The Research On The US Shale Gas Revolution And Its Impacts

Energy safety is a common issue that all countries are facing,with the development of global economy,not only does human society get rich material fortunes,but also meet different challenges,such as resources shortages ?environmental pollution and so on.Finding out new and more sustainable Energy is the key to solve the problem,The US “shale gas revolution” provides other countries with important illumination and references.US is the earliest country in the world to exploit shale gas,US drilled the first shale gas well at 1821,since then,US has become the most advanced and mature country in terms of shale gas drilling skills.Rich shale gas resource and well equipped pipelines created the possibility for the success of shale gas revolution,the strong support and continuous pursuing for energy independency from the government were the vital background for the US shale gas revolution.The development of key technology is the key to success of shale gas revolution.The US “shale gas revolution” has made a great impact on itself and other countries.large scale increasing of shale gas output has promoted the sharply decreasing of the price of natural gas,leading to the low cost of the US industry.Shale gas revolution optimized US energy structure and was propitious to energy saving and emission reduction.Enhancing its ability of energy provision and being conducive to energy exports.However,besides of positive results,there is also some negative effects that should be noticed.The main ingredient of shale gas is methane,whose greenhouse effects are more serious than carbon dioxide.During the process of shale gas exploitation,some phenomena of environmental disruption may happen such as methane leak ? water pollution ? small sized earthquake and so on.Besides,for developers,it is not worthy for them to develop the shale gas resources when the price of natural gas decrease sharply.Therefor,there is also some shale gas foams during the process of shale gas developing,all countries should be cautious enough to develop the shale gas resources.Shale gas revolution has also caused some influences for other countries.For example,for Europe,its energy importing channels has beenbroaden since then,which would be useful for them to break away from the dependency for Russian energy.It is also favorable for Asia Pacific represented by China?Japan?South Korea and so on to import more energy to meet the needs of its development.For neighbor countries,The shale gas revolution not only increased their energy importing,but also stimulated the prosperity of unconventional oil and gas industry.However,For Middle East and Russia,their energy industry have to meet the severe challenges increasingly,the global energy structure will be changed either.As the second largest economy in the world,China also has to solve the dilemma of energy shortage.Shale gas revolution provides China with important experiences and references.At present,there is many problems during Chinese shale gas exploitation,such as complicated geological conditions ? absence of laws and regulations?imperfect market mechanism and so on.This paper introduces the development pattern of shale gas revolution,illustrates its backgrounds,and analyzes the policies that the US government used to support shale gas industry and the advanced market mechanism,concludes the features and causes of US shale gas revolution,pointing out its deficiency and exploit the development route that suites Chinese shale gas industry.