Energy update

The genius of capitalism strikes again:

A new technique that tapped previously inaccessible supplies of natural gas in the United States is spreading to the rest of the world, raising hopes of a huge expansion in global reserves of the cleanest fossil fuel.

Italian and Norwegian oil engineers and geologists have arrived in Texas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania to learn how to extract gas from layers of a black rock called shale. Companies are leasing huge tracts of land across Europe for exploration. And oil executives are gathering rocks and scrutinizing Asian and North African geological maps in search of other fields.

The global drilling rush is still in its early stages. But energy analysts are already predicting that shale could reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas. They said they believed that gas reserves in many countries could increase over the next two decades, comparable with the 40 percent increase in the United States in recent years.

“It’s a breakout play that is going to identify gigantic resources around the world,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at Rice University. “That will change the geopolitics of natural gas.”

This proves yet again that capitalism and the free market are the best tools available to harnessing human ingenuity and innovation. This wasn't planned by a government agency or part of a master plan cooked up by some politicians. It's the result of efforts by individuals and companies, motivated by a desire to provide new products and services to consumers and make a profit.

It's developments such as this which are responsible for my deep skepticism towards pronouncements that we are only short years away from running out of conventional energy sources, and must "invest" public funds in alternative forms of energy production. No politician or expert is smarter than the collective wisdom of the market. This truth is borne out time and time again.