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Saturday 14 January 2012

Chinese burn


Industrial fuels and power has a piece on the future of Chinese shale gas : -

Games are-a-changing almost constantly nowadays, and estimates from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) that the Peoples Republic of China has some 1275tnft3 of technically-recoverable shale gas, enough to last around 300 years, can certainly be regarded as a significant one.

That's 1275 trillion cubic feet, an authoritative estimate derived from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). I've already posted about major Chinese investment in US shale gas and this is presumably the background to that investment.

Currently China is a major importer of natural gas, so exploiting its own vast shale gas reserves has obvious attractions for them. How does all this affect Chinese commitments to international CO2 reduction targets? Will they shift to wind power and leave the gas in the ground? Certainly the Chinese have made a considerable investment in wind-power, but the decision has already been made :-

Therefore, it would appear that the shift to shale gas in China is already well underway and while the geology for shale gas drilling has been reported as being more difficult in China than in the US, it is unlikely, given the way in which the Chinese nation goes about achieving a goal, that geology will get in the way for long.

China probably intends to become energy independent. Quite why the UK government thinks wind power should be assessed on anything but a basis of pragmatic national interest is a mystery. 

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