Welcome to the era of the “monster frack.”

A flood of shale gas is keeping heating bills (and emissions) down this winter.

A small Texas town near the epicenter of the shale boom banned fracking this week, and in so doing highlighted one of the United States’ biggest strengths.

Plunging crude prices are affecting producers’ ability to profitably drill, and there’s a growing concern that the bear market could affect U.S. fracking. But continued innovation has firms producing more oil with lower costs, which suggests that the shale revolution may be more resilient than many think.

America’s is presently sitting pretty when it comes to domestic energy production, and a new report suggests our near future will be even better. In its January Short-Term Energy Outlook, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) bumped up its forecasts for US oil and gas production. Oil output is set to hit a 43 year high next year, while annual natural gas production is expected to rise to an all-time high for the fifth straight year in 2015. Thanks to fracking, America’s energy position continues to strengthen.

America averaged 8.075 million barrels a day in the first week of December, our highest total since 1988. It’s the latest in a string of milestones for the US, which continues to reap the benefits of shale. Fracking has changed the American energy landscape virtually overnight; the idea that the US might contemplate opening up exports of oil and gas would have been laughable ten or even just five years ago, but that’s where we are today.