The most important news in world politics this month isn’t about diplomacy. Bigger than Brexit, more consequential than presidential tweetstorms, the American shale revolution is rapidly reshaping the global balance of power as energy prices plummet. —Walter Russell Mead, The Wall Street Journal, 27 November 2018
Ever since the shale boom began, diplomats and politicians have underestimated its importance. The U.S. has regained the position it lost in 1973 as the world’s largest oil producer, which it will likely hold through at least the 2040s. The consequences for energy markets and world politics will be far-reaching. Roughnecks in the American Southwest are doing more than most foreign ministries to change the world. —Walter Russell Mead, The Wall Street Journal, 27 November 2018
The key driver of change in the global market is not climate change or the political chaos affecting oil producers in the Middle East and elsewhere, or the fall in the cost of renewables. All those things matter, of course, but their impact is minimal compared with the shift in the geography of supply and demand that has transformed the market in the last decade and will continue to do so. To understand what has been happening it is instructive to compare the new IEA report with that published 10 years ago. Hydrocarbons — oil, gas and coal — accounted for 81 per cent of total global energy supply in 2008. The figure today is still 81 per cent and will decline only marginally over the next 20 years to 74 per cent in 2040. —Nick Butler, Financial Times, 26 November 2018
IGas, the UK’s largest onshore oil and gas producer, has started drilling the country’s third shale gas well in the north of England, as it seeks to follow Cuadrilla into fracking in the UK. —Financial Times, 27 November 2018
A draft communique from the leaders of the G20 shows that resolve to stand up for the Paris climate agreement against critical voices, such as the US, may be weakening. Unlike recent G20 statements, it declines to give full-throated support to the Paris Agreement, simply “acknowledging the different circumstances, including those of countries determined to implement the Paris Agreement”. In a nod to those countries defending their coal industries, the text prepared by the Argentinian presidency says there are “varied” energy choices and “different possible national pathways”. —Climate Home News, 26 November 2018
If all those Anti-Fracking idiots ever removed all petroleum based products from their homes they would be living in a cold dark empty home grouping about at night and freezing their toes off