In the same study, it is reported that you only need a natural gas price of only $1.60 to make it attractive because natural gas comes with liquids like butane that can be sold for a high price today.
These low prices stimulate demand and there is a lot of demand coming.
Recently GE said it would make a big bet on natural gas as fuel for power generation. GE will invest heavily in natural gas turbines and related equipment. The head of GE’s energy division said that due to significant changes in the shale gas industry, the opportunity for natural gas to generate power makes it extremely competitive against other forms of power.
Simply put, shale gas is natural gas that lay trapped in rocks and was, for a long time, inaccessible.
It is hard to overstate just how revolutionary the whole thing is. Anne-Sophie Corbeau of the International Energy Agency summed it up well. “A few years ago, the United States was ready to import gas,” she said. “In 2009, it had become the world’s biggest gas producer. This is a phenomenal and unbelievable.”
It is, almost unbelievable. America has a huge amount of this energy resource. More and more, we will turn to shale gas for energy. It is already eating into coal’s market share and more recently, it is taking a bit out of alternative energy.
For example, the construction of new wind farms in the U.S. will decline next year because of competition from cheap natural gas. So says the CEO of the largest developer of wind projects in the U.S.: “Shale gas makes the production of electricity from other sources not attractive enough.”
As previously indicated, the effects of shale gas have been revolutionary. A renowned physicist and author, Freeman Dyson, writes that “the most important improvements of the human condition caused by new technologies are often unexpected before they happen and quickly forgotten afterward.”
He relates the story of his grandmother, born around 1850 in Yorkshire, England. To her, the most important technology to impact working-class homes when she was growing up was the introduction of wax candles, which replaced tallow candles.
“With wax candles, you could read comfortably at night. With tallow candles, you could not,” Dyson writes. “According to my grandmother, wax candles did more than government schools to produce a literate working class.
“Shale gas is like wax candles.” In short, it is revolutionary.
Of course, shale gas has accumulated some enemies. Matt Ridley, the respected science writer, put out a report that states, “Shale gas faces a formidable host of enemies in the coal, nuclear, renewable, and environmental industries – all keen to strangle it at birth.”
Many say that extracting shale gas pollutes drinking water and damages to the economy. According to Ridley, “All technologies have environmental risks. Press coverage that talks about ‘toxic’, ‘carcinogenic’, and ‘radioactive chemicals’ is meaningless. Vitamin A is toxic. A single cup of coffee contains more known carcinogens than the average American ingests from pesticide residues in a whole year. Bananas are radioactive. The question that needs to be posed is always – how toxic, how carcinogenic, how radioactive?
In the well-considered opinion of Ridley, endorsed by Dyson, the answer is that shale gas poses no new or special risks. Contamination from agricultural run-off or oil spills from the transportation industry is more frequent.
Of course, those debates often boil down to politics, not economics. If it were otherwise, the U.S. would not be turning so much of its corn supply into ethanol. But that is another matter.
Still, natural gas enjoys heavy political support of its own as President Obama has endorsed incentives for natural gas-powered vehicles. As Ridley points out, “gas powered vehicles produce almost not particulates, 60% less volatile organics, 50% less nitrogen oxides, and 90% less carbon monoxide, which means less smog, ozone, and brown haze.
Natural gas is the place to be. Power companies are replacing coal-fired plants with gas-burning ones. Big Oil is buying up natural gas acreage. These all will be good investments for now and in the years ahead.
I trust this post has provided some background and evidence that a revolution is underway in the shale gas industry and this means big profits. These activities will provide alternative wealth creating opportunities and our economy will become significantly stronger.
I favor a quote from Steve Forbes. Forbes says that pursuing additional financial education and the resulting increase in our financial literacy (including the investment potential in the shale gas industry) will open our eyes to alternative wealth creating strategies and this will be the key to resolving our global financial crisis.
To gain the necessary financial education, it is best to obtain association with, access to, and membership in a wealth creation community. As a result, you will learn and have the knowledge to use alternative wealth creating strategies such as Bank on Yourself, debt reduction, and asset protection. You will be exposed to wealth acceleration investments in areas (discussed in this and previous blog posts) such as the shale gas revolution, surfing the mobile wave, the space gun technology boom, the wireless data boom, the smart power grid, nanotech being applied to biotech, biotech and nanotech converging with the semiconductor industry, electric cars, new access to space, 3D virtual technology, atomically precise manufacturing, nuclear power generation, commercial space ventures, Carrier Ethernet technologies, nanotech lithography, robotics, nano-based next-generation battery technology, precious metals, water rights, oil, natural gas, potash mines, food commodities, and gold mines. You will have the knowledge to consider investments in assets that are inherently useful like oil rigs, hydropower, or methanol plants; things that are hard to build, difficult to replace, and costly to substitute; definitely not financial stocks, definitely not retail stocks, definitely not commercial property.
Another benefit of membership in a wealth creation community is exposure to entrepreneurial leadership and business opportunities. Many of these leaders suggest that if you don’t focus on being a digital entrepreneur, being self-employed, or being a small business owner, it will be a very tough road in the months and years ahead; actually it will be an uphill battle. As a result, the innovative wealth creation communities provide education and training on B2B, and B2C, eCommerce enabling a new breed of professionals that are creating six figure second incomes.
It is wise to monitor breakthrough technology as there are truly exciting developments underway in the shale gas industry and related business activities. I will continue to monitor developments and provide updates in future articles and at my blog.
Finally, I want to thank Chris Mayer, editor of Capital & Crisis, published by Agora Financial, as he was the source of some of the materials about the technology advancements mentioned in this post.
In closing, be sure to Read More of my Posts at aspenIbiz BlackBox, my Internet Marketing blog; Obtain Some Tips About Being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, my Affiliate website; Learn How to be Savvy with Your Money Like the Insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog, and How to Live Longer at aspenIbiz My Life’s Advantage Today site.
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