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  • Experts on energy, including oil and gas,

  • say that solar and wind are the energy of the future.

  • But while consumers wait for

  • the future expansion of alternative energy,

  • the fossil fuel industry is pushing for natural gas

  • to be a bridge to that future.

  • In the US, drillers are busily tapping gas

  • as well as oil, from underground rocks known as shale

  • in a process called hydraulic fracturing,

  • more commonly known as fracking.

  • But not everyone is convinced the transitional fossil fuel

  • is all it's cracked up to be.

  • Despite its benefits, fracking remains unpopular

  • in many parts of the world,

  • especially among climate activists

  • and locals most affected by the process

  • and with plummeting oil prices triggered by the coronavirus

  • and Saudi Arabia's stand-off with Russia,

  • the financial viability of shale is in jeopardy.

  • Fracking is a fairly new process of natural gas extraction.

  • First commercially introduced in 1949,

  • it involves forcing water mixed with sand and chemicals

  • into a well to create fissures in shale rock,

  • so oil and gas trapped inside can escape.

  • Advances in the 1980s

  • in a technique called horizontal drilling

  • opened up access to thin layers of shale

  • even deeper underground.

  • Over the past decade, US oil and gas output

  • has surged 57%, mostly due to shale-rich areas,

  • such as the Permian Basin,

  • which stretches from Texas to New Mexico.

  • America's recent energy dominance

  • was meant to undercut Opex ability to manipulate the market,

  • but in March of 2020, Russia triggered an oil war

  • with Saudi Arabia, cratering global prices.

  • The shale industry, which has higher production costs

  • in places like Saudi Arabia and Russia

  • and relies heavily on debt finance, was hit the hardest.

  • Major shale operations,

  • like Whiting Petroleum Corp and Diamondback,

  • all but promised major job cuts and production halts

  • after shares dropped 40 to 45% respectively.

  • Adding to the recent woes,

  • fracking remains highly controversial.

  • It has become a huge target for climate activists

  • who point to its damaging effects on the environment.

  • A handful of European countries

  • have effectively banned the practice

  • due to its environmental impacts.

  • Opponents cite an enormous amount

  • of water needed in fracking.

  • Depending on the shale deposits, it can take anywhere

  • between 1.5 and 16 millions gallons to frack a well.

  • Large though those numbers seem,

  • a study by Duke University calculated that

  • the water used in fracking makes up less than 1%

  • of total industrial water use nationwide.

  • There's also evidence that fracking, and more commonly,

  • the pumping of resulting waste water into wells,

  • triggers earthquakes.

  • They've mostly been small,

  • but one in 2016 in the oil rich state of Oklahoma

  • shook homes and buildings across the state

  • for almost an minute

  • and measured 5.8 on the Richter Scale.

  • Having an earthquake right now,

  • our light's shaking quite a bit here

  • and it's now calming down

  • as another earthquake has just hit.

  • Tremors in China's shale hub

  • in Sichuan Province killed two people

  • and damaged 11000 homes in February of 2019.

  • There's no easy answer on fracking.

  • No one can deny that shale

  • has benefited the US economically,

  • but now there are very real concerns about

  • whether the fracking revolution is coming to a close.

  • Defenders who continue to point to big-picture benefits,

  • like job creation and energy independence,

  • are now staring down the barrel of job cuts,

  • scale backs and bankruptcies.

  • Fracking opponents point to

  • the climate warming methane in natural gas that

  • sometimes escapes into the atmosphere before it gets burned,

  • and reject industry claims that shale

  • is a bridge fuel to a renewable future.

  • Now faced with an increasingly hostile economic environment,

  • in addition to longstanding opposition

  • from environmental groups,

  • the US shale industry faces a very uncertain future.

Experts on energy, including oil and gas,

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石油のシェール革命はアメリカをどこへ運ぶのか? (Where Will Oil's Shale Revolution Carry America?)

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    林宜悉 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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