In contrast, shale resources are oil and gas trapped in rocks deep in the ground. Global estimates of shale oil and gas vary significantly, making it difficult to put a handle on any reasonable figure. In May 2012, for example, the Government Accountability Office reported to Congress that the Green River formation in parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming hold three trillion barrels of shale oil, half of which is technically recoverable. Shale formations in other regions of the United States hold at least one trillion barrels of shale oil.28 If the above estimates are correct, the technically recoverable shale oil in the Green River formation alone is almost equal to the current world proven conventional oil reserves. Estimates of U.S. shale gas reserves are in the range of 870 tcf (trillion cubic feet) with the mean recoverable gas standing at 650 tcf.29 The growing importance of shale resources is such that in 2012 shale oil accounted for 29 percent of U.S. oil production, while shale gas accounted for 40 percent of total natural gas production.30 It is small wonder that, from 2007 to 2011, shale oil and gas production in the United States increased fivefold and fourfold, respectively.31
Shale formations with huge reserves outside the United States also reportedly abound. In its lengthy report of June 2013, the U.S. Energy Information Administration identified ninety-five basins with 137 shale formations in forty-one countries. According to the findings, these shale formations contain 7,239 tcf of technically recoverable natural shale gas, amounting to 47 percent of global gas reserves; and 345 billion barrels of technically recoverable shale oil, adding 11 percent to global oil reserves. Extraction of shale oil and gas requires horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, followed by injections of massive amounts of water, sands, and chemicals into the wells under extremely high pressure. The prospects of having access to massive shale resources are so high that an unprecedented scale of investment is being funneled into the new frontier of black-carbon exploration and production. The estimated investment in oil and gas in the United States alone in 2012 was $302 billion, 4 percent higher than the previous year, of which $275.8 billion was for upstream oil and gas projects. As a result, drilling of new oil and gas wells has been booming in the United States in recent years with tragic ramifications for the ecology and hydrology of the country. The number of new wells drilled over the three-year period from 2010 to 2012 in the continental United States was 120,812.32
Other countries have also announced having huge recoverable shale resources waiting to be exploited. In addition to its proven conventional natural gas of 279 trillion cubic feet, Saudi Arabia claims that it has 649 tcf of shale gas; Algeria has over 700 tcf of shale gas; India boasts having 496 tcf of shale gas; Morocco has 266 tcf of shale gas; Indonesia boasts of having more than 1,000 tcf; and China holds 1,115 tcf of technically recoverable shale gas to go along with 32 billion of shale oil.33 All told, the MIT Energy Initiative (2011) and the U.S. EIA (2013) speculate that the world has 20,040 tcf of recoverable shale gas, which is 150 times the current annual world natural gas consumption, and 3.12 trillion shale and non-shale oil reserves.34
Another country with huge shale oil and gas potential is Australia. In early January 2013, it was announced that 233 billion barrels of shale resources were discovered in the country, worth U.S.$19 trillion if all of it is exploited.35 Chevron has reportedly found nineteen natural gas fields in Australia and is building two giant natural gas liquefaction plants with a price tag of 86 billion Australian dollars. For its part, Shell was injecting 12 billion Australian dollars into a four-soccer-fields-long offshore natural gas project in northwest Australia. All in all, 260 billion Australian dollars were injected into the country’s energy sector in 2012, with seven new liquid natural gas projects accounting for 164 billion Australian dollars of the total. Completion of these seven projects will raise Australia’s liquid natural gas production from 24 million metric tons to 80 million metric tons a year.36 Australia has twelve additional liquid natural gas and coal-to-liquids projects that might add another 64 million metric tons.37 It is thus no surprise that overall global capital expenditures on oil and gas exploration and production roared from U.S.$916 billion in 2011 to $1.08 trillion in 2012.38
Oil oligopolies are not limited to oil and gas production and distribution. Coal is still integral to the global energy mix as it is responsible for 50 percent of global electricity generation. In fact, in 2011 world coal consumption increased by 4.3 percent (300 million tons), accounting for half of global primary energy demand increase, and is projected to continue increasing by 2.6 percent per annum through 2017, with the increase in annual coal consumption reaching 1.2 billion tons in 2017, which is equal to the annual coal consumption in the United States and Russia combined. Never mind the much-touted commitment to green energy; even in Europe coal-fired electricity production is projected to be 4 percent higher in 2017 than in 2011.39 The growing coal consumption in Asia is even more worrisome. China now consumes half of global coal, followed by India. These two Asian giants together are today responsible for two-thirds of global coal demand and for one-third of global coal imports. By 2017, China’s coal consumption will increase by 77 percent and India’s by 22 percent. China will continue to get most of its primary energy from coal; India is projected to surpass the United States as the second-largest coal consumer.40
As things stand now, 483 power companies are poised to build 1,200 coal-fired plants in forty-nine countries by 2017. When completed, these power plants will have over 1.4 million mw (megawatts) installed capacity, which is more than four times the total installed capacity in the United States.41 This statistic suggests that coal is likely to remain king in the global energy mix, never mind the grandstanding “green” reiterations about reducing global greenhouse gas emissions (ghg) by 50 percent by 2050. Indeed, the IEA projects that demand for coal will rise by 21 percent by 2035.42 To take advantage of this prospect, coal-rich countries are gearing up to boost production and export of their coal. For example, Australia is planning to triple its coal production to 900 million tons a year, just as coal-rich South Africa and Mozambique are preparing to do the same.43 Accounting for 50 percent of global energy consumption, coal is responsible for 40 percent of global ghg emissions.44 The peril with coal is not only that it is the dirtiest fossil fuel, but also that the market propaganda about “clean” coal technology perpetuates the myth that it can be “green” and “clean.” In part, this involves conversion of coal to motor fuel. This requires heating the coal to 1,000 degress Fahrenheit to produce gas before converting it to liquid fuel. This conversion process makes coal-to-liquids even dirtier than conventional gasoline and diesel. In the United States, it takes 120 million tons of coal to generate just one million barrels of coal-to-liquids.45
Shale oil presents another ecological disaster in the making. The negative impacts of horizontal drilling and fracking of shale formations on hydrology and ecology are likely to be astronomical. Horizontal drilling and fracking operations generate noise, air, and soil pollution, water depletion, water contamination, and deforestation of delicate ecosystems. Even the Government Accountability Office acknowledges that shale oil and shale gas exploitation are bound to pose environmental, social, and public health risks.46 These risks include engine exhaust from truck traffic, emissions from diesel-power pumps, gas flares, and release of pollutants from faulty equipment polluting the air; contamination of surface water and groundwater due to erosion of soil, ground disturbances, frequent spills, and releases of chemicals; underground migration of gases and chemicals, release of toxic chemicals from storage tanks, pipes and hoses; and overflow of toxic chemicals from impoundments associated with heavy rain. Finally, the use of drilling techniques in which water, sands, and chemical additives are injected under high pressure into shale oil and shale gas formations that release toxic chemicals and fluids are bound to pose risks to land resources and wildlife habitat.
Black-carbon oligopolies, however, paint a rosy picture of shale resources that they suppose can be exploited without causing environmental, hydrological, social, and health damages. To convince the public that fracking does no harm, they use the imprimatur of universities and research