Environmental campaigners have pushed for the retirement of coal plants in the US, securing higher future demand for natural gas

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“Of course not! People who want to drill for oil and not use the Hughes bit can always use a pick and shovel.”

Howard Hughes on whether his family’s company had a monopoly on drilling tool bits.

Now the electoral season has nearly ended, the fog of disinformation over the American energy business has begun to lift.  Politicians on all sides managed, somehow, to exceed past levels of mendacity about the choices and costs that faced the electorate.  For all their differences over climate change, renewable subsidies, or the pace of offshore oil drilling, both the Republicans and the Democrats agreed on one point: the US has a near-infinite supply of natural gas at today’s low prices. Thanks to shale gas, more or less strictly regulated depending on the party