Extracting gas used to just mean drilling into trapped pockets of air. But technology now allows us to extract gas from rock. This is called shale gas.
Charles Blanchard is an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. He cites a report on this new fuel from the US government.
"This study indicated that China has even higher potential, technically recoverable shale gas resources than the US."
Over 30 trillion cubic metres, according to some estimates. Why is this a big deal?
For one, domestic shale gas could increase China's energy security because it would allow a reduction of oil imports.
Secondly, gas is a lot cleaner than burning coal, whi
