Tom and Bill, What do you make of Fareed Zakaria’s remarks this past Sunday on his show GPS?
ZAKARIA:” Now for our “What in the World” segment.

Last
year, the world’s energy watchdog published a report which asked an
important question. “Are we entering a golden age of gas?” So I was
struck when I saw the International Energy Agency’s 2012 report. Gone is
the question mark.

Instead it simply says, “Golden rules
for a golden age of gas.” And the starting point of that golden age is
right here in America. It’s become increasingly clear that the shale gas
revolution is a game-changer not just for the energy industry, not just
for the U.S., but for geopolitics.

The technology behind
shale gas production, where shale rock is blasted with a mixture of
water, sand, and chemicals, is only two decades old. The process is
called fracking.

And in a short time, its success has led
to the drilling of 20,000 wells in America, the creation of hundreds of
thousands of jobs, and a guaranteed supply of gas for perhaps 100 years.

The International Energy Agency says global gas
production will rise 50 percent by the year 2035. Two-thirds of that
growth will come from unconventional sources like shale, a market the
United Sates completely dominates.

We’ve become the world’s
lowest-cost producer of natural gas at a cost of $2 per thousand cubic
feet. Compare that with many European countries which have to pay seven
times as much to Russia.

It’s increasingly possible to use
liquefied natural gas as a substitute for oil as a transportation fuel,
so the effects go beyond generating electricity. General Motors, for
example, is planning to produce cars that can take natural gas or oil in
their fuel tanks.

Aside from the advantages to America,
shale gas has the potential to change the geopolitics of energy. So
far, gas has been supplied by a handful of regimes, Russia, Iran,
Venezuela, many of them nasty and illegitimate, thriving on global
instability, which actually helps their bottom line since instability
equals higher oil and gas prices.

In the next 20 years,
however, much of this new energy could come from stable, democratic
countries like the United States, Canada, Australia, Poland, France and
Israel. That would be good for the free world, bad for the rogues and
good for global stability.

China has huge shale reserves
and, even though it is not democratic, it is a country that seeks
stability, not instability. One problem, there’s a significant lobby
against shale gas and the way it’s produced. Fracking consumes a lot of
water.

Shale production also creates large quantities of
methane, a greenhouse gas. Sometimes methane pours out of faucets in
areas near shale gas production centers. Look at this video. Critics
also claim fracking can trigger minor earthquakes. So what do we do?
The good news is that these risks are manageable as the IEA’s new report
points out and it has a list of golden rules to follow, from safety
measures to reducing emissions to engaging with local communities. The
IEA estimates these measures would add just seven percent to the cost of
the average shale gas well. Many of the riskiest practices are
actually employed by a small number of the lowest cost producers, so
it’s a situation that calls for sensible regulation. Read the IEA’s
report, we’ve put a link to it on our Website. Let’s figure out how to
make fracking cleaner and safer. We can regulate the process with good,
simple rules. The benefits are immense and the problems are
manageable.”

On energy…Do the Republicans realize that Oil and gas is a commodity and that it goes on the open market and that it take s about 10 years to the point of car ready fuel? What about the fact that we the tax payers are paying billions in subsidies for oil companies? The only way this energy plan will work is for the US to nationalize our oil and gas production. Will the republicans do this?