American Shale Gas Development Technology And Policy Research (1970-2015)

The use of energy for Human has gone from wood to coal, then a major transition from coal to oil and gas. The development of the world economy ever more depend on energy, with the growth of the world economy, human beings need more energy. However, in the future for a long period of time, renewable energy can not satisfy the requirement of the world economy on energy, it is difficult to bear its responsibility. With the continued growth of the demand for energy in the world economy, development and utilization of unconventional resources of petroleum and natural gas will become the inevitable choice of human beings.In 1956, Hubert, a geologist who worked for the Royal Holland Shell Companies put forward the "peak oil theory". American oil production reached a peak in 1970( 9 million 600 thousand barrels per day), and then continued to decline, the United States into the energy crisis, had to import a large number of foreign oil and gas. For the security of national energy, in recent thirty years exploration and development of shale gas, the United States explore and improve the horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technology continuously, eventually in 2003 obtained major breakthrough, mastered the core technology of shale gas exploration and development, and had the shale gas revolution succeeded. The annual output of shale gas in the United States in 2000 is 11.796 billion cubic meters, after 2004, the horizontal drilling technology were widely used in development of shale gas, then America’s shale gas production was growing rapidly, in 2009, the United States surpassed Russia as the world’s biggest producer of natural gas. In 2013 the U.S. shale gas production exceeded conventional gas production, the annual output was up to 302 billion 500 million cubic meters. With the technology of shale exploration and development, the production of shale oil in the United States began to increase rapidly from 2008, in 2014, the United States exceeded Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest oil producing country.Proceeding from the perspective of philosophy of science and technology, mainly from the two dimensions of technology and science&technology policy, I want to discuss the exploration and development of shale gas in the United States, to discover the successful experience of America’s shale gas revolution and Its Enlightenment to China, also to analyze the current status of shale gas exploration and development in China and the existing problems. Learning from the successful experience of shale gas development in the United States, This paper tries to put forward policy recommendations to shale gas development in China.