LOL, these comments are from two years ago. Meanwhile, shale production has grown and major integrated oil companies that don't have a bread-and-butter vested interest in it have also gotten in on the game.
Again, in order for your negative EROEI assertion to be true, the US economy needs to be expending about 3% of its energy on shale. We're simply not doing that. This "gigantic conspiracy" has gotten well beyond dot-com levels to the point where it's producing net cash flows (hard to fake without the help of several well-respected accounting firms) on financial statements and providing 15% of the country's natural gas.
Ooops, there goes another Ford Taurus. I think I see a very fast-running midget carrying it. That must be how it's moving. Does anyone know if he's associated with those flat earth guardians trying to keep people from reaching the secret ice wall in Antarctica?
There are four forces driving this shale gas euphoria: (1) the desperate need for oil substitutes; (2) the endless supply of hot money yearning to find a home somewhere; (3) the ignorance of investors; and (4) the greed of shale gas companies. As long as the shale gas producers are not committing securities fraud, there's nothing to prevent them from painting an overly-optimistic picture for current and future investors.
Seriously? Natural gas stands at $4-5/mcf, or $25-30/boe, down from $10 a few years ago. These days I am ignoring natural gas reserves and boe numbers on my oil company reserve statements and trying to find the liquids reserve numbers.
Even the natural gas market thinks you're crazy to believe we've got less natural gas production than we did a few years ago. Look, I would be thrilled if shale gas was all a conspiracy and natural gas went back up to $12/mcf- I'd get a huge dividend hike from my oil stocks that still produce about 90% of their natural gas from traditional sources, but it's probably not. The real question is how environmentally safe it is and whether the EPA steps in and puts the kibosh on fracking, which is a real possibility in the next ten years.