Could Shale Gas Become a Reliable Energy Source for Europe and Romania?

While shale gas and oil is a success story in USA and Canada where production has considerably increased in the last five years the situation is quite different in Europe where exploration and production activities are quite low and prospects are not encouraging. Even in the Eastern Europe the first results of exploration are disappointing for the American companies, which have the technical expertise for exploring and extraction shale gas. Due to global warming there is now at the world scale a fierce confrontation between environmentalists and lobbyists of producing companies regarding the negative effects of hydraulic fracturing. Shale gas development in Europe depends more on the coal substitution by gas and on the use of CCS technologies. The collapse of crude oil prices may delay many projects in the field of shale gas and oil, especially in Europe. The prospects of oil gas in Romania are linked to the energy security concept, whose implementation requires diversification of energy supply on some levels. The development of shale gas in order to diversify the energy supply cannot compensate the groundwater pollution and other negative effects, like earthquake. The temporary withdrawal of Chevron from Romania will have some positive effects, allowing to our country a necessary time-out to better substantiate public policies in the field and to producing companies some time required for carrying out new technologies, less polluting and harmful.