Thought we were running out of fossil fuels? New technology means Britain and the U.S. could tap undreamed reserves of gas and oil

Daily Mail
"Thirty years ago, I was Secretary of State for Energy in Margaret Thatcher’s government, and one way and another I have been a close observer of the energy scene ever since. In all that time, I have never known a technological revolution as momentous as the breakthrough that has now made it economic to extract gas from shale. Geologists have long known that shale — a finely grained rock created from compressed mud, which sits in layers — contains, trapped in it, massive amounts of gas, and in some cases, oil. ..........These are early days, and we do not yet know how much commercially exploitable shale gas there is in the UK. But the signs are encouraging. The first large discovery to be explored, the Bowland shale under the Blackpool area of Lancashire, turns out to be a thicker seam than any in the U.S. The company behind the exploration has announced that Blackpool is sitting on one of the biggest shale gas fields in the world — with a reserve of 200 trillion cubic feet lying under the Lancastrian countryside. To put that figure in perspective, it’s enough gas to keep the UK going for 50 years and create more than 5,000 jobs. There are other known deposits throughout a large part of the UK and this promises to be as important for Britain as the discovery and development of North Sea oil. It could even be bigger than that."