Natural Gas Supply in the US Jumps

"Peak Energy" doomsters have suffered numerous setbacks recently, with the drop in oil prices from near $150 a barrel in July to around $115 a barrel for the past weeks. Recent boosts in estimated US supplies of natural gas are another thorn in the side of would-be energy apocalyptics. Improved energy recovery technologies are making deposits of oil and gas more recoverable, and very economic at today's energy prices.

U.S. gas production is up 9% this year - a rate of increase not seen since 1984 - with most of that gain coming from natural-gas shale, particularly the Barnett Shale, a deposit that now produces 7% of the country’s gas supply. Indeed, there could be as much as 842 trillion cubic feet of retrievable gas in shale deposits throughout the United States alone, according to Navigant Consulting. That would support the current level of U.S. consumption for about 40 years....Shale beds are a major part of the story. The Barnett - with reserves of 2.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and as much as 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas resources - was the first shale field to undergo major development, and has seen output increase tenfold since 2001. It’s just one of at least 24 shale beds in North America. The Haynesville in Louisiana and the Marcellus in Appalachia may be even bigger, but will require further development and won’t come online for another two to five years.

The vast potential of fields like these has only been unlocked recently with advances in the technology of horizontal drilling hydraulic fracturing. Horizontal drilling, or slant drilling, allows producers to drill laterally beneath cities and neighborhoods, and hydraulic fracturing is simply a method by which water is pumped into the rock to break the sediment and release the gas. _SeekingAlpha

Doomsday has become an obsession -- a quasi-religion -- for legions of people with nothing important to do with their time or lives. Flailing about for a cause, these unfortunates have seized upon Y2K, Global Warming Catastrophe, Peak Oil, Overpopulation, and any number of other dubious doomsdays. All in the futile quest for a sense self-importance.

Typical loser political activist mentality. Too bad they never acquired any useful skills, or they may have been able to contribute to a productive cause.