Shale gas is a HUGE development, but it's arguably a bubble fueled by constant credit and equity injections from Wall Street, not something that is profitable in its own right, not at current prices at least. The biggest shale player, Chesapeake Energy, recently announced it would be idling a not inconsiderable fraction of its gas wells due to low prices.

The big focus today is the so called "liquid-rich" gas shales, where you get condensate and stuff like that from the ground, which you sell not as gas but as oil.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.