Is Shale Gas the Climate Bills New Bargaining Chip? By Peter Behr and Christa Marshall, ClimateWire, August 5, 2009. "Natural gas from shale formations is the new magic phrase in the oil and gas industry, as new technologies have led to stunning increases in potential resources and anticipated profits. Now some want to see if it carries any political magic... In recent years, the oil industry developed technologies to drill horizontally into gas-bearing shale seams and fracture the rock with high-pressure water injections, called hydrofracturing. These techniques make it possible to recover shale gas reserves that were separated in many tiny pockets that could not be tapped economically before, said John Curtis, a Colorado School of Mines professor. According to a 2008 report from the Potential Gas Committee, estimates of gas resources surged from more than 1,300 trillion cubic feet (tcf) in 2006 to more than 1,800 tcf last year. Much of that jump came from shale gas, which made up 616 tcf of the 2008 total.
"The geographic locations of these new shale gas resources overlap with the home states of many Senate lawmakers, like Sens. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who could make or break the outcome of global warming legislation... 'If you took a map of swing-state senators and look at where these new gas finds are, they match,' said Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.)... He said he and his colleague Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) are working with other senators on provisions to promote natural gas in global warming legislation... Two of the biggest shale gas plays are the Haynesville Shale in Louisiana and Texas and the Marcellus Shale, extending from New York's Southern Tier through western Pennsylvania and into Ohio and West Virginia... In addition to being a potential coal replacement, gas generation is the obvious backup for the fivefold to tenfold increase in wind and solar generation that may be mandated in a climate bill. Gas-fired power plants can ramp up quickly when clouds block the sun or the wind stops blowing."
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