Abstract
Clerk Maxwell Lecture Hydrocarbons and Depletion: Shale gas technology to the rescue? Hydrocarbons are exhaustible resources. As a result there is always concern over their "running out" leading to increased scarcity and consequently higher prices. This concern ebbs and flows. More recently, the application of shale gas technology -- horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing - has seen dramatic changes to gas and oil supplies in the United States. This "shale gas revolution" is already having impacts on international gas markets and the impact on oil is giving rise to the serious possibility of dramatic reductions in United States' oil imports in the near future. Given the large shale gas resources that are claimed globally, can this technology become a game changer to push concerns about oil and gas scarcity out of public scrutiny for some time to come? The lecture speaker: Professor Paul Stevens, Senior Research Fellow (Energy), Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs), London will give a well-rounded talk on this very topic.
