Writing in the latest National Review, Kathleen Hartnett White of the Texas Public Policy Foundation explains how “fracking” — hydraulic fracturing, not the phony curse word from “Battlestar Gallactica” — could make a huge difference in capitalizing on the nation’s existing oil and natural gas supplies.
[I]n many wells, as much as 75 percent of the oil and gas may be left in place. Fracking is one of several new ways to get at the ample resources remaining after natural pressure subsides.
In these ways, human ingenuity, catalyzed my market dynamics, has foiled predictions of irreversible decline in domestic oil and natural-gas resources. Official estimates of the amount of recoverable oil and natural gas have soared. Last year, global natural-gas supplies rose 40 percent. From 2010 to 2011, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) doubled its estimate of recoverable natural gas in the U.S. …
… The EIA also believes that natural gas in the Marcellus formation of New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia contains more BTUs of energy than doe the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.
