Energy independence within reach because of shale

McClatchy:

Ever since President Nixon's 1973 promise to attain energy independence, every successive president has pledged the same goal, even as foreign supplies composed a larger and larger share of the U.S. energy mix.

A measure of independence now is within reach even though, as this booming mountain town in northeastern Pennsylvania shows, the quest involves both opportunities and trade-offs.

It may surprise Americans who have lived through years of dependence on foreign fuels, but the United States could pass its 1970s peak as an oil-and-gas producer in less than a decade. If that happens — and many analysts believe it's possible — the nation would edge past Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world's top energy producer.

That alone wouldn't make us completely energy independent. Mexico and Canada are likely to remain stable providers of oil to supplement growing U.S. production. Other factors will help, too, ranging from advances in battery technologies and alternative fuels such as ethanol to greater fuel economy in automobiles.

However, the biggest potential game changer for U.S. energy production is natural gas, previously supplied largely from the Gulf of Mexico region. Not long ago, terminals were being built at U.S. ports in anticipation of importing natural gas; today, there's talk of exporting it.

Technological advances have allowed drillers to go down almost 7,000 feet, smashing through rock formations and drilling horizontally, freeing trapped oil and gas long considered inaccessible.

"Shale gas, the biggest energy innovation since the start of the new century, has turned what was an imminent shortage in the United States into what may be a hundred-year supply and may do the same elsewhere in the world," Daniel Yergin, the world's most prominent oil historian, wrote in his new book about energy security, "The Quest."

The promise of shale gas is present in many places, but it's nowhere more visible than in northeastern Pennsylvania's Bradford County, in the aptly named Endless Mountains region. Hundreds of communities sit atop the Marcellus Shale formation, which runs along southern New York through western Pennsylvania into eastern Ohio and parts of Maryland and West Virginia.

Geologists believe the formation contains the second-largest natural-gas deposits in the world, behind only Iran's South Pars-North Dome gas field in the Persian Gulf, off the coasts of Iran and Qatar.

If America becomes energy independent, it will be, in large part, thanks to the Marcellus Shale region. Energy consultancy PFC Energy projects the United States will recapture the flag of top energy producer within eight years.

.... 

I think there are other areas of the US that have as much potential if we were only allowed to exploit it.  Offshore oil has great potential, but is being strangled by this administration.  Alaska has many potential areas including ANWR which the environmental wackos are keeping shut in.  There are many areas in the Western US that also have great potential.  We still have a President who is wedded to the anti energy left.  He is trying to drive up the price of energy to make alternative less efficient energy look competitive.