The shale gas revolution: US carbon emissions back to 1990 levels this year?

For years now representatives of the European Union have been blaming the US - and particularly the "evil" Bush White House - for the failure of to reach a global agreement on reducing CO2 emissions. 


But, like so often, reality differs from the myth: 

“America’s carbon emissions may drop back close to 1990 levels this year. That result would have been thought impossible, even at the end of 2011.

But the shale gas revolution makes a reality many things recently thought impossible.  It was thought impossible to slash carbon US carbon emissions back to 1990 levels by 2012.  It was thought impossible to massively, quickly cut carbon emissions and, at the same time, have lower energy bills.

Shale gas production has slashed carbon emissions and saved consumers more than $100 billion per year.  Truly astonishing!”

MP: And unlike renewable energies like solar that reduce carbon emissions but are uneconomical even with billions of dollars of taxpayer dollars, the shale gas revolution has reduced CO2 emissions significantly without any taxpayer support and wasn’t even part of any intentional energy policy from Washington, or any regulatory directive from the EPA.

Welcome to the shale gas revolution!

Read Mark Perry´s entire blog post here.

Peter C Glover compares this with what is happening in Europe: 

In stark contrast to the U.S., Europe’s use of natural gas fell last year by 2.1 percent as gas-fired plants that needed only half the number of carbon permits, became increasingly uncompetitive. Prices fell sharply by 17 percent to just 8 euros a tonne. Indeed, so expensive has gas become in Europe that the major players like EON and RWE are considering shutting down their gas-fired plants entirely by 2015. Coal – the literal bête noire for all green politicos – is the only viable alternative.

The Eurocracy did not plan it to be this way.

You might think that European capitals would be falling over themselves to develop Europe’s own shale gas resources and share in the ‘green’ benefits of switching from burning coal; not least because another key EU energy policy is to diversify away from European dependence on Russian gas imports. But the EU-imposed goals of CO2 targets for 2020 dictate that member states must bend the knee to the green lobbies that demand a ban on hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), the technique singly responsible for the U.S. gas and oil revolutions. In effect, an EU-sponsored lose-lose situation has developed.

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Eurocrat socialism, with its predilection for imposing regulatory cap-and-trade restrictions that inherently render industry less globally competitive, has contrived to achieve the very opposite of its chief goal: a new, high carbon-emitting, coal boom. American capitalism, on the other hand, has not only seen technological innovation (fracking) promote a cheaper energy revolution and reduce dependence on foreign energy imports it has also raised the very real prospect of energy independence. Just to rub salt in fast-developing European ‘green’ wounds, the U.S. way of ‘doing green’ is making EU energy policies look UP (unfit for purpose).

Read the entire article here.