Shale Gas

What is Shale Gas?

1. Shale gas is natural gas formed from being trapped within shale formations.
2. Shale gas—an “unconventional” source of methane, like coal-bed gas (in coal seams) and tight gas (trapped in rock formations)
3. It is Colourless, odourless, lighter than air.
4. In Europe shale gas isnot used because of green rules and limited property rights. But In America, use of Shale Gas has already started and In future, it will give a spur to the domestic manufacture of anything needing large amounts of energy.

What’re the Advantages of Gas as a source of Energy?

1. Gas power stations are relatively cheap to build, beating nuclear power hands down in terms of capital costs, and in most cases they are also less expensive than renewables.
2. A flexible fuel, capable of heating homes, fuelling industrial boilers and providing feedstock for the petrochemicals industry, where it is turned into plastics, fertiliser and other useful stuff.
3. It is also making small but significant progress as a fuel for lorries and buses.
4. Biggest advances have been in power generation: because it is cheaper to generate electricity from gas, and  the process releases up to 50% less carbon dioxide than does coal.

What’re the problems with Gas as a source of energy?

1. It is difficult and expensive to transport.
2. Because of those hefty transport costs, gas does not behave like a commodity. Only one-third of all gas is traded across borders, compared with two-thirds of oil.
3. Gas has no global price.
4. Gas prices in different parts of the world are set by quite different mechanisms, they vary wildly across the globe.
5. Gas pipelines cost million of dollars a kilometre to build.
6. alternative is to ship the gas in liquid form, as LNG. But projects to liquefy gas also require huge investments
7. GK: Gazprom is Russia’s huge state-run gas producer and supplier of 25% of Europe’s gas.