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Giberson: “Did the Federal Government Invent the Shale Gas Boom?” (December 20th post becomes part of a national debate)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 26, 2012

One of the nation’s important energy analysts is Michael Giberson, an economist at the Center for Energy Commerce in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University. Giberson, who has occasionally posted at MasterResource,  teaches energy courses at Tech such as U.S. Energy Policy and Regulation and Energy Economics.

Giberson is also a principal (with fellow energy expert Lynne Kiesling of Northwestern University) of the energy-centric Knowledge Problem, described as “Commentary on Economics, Information, and Human Action.”

A month ago, Giberson critically reviewed a study by the Breakthrough Institute that claimed, basically, that government energy activism crucially enabled the shale gas (and oil) revolution that is now sweeping much of the United States and many countries around the world.

“New Investigation Finds Decades of Government Funding Behind Shale Revolution,” announced Breakthrough on December 20, adding:

Breakthrough Institute research and interviews show the direct and sustained support federal agencies provided to the gas industry leading up to the modern natural gas revolution.