The natural gas cartel, a dream of Russia’s just a few years ago, is dead. It died when a natural gas revolution broke out and Gazprom lost. Energy importing nations around the world are evaluating their own geology, currently, to see if they have shale reserves that can be tapped. Nations like Argentina, Germany, Poland, France, and Sweden are looking into their national shale reserves.
The shale gas revolution is changing the world we live in, and the power structures of the past. It is also quickly changing the politics of future energy relationships. Nations that had to be nice to an exporter, due to energy supplies, will be freed of their need for discretion.
Shale gas is quite simply changing the whole energy paradigm in real time. The unlocking of source rock, has altered the future history of mankind. The world has discovered and unlocked its newest true world changing source of stored energy.
- In the 1700’s, the world used wood for its energy source. The great mansions were heated with wood.
- In the 1800’s, coal provided the go-to source of transportable fuel. It allowed railroads to rapidly move people at a pace faster than a horse. Coal powered the Industrial Revolution.
- In the 1900’s, crude oil became the primary fuel. It was refined into fuel for aircraft, for ships at sea and into gasoline and diesel. Crude oil provided the necessary cheap energy to fuel the rapid expansion of civilization to the rest of the world.
- The 2000’s arrived with the onset of peak light sweet crude oil. The US had peaked in overall oil production decades before, and as the new century started its reserves in both oil and conventional natural gas where shrinking.