Sunday, October 11, 2009

Not to put too fine a point on it..

Re: my last point about there being enough natural gas to help mitigate the most serious impacts from oil peaking. There are issues with this (see bottom), but I'm confident we won't be suffering a "die off", to quote one of the more extreme peak oil sites.

BP sees possibility of 100 more years of natural gas.

Reserve estimates are rising sharply as technology unlocks unconventional resources,” Hayward said in a Buenos Aires speech posted on the London-based company's Web site. “Estimates vary, but the U.S. may now be sitting on between 50 and 100 years worth of recoverable natural gas.”

New Way to Tap Gas May Expand Global Supplies.

Because so little drilling has been done in shale fields outside of the United States and Canada, gas analysts have made a wide array of estimates for how much shale gas could be tapped globally. Even the most conservative estimates are enormous, projecting at least a 20 percent increase in the world’s known reserves of natural gas.

ANALYSIS-Natgas giants still reeling from U.S. shale shock.

And big gas exporters noted that shale gas comes with its own problems, including massive water use and other environmental complaints, as well as the need for constant investment that could limit its impact.

"There's a lot of myths about shale production," said Gazprom Deputy Chief Executive Alexander Medvedev.

"We should not forget what the shale gas production profile looks like. If you stop drilling, production will fall by up to 80 percent in the next year."