Economies are in constant flux but if the process is slow then it is difficult to spot it. That is why it is so important to take advantage of situations when changes occur abruptly. Such changes are natural experiments that offer us stark and rare lessons in how economic systems work.
It is difficult to find a bigger and more dramatic change in traditional heavy industries than the emergence of so-called shale gas. Conventional natural gas occurs in pockets that are easy to exploit but increasingly difficult to find. However, huge amounts of natural gas occur in the form of tiny bubbles distributed uniformly in many shale rock formations all around the world — a resource that up until recently was essentially unreachable.
Your organisation does not have access to this article.
Sign up today to give your students the edge they need to achieve their best grades with subject expertise
Subscribe
