U.S. News & World Report editor-in-chief Mortimer Zuckerman penned an insightful op-ed for The Wall Street Journal last week. It was on the critical steps necessary to secure America’s path to energy security. The crux of his commentary is that recent technological innovations surrounding shale gas have made it possible for the U.S. to end its dangerous addiction to Middle Eastern oil, ” but only if we can sort out our priorities.”
The good news is that the United States is at the center of a global energy revolution. Our development of innovative shale-gas technology offers the prospect of a huge bonanza of natural gas (and some oil as well). It’s the most positive event in the country’s energy outlook in 50 years.
Zuckerman sees the development of shale gas as a “seismic shift in the energy landscape,” one that could possibly lead to American self-sufficiency. He mentions the possibility of the U.S. once again becoming a major world source of energy. Thanks to using seismic mapping, three-dimensional imaging, and new drilling techniques, “technology has trumped geology.”
The process of finding and producing hydrocarbons from this shale has taken off with such velocity that it has already significantly altered government and corporate energy expectations. The production costs of shale gas are about one-half to one-third the costs associated with new conventional gas wells in North America. The result is a glut of new supply and plummeting prices.
In his op-ed, Zuckerman points out that many communities “protest the noise and scarring of the landscape during the initial explorations.” He also counters contamination fears about the wastewater from the fracking process, which is so essential to untapping shale gas.
State regulators in Alaska, Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming have stated that there have been no verified or documented cases of groundwater contamination as a result of hydraulic fracking.
His final points are focused on the critical benefits of Americans utilizing more natural gas:
First, greater use of natural gas is a big plus in the struggle to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, since natural gas emits less than either coal or oil. Natural gas is also a substitute for gasoline or diesel in many vehicles (e.g., city buses).
Second, natural gas is already putting downward pressure on oil prices. Falling oil prices will mean substantial savings. Gas can also make us much more resilient to shocks of supply disruptions and even conflicts, eroding the power of major oil producers like the OPEC nations (recall the “oil crisis” of the 1970s) and Russia.
Read Zuckerman’s complete op-ed HERE.