league as some of the vast shale-gas plays that have transformed the U.S. energy industry. The figure for the area near Blackpool, released Wednesday by Cuadrilla Resources, a small oil-and-gas company with operations in England’s Bowland Shale, highlights the U.K.’s emerging position as a new frontier for unconventional gas exploration. But it inflamed environmental groups who say the technology used to extract shale gas is environmentally damaging.
The discovery of such vast resources—200 trillion cubic feet would be enough to meet U.K. gas demand for 64 years—comes at a time when the U.K.’s conventional gas fields are in steep decline and as it is becoming increasingly dependent on imports such as liquefied natural gas from Qatar and piped gas from Norway.
The response from the World Wildlife Fund was predictably alarmist.
In response to Cuadrilla’s announcement, the environmental group WWF called Wednesday for a moratorium on shale-gas production in the U.K. and said the country should be more focused on investing in renewables than increasing its reliance on fossil fuels. “The government should at the very least halt shale gas exploration in Britain until more research can be undertaken on both the climate-change impacts and contamination risks associated with shale gas,” said Jenny Banks, WWF-UK’s energy- and climate-change policy officer.
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