Why shale gas matters

A useful conclusion to a piece on shale gas: once we get confirmed figures from a few actual producers, then:

it's goodbye to spending money on crazy things we have been told to save up for: Coal Carbon Capture and Storage, Off-shore Wind, Nuclear and pipelines like Nabucco. All this £200 BN to keep the lights on rubbish is consigned to the rubbish bin of history. We can invest some money on efficiency and using technology to supply reliable information on energy use so we use less anyway. We can have R+D investment in technology like energy storage, solar and small nuclear that holds promise to truly cut carbon affordably and quickly instead of using today's noble technology that is also very expensive or unproven or both. But the majority of that £200BN? We could spend it wisely on education or transport or medicine, but let's face it for most of us, it will be party time.

And why not? Let the people spend their own money.