Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
The shale gas industry is still in its adolescence. And as adolescents are wont to do,
it presents us with a dilemma: while the energy supplies in shale are too important
to overlook, the potential health and environmental impacts of extracting them are
too great to disregard. How we choose to respond to these contradictory priorities
will have huge and long-lasting consequences.
The challenge is to learn how to produce the same amount of energy in a clean-
er, safer way. As discussed, one of the main rationales in support of hydrofracking
is that shale gas acts as a “bridge fuel” to ease the transition from dirty hydrocar-
bons to cleaner power supplies. The next energy revolution is likely to be based on
clean, sustainable energy that will gradually supplant the Oil Age.
“Renewables”—energy from continually available supplies, such as sun, wind,
moving water, and geothermal heat—are, in a sense, the earth's most basic energy
source.
A 2011 estimate by the IEA claimed that most of the world's electricity could be
a fuel mix akin to America's have made tremendous strides to replace fossil fuels
with cleaner energy over the last two decades.
While the United Sates generated 12.3 percent of its power with renewables in
2011, 13 other nations got at least 30 percent of their power from renewables, ac-
percent of its electricity from hydroelectric and geothermal supplies; Norway got
97 percent of its power from hydro plants; Canada got 63.4 percent of its electricity
