The Limits to the Shale Oil Boom

The cleanest form of petrochemical energy is clearly past its peak and is causing significant damage to ecosystems all over the planet.  That is why risky and incredibly expensive resource extraction, such as Deep Water Horizon, is becoming the new reality of oil production.  The impacts of climate change are now escalating rapidly.  But the bigger problem lies in the extents to which the largest and most profitable businesses in the world in the petrochemical industry are willing to go to continue their profitability against all rationality in terms of the  mass extinction and the impact on health and human security. 

Companies like Exxon are now pushing for tar sands and shale oil production, which are far more devastating to the environment in terms of the dangerous extraction techniques, destruction of aquifers and water supplies, the inducement of earthquakes, and the increasing amount of carbon that continues to be introduced into the atmosphere per unit of energy extracted.    However, the most significant problem is that the economic realities are causing Wall Street and the oil companies to again play a shell game with the actual exploitable reserves to avoid the market perception that there is a short term peak with rapid diminishing returns.  If this reality was known, the money chasing tar sands and Fracking would flow toward clean energy, abandoning petrochemical investments, collapsing not only some of the largest and most destructive companies on the planet, but also the petrochemical political economy.

The article below claims that hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") has only ten years to its peak production not fifty years, because of a far faster decline in well productivity than is being touted by petrochemical companies and the financial industry -- both of which benefit enormously by misinforming the public about the economic realities, as well as the devastating environmental realties.  More research has to be done to clarify these underlying realities, but if true, it would indicate that there should be an immediate effort to scale up alternative forms of energy and to de-escalate the current dependence on fracking-based natural gas, for economic reasons as well as environmental reasons.

Reports: Shale Gas Bubble Looms, Aided by Wall Street

desmogblog.com - by Steve Horn - February 19, 2013

Two long-awaited reports were published today at ShaleBubble.org by the Post Carbon Institute (PCI) and the Energy Policy Forum (EPF). 

Together, the reports conclude that the hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") boom could lead to a "bubble burst" akin to the housing bubble burst of 2008.

While most media attention towards fracking has focused on the threats to drinking water and health in communities throughout North America and the world, there is an even larger threat looming.

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