Reuters: Shale gas, energy costs vex EU leaders

European leaders will discuss plans to exploit shale gas in summit talks on Wednesday as part of a decades-long quest to develop more secure and competitive energy supplies.

The 27-nation bloc finds itself looking on with envy as its biggest economic rival, the United States, exploits vast reserves of shale gas, delivering drastically reduced fuel costs.

While Europe has shale plans of its own, there is as yet no unified EU policy. The reserves will be far harder to extract than in the United States and the final cost to consumers is likely to be substantially higher so Europe will not be able to free itself of dependence on gas imports from Russia any time soon.  MORE