Shale Gas Bubble About to Burst?

[suspectnumber961]

Shale Gas Bubble About to Burst: Art Berman, Bill Powers | MyFDL


In a recent interview, Powers said the “bubble” will end up looking a lot like the housing bubble that burst in 2008-2009, and that U.S. shale gas will last no longer than ten years. He told The Energy Report:

My thesis is that the importance of shale gas has been grossly overstated; the U.S. has nowhere close to a 100-year supply. This myth has been perpetuated by self-interested industry, media and politicians…In the book, I take a very hard look at the facts. And I conclude that the U.S. has between a five- to seven-year supply of shale gas, and not 100 years.

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Berman is a petroleum geologist, Associate Editor of the American Association of Petroleum Geolgists Bulletin and Director of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil. He maintains the blog Petroleum Truth Report.

“In the Eagleford shale, which is supposed to be the mother of all shale oil plays, the annual decline rate is higher than 42%,” he stated. “They’re going to have to drill hundreds, almost 1000 wells in the Eagleford shale, every year, to keep production flat. Just for one play, we’re talking about $10 or $12 billion a year just to replace supply.”

Berman believes there’s a possibility that this could lead to an economic crisis akin to which happened during the Big Bank bailouts of 2008.

“I add all these things up and it starts to approach the amount of money needed to bail out the banking industry. Where is that money going to come from?,” he asked the interviewee.

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[niky]

He's not the only one talking like that. A lot of the plays are showing rapid decline in productivity after the first year on a per-well basis. The Shale-oil supply doesn't seem to be all that stable in the long run.

[slowmover]

Just need it to go another year or two (I work there).

Better discussions on The Oil Drum

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[suspectnumber961]

But I'd have to guess they will get the export thing going with CNG so that when the wells run dry the US will be tied in with world gas prices...??? Too much profit there not to? Gonna hurt.

[NeilBlanchard]

We are running out of water to drink or to farm with in some areas. I think that fracking will run up against one limit or another sooner than many people think. There is certainly a fracking financing bubble - there are too many people ready to throw money at anybody who wants to poke holes in the ground, with little regard for the actual consequences, like poisoned wells or earthquakes or methane releases.

[suspectnumber961]

Reminds me of food and ag...farming and the whole GMO issue....where there is money to be made...the environment and people's health take the backseat.

The current debt issues mean the environment and people's health will take the backseat.

First in...first out...profits...and disaster capitalism.

Hightower says the top 1% own 92% of all stocks...so who is it that is really making policy? GUESS.

[ksa8907]

Originally Posted by suspectnumber961

Reminds me of food and ag...farming and the whole GMO issue....where there is money to be made...the environment and people's health take the backseat.

The current debt issues mean the environment and people's health will take the backseat.

First in...first out...profits...and disaster capitalism.

Hightower says the top 1% own 92% of all stocks...so who is it that is really making policy? GUESS.

Ill bite. Sure, non-gmo would be great, but half the world would die of starvation from lower yield. Offer your own solution, I want to hear this.

[NeilBlanchard]

That is the Monsanto sales pitch - hook, line, and sinker. Accelerated agriculture using synthetic fertilizer and factory methods and deep wells - is not only unsustainable, it kills the soil, pollutes the water, and causes about 25% of the greenhouse gasses.

We have to take a cue from nature: there can be NO WASTE. Everything must be sustainable; basically forever. If there is any waste, we're doing it wrong. We need to take a long hard look at what Wes Jackson proposed in his 50 year agricultural plan to move to 80% perennials. Nature builds up the soil and produces more over time.

Right now, we are eating oil and gas, soil is washing into the ocean way faster than it can be be formed by the worms and bugs, and the aquifers are nearly gone. We are running out of phosphorus, fer cryin' out loud.

Which should we use our precious water for: drinking and cooking, flushing our toilets, growing our food, fracking for gas and oil, or raising factory meat?

[suspectnumber961]

Food and Agriculture | Union of Concerned Scientists

Our agricultural system has lost its way.

Millions of acres of corn, soybeans, and other commodity crops, grown with the help of heavy government subsidies, dominate our rural landscapes.

To grow these crops, industrial farms use massive amounts of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, which deplete our soil and pollute our air and water.

Much of this harvest will end up as biofuels and other industrial products—and most of the rest will be used in CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) or in heavily processed junk foods, which seem cheap only because their hidden costs don't show up at the cash register.

Industrial agriculture is unhealthy—for our environment, our climate, our bodies, and our rural economies.


A Better Way: Sustainable Agriculture

There's a better way to grow our food. Working with nature instead of against it, sustainable agriculture uses 21st-century techniques and technologies to implement time-tested ideas such as crop rotation, integrated plant/animal systems, and organic soil amendments.

Sustainable agriculture is less damaging to the environment than industrial agriculture, and produces a richer, more diverse mix of foods. It's productive enough to feed the world, and efficient enough to succeed in the marketplace—but current U.S. agricultural policy stacks the deck in favor of industrial food production.

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Now...just try and guess who it is that that controls ag policies...big ag = big money. They want big profits...they want to control land and family farmers get pushed off the land. You get junky processed food. They win...you lose. Obesity rates rise...fat people ARE stupider. Diabetes and alzheimer rates are increasing. Dumb people can be told how to vote. Drug companies can sell their drugs to the dumb people.

Everybody's happy except those who aren't making profits and aren't dumb?

Simplistic...but true?

[niky]

Again, red herring. Industrial agriculture is wasteful, yes... But that has nothing to do with crops being GMO or not, but the specific method of agriculture. Non-rotation, heavy reliance on fertilizer, increased soil degradation. All problems with standard crops, not just designer crops.

This is like saying that since antibiotic X is a very expensive, ineffecrive drug, that all antibiotics are bad.

This is already being discussed elsewhere, isn't it? One hopes that a thread discussing the unsustainability of alternative fossil fuels remains about the unsustainability of alternative fossil fuels.