A HISTORY OF NAT GAS SUBSIDIES

Where the Shale Gas Revolution Came From: Government’s Role in the Development of Hydraulic Fracturing in Shale

Alex Trembath, Jesse Jenkins, Ted Nordhaus, and Michael Shellenberger, May 2012 (Breakthrough Institute)

“…In summary, federal investments and involvement in the development of shale gas extraction technologies spanned three decades and were comprised of:

“• The Eastern Gas Shales Project, a series of public-private shale drilling demonstration projects in the 1970s…• Collaboration with the Gas Research Institute (GRI), an industry research consortia that received partial funding and R&D oversight from the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee (FERC)…”

click to enlarge

“• Early shale fracturing and directional drilling technologies developed by the Energy Research & Development Administration (later the Department of Energy), the Bureau of Mines, and the Morgantown Energy Research Center (later the National Energy Technology Laboratory)…• The Section 29 production tax credit for unconventional gas, in effect from 1980-2002…

“• Public subsidization and cost-sharing for demonstration projects, including the first successful multifracture horizontal drilling play in Wayne County, West Virginia in 1986, and Mitchell Energy’s first horizontal well in the Texas Barnett shale in 1991…• Three-dimensional microseismic imaging, a geologic mapping technology developed for applications in coal mines by Sandia National Laboratories…”

Tweet