Shale is sedimentary rock with small grain size, and shale gas is the gas trapped within it. Hydraulic fracturing technology has made it possible to extract shale gas economically, breaking the monopoly on oil resources and easing resource wars, which is why shale gas was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Hi, I’m Shale. I’m a rock that every student has heard of in earth science class: sedimentary rocks with particle sizes smaller than 63 micrometers, like me, are called shale. When you meet me, you’ll see how small my grains are and how interesting my dense structure is. Because of my small grain size, my structure is very dense and holds gas inside. In fact, my structure holds many secrets, not just gas. Did you know that the oil, gas, and other energy sources you know about are all deeply related to rocks like mine?
How did I get nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, you ask? Well, for a good reason, of course. But before I get to that, let me brag a little bit. The biggest story in the energy industry right now is shale gas. As the “shale” in “shale gas” suggests, the gas inside me is called shale gas. But shale gas isn’t just gas, it’s an important resource with the potential to change the world’s energy structure.
If you’re wondering how I have gas in me, let me explain by comparing it to its cousin, petroleum. Petroleum is created when plankton and other dead things accumulate in water and are subjected to heat and pressure for a long time. It’s a gas at first, but it flows until it can’t move anymore, and then it’s compressed to become the liquid we know as oil. In other words, where it’s created is different from where people find it, which is why people explore for it and produce it in different places. But for the shale gas that I have, the gas is created in me by the same process as oil, but like I said, I have a very small particle size, and because of my dense structure, the gas can’t move around, so it stays in me, and because it’s trapped in me, it’s trapped in me, so the way to extract it is very unique.
So why have people suddenly become very interested in my shale gas? It’s because it’s become very lucrative. In the past, people already knew about my existence and the gas that’s in there, but it wasn’t economically feasible to exploit it commercially, because it wasn’t profitable. But that’s changed.
People have always known about shale gas, but until 2009, they didn’t develop it because it didn’t make sense. But in 2009, a technology called ‘hydraulic fracturing’ was developed in the US, which made it much cheaper to develop shale gas. Suddenly, I became a sought-after resource in the energy market, and my name was known around the world. Let’s learn a little more about the hydraulic fracturing technology that made me famous.
Hydraulic fracturing starts by drilling vertically into the ground and then, once you reach the targeted shale formation, drilling horizontally. All rocks, like mine, are strong in compressive forces, but relatively weak in shear and tensile forces, so they’re easily cracked by a water cannon if you direct the force well. The fractures created by hydraulic fracturing then become channels for the gas that I’ve been holding, and the gas travels down the borehole. Won’t the fractures close? Of course, there is a way. To prevent the fractures from closing, engineers have come up with a way to add sand to the water used during fracking, which fills in the cracks and holds them together. This has made it easier and more economical to produce shale gas.
So how cheap has shale gas become? Shale gas is even cheaper than LNG, the natural gas we’re used to. Asian countries import LNG from North Africa, the Middle East, South America, and elsewhere for around $16 to $18/MMBtu. But if you import shale gas from the U.S., you can get it for much cheaper, around $10 to $13/MMBtu. In the U.S., shale gas is currently trading at $3 to $3.5/MMBtu, which is about one-fifth the price of LNG. But the cost of liquefaction and transportation of the gas actually increases the price of shale gas when it’s exported to Asia, but it’s certainly cheaper than LNG currently trading on the international oil market.
So far, I’ve discovered that the shale gas in me is much cheaper than it used to be, thanks to a technology called hydraulic fracturing, making it more competitive with LNG. That’s enough to make me a hot topic in the energy industry, right? And it makes me an even more valuable resource. Unlike in the past, when countries competed and fought for energy resources, now we can harvest resources from many different places.
Now let me tell you why I was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize: unlike conventional oil and LNG, shale gas is distributed evenly around the world. The Middle East used to have a near monopoly on energy resources, but now that shale gas has become an economically valuable resource, the Middle East can no longer monopolize it. The Middle East, which has been called the powder keg of the world because of the armed struggle between countries over oil, has been able to calm down because of my shale gas. Thanks to me, the distribution of resources on Earth has become much more balanced, which contributes to peace and stability around the world.
Of course, there are still many limitations to shale gas development. The technology of hydraulic fracturing is advanced and only a few companies have it, so it’s still a while before shale gas is produced globally. Also, hydraulic fracturing requires a lot of water, which makes it difficult to apply this technology in the desert regions of Africa and China, where shale gas is found. But it’s clear that my work has led to fewer resource wars and more years of usable energy resources in the future. It’s for this reason that I’ve been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. I hope I can follow up my Time magazine cover with a Nobel Peace Prize. Stay tuned for more of my work!
