I think the end of the fracking boom will spell trouble for Trump if he is still POTUS when it happens. One of the reasons the US can smirk at countries like Germany is that the US has actually reduced emissions not just talked about it. The main reason appears to be cheap fracked gas replacing coal and backing up subsidised wind and solar. Take away cheap natgas and that all falls apart. Coal could make a comeback and gas dependent electricity prices will skyrocket.

If US natgas reverts to 2006 prices by 2020 Trump will be seen to have made the wrong call. In the following price timeline note that the archaic million-British-Thermal-units is roughly equivalent to the gigajoule unit used by the rest of the world
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/rngwhhdd.htm

One can only hope so Nicholas, otherwise this mad hatter madness could continue/delay the almost inevitable rollout of thorium based nuclear energy. Were I to step outside my door, collect around a cubic metre of soil, from that cubic metre I'd be able to extract, using simple gravity separation, around 8 grams of ready to use as is and unenriched, thorium.

Thorium being the most energy dense material in the world? Given a significantly longer half life than uranium, around three times more abundant as is lead. That 8 grams enough to power my home and car, plus provide all my manufactured material wants for the next 100 years!

All while hydrocarbon scavengers, go out of business, given the recovery costs of those 8 grams, maxes out at around a hundred dollars? And that is just $1.00 a year!

China has clearly seen the writing on the wall and is as I pen these lines, rolling out a million electric cars this year? Some with a 400 kilometre range!? And given their construction cost etc, at $70,000.00 retail, provide real competition for Tesla etc?

70 grand may seem a little out of reach for the average joe, until you factor in fuel costs and maintenance! And hire purchase over five years?

Why some folks ( gridlocked commuters) already pay $250 a week for a couple of refills of (seriously wasted) fuel?

As for the oil addicted and their hordes of profit taking, Permian productivity parasites, there remains the still untapped Edmonton 1.8 trillion barrel reserve!

And where a walk away safe, molten salt thorium reactor remains arguably, the only power source cheap enough to provide enough usable heat to liquify the entire tar sands reserve, so thin and fluid, it can be pumped for years from the lowest point in the reserve for decades to come!

And flood an already seriously over supplied north American energy market!

You have to hand it to market analysts and or drillers. They've really thought this energy supply stuff thoroughly through, haven't they, Nicholas?
Alan B.

Ah Alan B there will be Thorium Pie in the Sky when we die lol.
Give it a rest Alan or just get one built and see how it goes in real life.
I am tipping it will be like "Cheap" renewables, massive subsidies, bigger bills and eventually closed down with the usual suspects with fat bank accounts nowhere to be see.

JBowyer you real funny... making me lol too. Well that was a nice suggestion coming from you.