The Financial Times headline played up the report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that by 2017 the U.S. will become the world’s largest energy producer. The use of fracking and other newly developed technologies has enabled the exploitation of previously uneconomic carbon deposits. In 1974 I sat in an economic geography class in which the professor claimed that the U.S. was full on shale oil and gas and its development was merely a matter of price. Being a know-it-all about the Club of Rome studies on the limits of growth, I entered into a lively debate with the prof about why he was wrong and the effects of the energy crisis was going to lead to the demise of Kapitalism. If I could remember his name I would send an appropriate apology.