Shale Gas, The Environment and Energy Security: A New Framework for Energy Regulation.

• Author: Langevin, Mark S.

Shale Gas, The Environment and Energy Security: A New Framework for Energy Regulation, by Ruven Fleming. (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017). 355 pages, ISBN 978-1-78643-316-9.

Shale Gas, The Environment and Energy Security is a valuable comparative policy analysis that can assist policymakers, stakeholders and scholars to navigate the regulation of shale gas production. Moreover, the book is a critical contribution to our efforts to understand the regulatory demands for unconventional hydrocarbon production within the broader energy transition literature.

Shale gas is controversial because it has been transformational for energy markets. In the United States, shale gas production accounted for more than half of the country's natural gas production in 2015 and is projected to reach 70% by 2040. Currently, the U.S., Canada, China, and Argentina are the major producer-states, but technological improvements and rising gas demand will likely prompt investments in Mexico and Algeria in the coming years. Fleming draws on the experiences of these producer-states to inform prospective producers, with a particular focus on the European Union (EU).

Europe's shale gas prospects are modest in comparison to current producers, but the politics of energy security have placed greater attention on the resource and its role in diminishing the region's dependency on Russian gas supplies and offsetting the decommissioning of nuclear energy plants. In 2017, the European Unconventional Oil and Gas Assessment (EUOGA) estimated that the region holds approximately 89 trillion cubic meters in shale gas reserves and another 31 billion barrels in shale oil.2 This assessment was followed by the European Commission's publication of a final guidance document for upstream hydrocarbon production in February 2019.3 The purpose of the guidance is to 'improve protection of the environment' without banning hydraulic fracturing and shale gas production altogether. The EU has largely taken a pass at regulating shale gas production and left the real policy work to member-states, thereby increasing national policymakers' and stakeholders' needs for comparative examination of legal-regulatory frameworks at the local and national levels.

The book begins with a quick but valuable lesson on the operational and technological underpinnings of shale gas production, especially the use of innovative drilling techniques and hydraulic fracturing, which could make many of Europe's deposits...