Shale gas makes further inroads into Europe’s energy mix

The rewards of shale gas are starting to outweigh the potential risks of getting the energy source out of the ground for a number of European countries. Reserves of the gas are now thought to be much larger in some states than previously estimated. In others, there is growing concern over the dominance in the market of the United States. Some are also keen to break their dependence on Russian conventional gas.

MANY of the shale gas fields in Europe are situated in areas where the geology makes it much harder to extract than those in the United States. They are also in places with much higher population densities than the US, and their service industries and infrastructure for the ind...