The U.S. has even more natural gas than previously thought, government forecasters said Thursday. Bloomberg News But not all scientists are buying it. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said that the country’s proved reserves – the amount of natural gas that can be drilled with current technology and at current prices – rose 9.7% in 2013 to 354 trillion cubic feet, the highest level ever. Nearly half of that is shale gas. The EIA expects natural-gas production to continue rising through 2040, unlike oil production, which is projected to peak in 2019. But a Dec. 3 article in the journal Nature cites a University of Texas at Austin study with a much more pessimistic outlook. Output from the four biggest shale-gas areas could peak in 2020, the article says. The Texas team assessed each shale-gas site by square mile, a more granular measurement than the EIA uses. […]