Is China really ready for shale gas revolution-Re-evaluating shale gas challenges

Tackling climate change and reducing reliance on energy imports justify the exploitation of unconventional energy around the word. Influenced by the U.S. shale gas massive development, Chinese government set an ambitious plan to produce 6.5 billion m3 of shale gas by 2015, 60-100 billion m3 by 2020, and then 13 provinces were given priorities for exploitation. China's shale gas production will go ahead. Local government's ambitious targets combined with technical bottlenecks, lack of drilling experience, poor extraction operations, lagging infrastructure construction, imperfect price mechanism, water shortages, water contamination, and other undesired environmental effects with significant levels of uncertainty, are major impediments for shale gas revolution in China. Exploitation of shale gas reserves offers opportunities for China to meet its growing energy demands and reduce the reliance on energy imports. But China's ongoing shale gas plans should be seriously re-evaluated with reference to eco-environmental and social impacts. This is a unique and great opportunity for China to be a demonstration model, especially for other countries wanting of shale gas.