Se a queda do preço do crude já seria só por si um factor muito relevante para a decisão de adiar investimentos nesta área, dado o custo de produção tipicamente elevado associado a este recurso, um conjunto de factores de ordem técnica e política acabaram por convergir e reforçar esta tendência.
Mas o melhor será mesmo lerem o artigo de Keith Johnson, do qual aproveito para destacar os parágrafos finais:
"But another reason fracking is struggling to take off is that — despite Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula and continued strong-arm tactics with its energy exports — many European countries are still less concerned about energy security than climate change.
Brussels hopes to build an “energy union” that can finally manage to achieve the seemingly contradictory goals of making energy supplies greener, cheaper, and more secure. Germany is ramping up its massive bet on clean energy. France sits atop plentiful reserves, but won’t even consider fracking. Even in the U.K., lawmakers from across the political spectrumwarned last month that shale gas is still a fossil fuel, and that decades of reliance on yesterday’s energy would impair Britain’s ability to dramatically slash greenhouse-gas emissions.
“Certainly the policymakers in Brussels and the Scottish government are just completely wedded to this vision of a renewable-energy future where we can phase out fossil fuels,” Oxford’s Rogers said. “The most fervent of them don’t want to see shale gas developed because that might deflect focus from renewables.”
