The fault in the Maui Gas Line is the best news we have had this year. 

Most people in New Zealand almost certainly had no idea how much we depend on natural gas as a fuel and energy source to keep the economy going. 

The massive problems caused by a leak in a single pipeline is powerful evidence for the benefits of having several gas wells distributed around the country (some of which might be off-shore) pumping gas into a “National Gas Grid”, providing every all consumers with an alternative gas supply should one link in the network fail. 

The costs of discovering, extracting and distributing the gas through such a grid would be massive, but such costs would be worth it and self-funding in the end. Our new appreciation of the importance of our gas will surely add some urgency to our exploration programmes, both on and off-shore.

This same crisis might just make us all more aware that gas is the fuel of the future. 

Companies and Governments all around the world are finding massive gas reservoirs in their own back yards. 

An English company recently discovered a shale gas reservoir in Blackpool containing an estimated 200 trillion cubic feet of gas – enough to keep the entire British economy going for decades. 

Also, governments are growing tired of subsidising the fashionable “renewables” – such as wind and tides – as they find taxpayers’ dollars are the genuine limited resource.

Gas-generated electricity can power our cars and buses and the doomcasters will have to get used to the new reality that cars are no longer dependent on oil for their motive power. Peak Oil? Who cares?

Gas will underpin a whole new petrochemical industry. Indeed the discovery of cost-effective means of extracting shale gas is a game-changer for the whole world's economy, just as universal computing power has changed the communications industry everywhere.

We will need some form of liquid fuels for our aircraft but we would get enough of that as an offshoot from some of the wells or from processed coal.

Those Political parties, Green lobbyists and Coastal Iwi demanding we ban exploration for gas and oil offshore should now be having second thoughts. 

Our fashionable fascination with expensive and inefficient “renewables” means the importance of gas has been down-played. Now reality should be changing our perceptions.

And now that the world is losing interest in Global Warming, and longing to tell the Middle East to go jump, we should come to our senses and start seriously searching for natural gas everywhere it might be found. 

This is the best way to guarantee our ongoing ability to bake our bread, wash our clothes, warm our buildings and, of course, power up the electrical grid. 

There is nothing like a jolt to bring us to our senses. And maybe winning the RWC has opened our minds to this opportunity to be a powerful energy-driven world leading economy, instead of yearning for disaster and longing to retreat to the caves.

What is causing this Gas revolution?

Few people are familiar with the recent discoveries of shale gas, and other unconventional reservoirs of gas, and the new technologies that make these varied reservoirs viable and accessible. But the information is beginning to spread through cyberspace – even if the mainstream media are reluctant to abandon their prophecies of doom.

For example, Matt Ridley, the blogging “Rational Optimist” recently wrote “Gas against Wind” for the UK Spectator, which opened:

Wind must give way to gas before it ruins us all, and our landscapes.

On the future of gas, Ridley interviewed Rockefeller University ecologist, Jesse Ausubel who says:

 “It’s unstoppable. Gas will be the world’s dominant fuel for most of the next century. Coal and renewables will have to give way, while oil is used mainly for transport. Even nuclear may have to wait in the wings.”

Ausubel is not even talking mainly about shale gas, suggesting a bigger story is waiting to be told about offshore gas from the so-called “cold seeps” around the continental margins. This could also be New Zealand’s great story waiting to be told.

Like many scientists, Ausubel thinks that much of this gas is not even “fossil” fuel, but ancient methane from the universe that was trapped deep in the earth’s rocks – like the methane that forms lakes on Titan, one of Saturn’s moons.

Which may explain why it is turning out to be so evenly distributed.

Matt Ridley has also put together an excellent overview in “The Shale Gas Shock”.  

Freeman Dyson’s foreword concludes:

The environmental costs of shale gas are much smaller than the environmental costs of coal. Because of shale gas, the air in Beijing will be cleaned up as the air in London was cleaned up sixty years ago. Because of shale gas, clean air will no longer be a luxury that only rich countries can afford. Because of shale gas, wealth and health will be distributed more equitably over the face of our planet.

“Shale Gas in New Zealand” is a technical power-point presentation of the impact of Shale Gas on the world energy resource and its potential impact on New Zealand. While we appear to have the gas reservoirs, this extensive technical presentation reminds us there is no “free infrastructure lunch” and much more research is required.

In “Shale Gas will Rock the World”, the Wall Street Journal works through an excellent review of the impact on markets around the world and how it will de-fang the great cartels. For example:

Shale gas is going to defang the energy diplomacy of petro-nations. Consuming nations throughout Europe and Asia will be able to turn to major U.S. oil companies and their own shale rock for cheap natural gas, and tell the Chavezes and Putins of the world where to stick their supplies — back in the ground.

There are a host of similar commentaries out there in Cyberspace.

My last column concluded:

Gas is the energy source of the future and we are lucky to be sitting on an ocean of it.

False perceptions are no reason to reject this bountiful reality.”

That was after the Rena grounding but prior to the Maui pipeline fault.

Let’s hope we will now focus on the big game of energy’s World Cup.

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