Fundamental problems with this article:

1. Shale gas MIGHT be exploitable at a price that is on average comparable or cheaper than current LNG or oil extraction and refinement. Or maybe it is just wishful thinking.

2. The quantities of shale gas MIGHT be so huge as to make a significant difference to our fossil fuelled energy future, for a while… perhaps a couple of decades?, but certainly not for a particularly long time. Or shale gas might be essentially insigificant at a global scale?

3. The continued exploitation of cheap fossil fuel energy fuels the ever-rapidly-expanding demand for energy, and undermines sustainability!

This last point is the one that people like Matt Ridley just don’t even think of, apparently. It just doesn’t even rate a mention and yet it is so vitally important. We see this all the time in articles on OLO!

We have surely got to be putting all our efforts into stabilising the demand and finding energy sources that can meet this demand in an ongoing manner, and NOT into forever battling to provide unsustainable energy sources to an unfettered ever-increasing demand base!

Technological advances that are going to prolong the fossil fuel era really are ANTITECHNOLOGICAL!!

This sort of technology will just lead to a considerably larger population and higher average per-capita consumption rate, that will be a whole lot harder to deal with when all fossil fuel sources finally do become too expensive to be economical.

This sort of technology will reduce the imperative to develop renewable energy technologies and achieve sustainable societies where the supply capability is well able to meet the demand in an ongoing manner, with a big safety margin.

It is the WRONG way to go, Mr Ridley!

Great news Mark, thanks.

Most of us don't believe the world will just suddenly stop using fossil fuels or some sort of substitute, like bio-fuels anyway.

The flip side of this is that there are some people who want the world to run out of fuels, who want there not to be substitute fuels, that we don't use bio-fuels.

They want a return to what they think is a simpler and kinder lifestyle.

Fortunately they are in such a minority it doesn't matter.

the rest of us will cheer and continue to enjoy and plan for the future of ever better lifestyles and of course, quality of life.

Many are not swayed by the doom talk of ever increasing populations and reducing of resources. As you show, we are a very long way from such problems and in reality people are not driven on a daily basis while trying to pay mortgages and feed their families to think about the possibility of shortages,or even care abut it.

The waste in Australia by our politicians and self obsessed lobby organizations is incredible, fortunately we are wealthy enough to afford the support to various pet obsessions of our leaders.

At the rate of such waste, why would anyone think there is a problem, why mere billions spent on school halls is promoted as a good thing. Recent times, even a GFC has shown we resort to waste immediately there is a crises, retail therapy is another name for it.

So if a fuel crises ever did manifest, we know very well our fine governments would immediately throw obscene amounts of money at it to solve it, at the moment of crises, not before .. so there is never a need to worry now about what we can afford to waste in the future.

Anyone who thinks we will ever get our act together to address anything that might be electorally unpopular, before it is an emergency, is dreaming. (which is why the reluctance to a carbon tax, we are not affected now, so why bother?)

"Shale gas was thought to be as inaccessible as clathrates, and when it began to be exploited in the 1990s it looked as if it would still come in at the top of the price range. Now technological improvements have brought the price down so far that it undercuts conventional gas."

You should support this statement with some evidence. From what I have read shale gas requires a great deal more drilling than conventional natural gas since the wells deplete rapidly. This means that the net energy payoff is reduced and also inhibits upscaling to provide substitute for other declining fossil fuels. Then there is the problem of getting the gas to where the user is. The current low price for shale gas may have more to do with the appearance of abundance (from company spin believed by markets) rather than reality. It will be interesting to see how much longer the shale gas companies can continue with the low prices if they are actually subsidising production from debt. See the following article for something more than Matt Ridley's insubstantial and unsupported discussion of the topic:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7075

Very well put Ludwig. One might also consider for more than a brief moment, what effect all the increased exajoules of energy being added to the biosphere are contributing to global warming. It surely must have some significance in the mid to long term.

David

At last a dose or reality and common sense.

Unless the Chicken Littles manage to strangle it, a free market and innovation always comes up with answers.

Spot on, Mark. Over the run of decades commodity prices always trend down and energy prices will do so in face of 'peak oil' or whatever. Likewise the prices of food.