The crisis in Ukraine underscores the need for the European Union to consider imports of natural gas from the U.S. and development of domestic resources to diversify supplies, President Barack Obama said. --Ewa Krukowska,
Bloomberg Businessweek, 26 March 2014
European leaders on Wednesday asked Barack Obama to share the US's shale gas bonanza with Europe by facilitating gas exports to help counter the stranglehold Russia has on the continent's energy needs. Obama, while not ruling out the possibility, stressed the need for Europe to diversify its sources of energy in order to make it less vulnerable to Russian blackmail, and said Europe should open up to fracking to develop its own gas supply. --Ian Traynor,
The Guardian, 27 March 2014
The crisis in Ukraine has intensified calls from industry and political leaders—including senior U.S. officials—for Europe to develop its own shale industry. With 470 trillion cubic feet of potentially recoverable shale-gas reserves, Europe has around 80% of the resource available in the U.S., according to U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates. But some of its biggest potential gas producers, including France and Germany, have banned fracking, the technology used to extract gas, for fear of potential water contamination. --Selina Williams, The
Wall Street Journal[Registration Required], 27 March 2014
Major offshore oil discoveries and prospects for shale gas extraction are generating excitement – and resistance. Spain is already the world’s largest olive oil producer but now it’s looking to a very different kind of oil to pull it out of economic decline: petroleum. The discovery of two significant offshore deposits, and prospects for fracking in many areas, have triggered a black-gold rush, with demand for exploration permits up 35% since 2012. Deloitte predicts that Spain could become a gas exporter by 2031 while producing 20% of the oil it consumes. --Stephen Burgen,
The Guardian, 26 March 2015
The utopian dream of an economy powered by renewables is more and more turning into a nightmare. Ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, under whom the “green energy revolution” started, is now calling for a revision of this policy; he warns of more damaging and unachievable targets for renewable energy and for CO2 reduction and advocates a longer life for Germany’s remaining nuclear power stations... During the heyday of climate fears in the last decade, centre-left politicians in Britain and Germany were united in the belief that climate change would be the new mass mobilising topic that would help save their parties. A more likely outcome is that this strategy will neither save the centre-left nor will it help to prevent climate change. --Jürgen Krönig,
Policy Network, 24 March 2014
