Source: Chesapeake Energy
Behold, Foreign Policy has announced “a new golden age of oil and gas.” Here’s the good news: unlike previous booms this one stands to benefit a wide swath of humanity, including places as far flung as the Canary Islands and the Falklands, Brazil and the Arctic.
The bad news: We could cook the planet. That little worry aside, government machinations might halt the bonanza before it even gets started. Argentina is a prime example; Russia and Brazil are guilty of the same logic, though to a lesser degree. Two assumptions appear to be at work: Western technology isn’t all that necessary, and China can be relied on as an energy partner.
Wrong on both counts, as I argue in an article on The National Interest’s website. There is a vast technology gap between the West and the rest when it comes to tight oil and gas technology. And China is also more discriminating in its energy deals than is widely believed.
