High energy prices good for shale

LONDON, May 9 (UPI) -- High energy prices and uncertainty surrounding the so-called Arab Spring in the Middle East could encourage new growth for shale gas, an advocate says.

Despite a market correction last week, oil and gasoline prices are near record highs. Nick Butler, chairman of the King's Policy Institute at King's College London, writes for the Financial Times that current energy prices reflect "nervousness" about unrest in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, he adds, the nuclear crisis spawned by a magnitude-9 earthquake in Japan in March means more scrutiny in the nuclear energy sector.

Shale gas, he said, is an abundant, albeit controversial, natural resource.

The United States has vast gas reserves locked in rock formations and there are trillions of cubic feet of the alternative resource available in technically recoverable reserves across the globe.

Critics note that the process used to coax shale gas out of the rock formations is more harmful to the environment than conventional reserves.

"But high energy prices and political uncertainty in the Middle East could now spur many of the world's energy importers to exploit these new, indigenous gas supplies," writes Butler of shale.

King's College is the site of a shale conference Sunday.