In the early and middle 70s I was teaching at the University of Kentucky. Interesting gig. Nice town
I was friends with a 3rd year resident in psychiatry who was from Pikeville which, if you hit the link that is the title of this blog will take you to geology.com and a map of the Marcellus Shale field in the Appalachians and Pikeville sits down in the far eastern gree area of Kentucky. It is or was an incredibly rich/poor area dominated by big coal. The Mercedez Benz agency there was, in the middle 70s, the highest volume dealer in the world (remember Nixon, oil embargos, rush to coal, etc.). The poverty rate was also among the highest in the nation and it was a real tug of war between those who owned coal leases and those who worked the leases.
I'm of the opinion of "here we go again" except this time we won't be taking the tops off the mountains to get the energy. What was most telling about the NPR report was that this isn't big oil developing the drilling and recovery technology but little firms, almost mom and pops, getting in early and staying there. Big oil ditched natural gas a while back and now they are sitting on the sidelines (although sure to eventually jump in when the scale is right) watching this revitalized energy source during the early play of what appears to be boom years.
Only issue I can see is that it poisons the ground water but hey, that's someone else's problem.
Might not be a bad idea to write Mercedez about dealership opportunities.