Germany’s largest utilities are shunning cleaner-burning natural gas because it’s more costly, while the collapsing cost of carbon permits means there’s little penalty for burning coal. Germany’s increasing coal consumption is part of a global return to the fossil fuel that’s cheaper than most alternatives. The amount of coal burned worldwide rose 5.4 percent to account for 30 percent of total energy use last year, the highest proportion since 1969, according to BP data. --
Bloomberg 20 August 2012
European countries may soon have to import shale gas from Russia if the green energy lobby has its way. The prospect of even deeper reliance on Russian gas together with a new rush to coal burning may be the unintended yet inevitable consequence of the ongoing opposition by green campaigners and policy-makers to domestic European shale development. As a result, Europe has failed to join the shale revolution that has swept the US. Instead of benefiting from cheap shale gas, lower CO2 emissions, new industries and hundreds of thousands of new jobs, Europe is constraining itself with self-imposed green limits to growth. --Benny Peiser,
Public Service Europe, 29 August 2012
The world’s most abundant fossil fuel could be tapped without moving mountains, delivered without trucks or trains and burned without greenhouse-gas emissions. The technology to make this possible, underground coal gasification, has been around for decades. Now the improvements in seismic mapping and drilling that lit a fire under the U.S. fracking boom may also spur development of a domestic coal gas industry, proponents said. “The shale gas revolution is opening doors for the coal gas revolution,” said Richard Morse, director of coal and carbon research at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. “We knew it was there but couldn’t get it out in a cost- effective way.” --
Bloomberg, 29 August 2012
Despite the vicious political attacks over energy policy in the United States, the recent boom in oil and gas production will likely continue, no matter who wins the White House. Whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat in the Oval Office, the energy boom that’s occurred in this country over the last few years is unlikely to subside. --
CNN Money, 24 August 2012
Russia’s economy ministry sees “serious” risks posed by shale gas to the revenue of Gazprom beginning in 2014, as higher supply from the nontraditional hydrocarbons may hurt prices and demand for Russia’s pipeline gas. --
Fox News, 29 August 2012
