Shale gas not only promises to relieve the US of a potential energy security headache, but there’s the oft-quoted environmental angle, too: as a source of electricity, natural gas can give off 50 per less CO2 than coal, when burnt in the modern plants. It’s not just for the US, either: suggestions are that Europe and Asia might have huge supplies of shale gas, too (although Yergin notes that development of such resources could be some way off).


But there’s a persistent bunch of doubters about the shale gas story. The explosion in shale gas is new, and the horizontal wells that are being drilled furiously by Chesapeake are widely known to decline in output fairly rapidly after the first 12 months. This has led some respected resource watchers, including Matt Simmons, to voice scepticism that the shale gas is really about to revolutionise supply.