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It may not pique the public’s interest quite like finance or information technology , but it just could just save the U.S. economy.
Indeed, the natural gas industry supports some 2.8 million jobs — either directly through companies engaged in exploration and drilling or indirectly through manufacturers that use the fuel as a raw material, according to the American Gas Association.
The real potential for economic impact, however, lies in the vast reservoirs of shale gas that are newly accessible through hydraulic fracturing.
Better known as “fracking,” the process involves extracting natural gas from shale rock layers deep within the Earth using a highly pressurized mixture of water and chemicals.
“Energy is always a key player in the economy and because producers have been able to make these advances in technology and efficiency improvements, shale gas could be a very significant driver for the economy going forward,” says Rocco Canonica, director of energy analysis at Bentek Energy, an energy market research firm in Evergreen, Colo.
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