Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rick on November 3, 2008 at 17:08

I agree that a national move to natural gas in as many ways as feasible is our best hope for energy independence and growth in the HS and other shale plays, it is also a popular move for the environment. As for any arguments against it, the lack of NG vehicles and distribution facilities would seem a major issue for use in transportation, but to accomplish huge volume use of NG, large industries would have to show a major demand move toward NG and one of their main arguments is price, supply network and consistent supply to meet demand.

Some discussion has been voiced on this thread about NG use for electric power production and I think that should be one of the main customer targets for the NG market. But since most of the major electric producers are limited by state laws to set earnings, none of these companies are willing to retool and in some cases completely rebuild plants in order to switch to NG. And other large potential users would be big manufacturing but because of laws and taxes and regulations and cost, most of those companies have scaled back production or moved it to foreign countries that our NG can't get to.

If you target electric production for NG use, then you have to deal with the fact that almost all of the major electric producers use coal, bitumenous or lignite, for their large megawatt facilities. And regardless of what candidate is elected to president, even if they are re-elected in 4 years and serve an 8 year term, there is no candidate nor party affiliation that can accomplish conversion to NG by the 8-10 major electric producers in the US. These companies regardless of how large, do not have the resources, either money, manpower, nor time to retool or convert hundreds of thousands of megawatts of electricity production away from coal and to NG or any other hydrocarbon as far as that goes. The power production system has been developed and set up to use American coal for the past 40-50 years and no president or party will be able to change that in 4 nor 8 years.

Most large plants are not designed nor suited for conversion to straight NG and to try to force that by government regulations would force more burden on the taxpayer because the feds would have to give any and all of these companies huge sudsidies to make the conversions because none could afford to make them on their own and the coordination for all of that to take place would take years because units would have to be selectively shut down for extended periods of time to make changes and distribution systems would have to have much lead time to plan and coordinate power flow to ensure demands are met.

Many of the things that are debated and discussed undoubtedly need to be addressed and eventully many need to actually be put into effect, but some things like electric power production and manufacturing and environmental issues are not things that are going to be adjusted or corrected quickly nor without oppostion or growth pains and unfortunately it is a good reflection of how over regulated and government program controlled our nation has already become and more government regulations are just going to make it harder and more expensive on the regular guy. These things are why for over 30 years each new administration has promised energy independance but none have delivered and as long as the president and the two party system focuses on what is best for their respective parties instead of what is best for this great nation, it will continue to be more of the same and any cost incurred will be passed on to you and me and our children and grandchildren.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by P.G. on November 4, 2008 at 3:03

There's a slight twist!
This could be the first time in a long time there will be a super majority controlling congress! They will be able to do just about anything they want whether we like it or not up until at least we have congressional elections 2 years from now if they don't somehow fix it to where that don't happen.
What's also scary is all their talk about those carbon credit taxes they want to impose on utility companies. Those will be passed along to us consumers.
My fears are that before we all have a chance to vote to change the change, all our energy in this country will become nationalized. (they may have no choice if they break the way the system is functioning now)
If that should happen, what will become of our minerals? Will they become the property of the federal government?
In a socialist government, individual rights take a back seat to the welfare of the community!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by carl hadden on November 4, 2008 at 10:09

this is great, i'm just trying to get someone to talk, i'm just a country boy at heart

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by carl hadden on November 4, 2008 at 10:09

this is great, i'm just trying to get someone to talk, i'm just a country boy at heart

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Anna Mauck-Member Services on November 5, 2008 at 9:18

FYI - Today's frontpage article in the Wall Street Journal discusses the current downward trend of NG pricing (half of it's 52 week peak of $13.577 at $7.219 per million BTUs). But I do think it's here to stay also, yes, a no-brainer as you called it HBP. "Drill, baby Drill" - we can apply that here, right? :-)

"Texas Feels Economic Pinch as Oil-Price Drop Hits Home"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122584227042299011.html#articleTabs...">

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bud on November 6, 2008 at 9:18

The Democrats are in bed with extreme environmentalists. Obama will be pushed to provide incentives for "non-carbon" based options such as wind, solar, and hydrogen. The argument is that it is just a matter of time before fossil fuels run out, they contribute to global warming, and we are just postponing the inevitable but not going to other options. I consider these arguments nonsense when we can get off our dependence on foreign oil in a few years by using natural gas from our own domestic sources and the other options can just provide a small amount of energy compared to our needs, or are still in the developmental stage. Also, natural gas is a very clean burning fuel. It may be a "no brainer", but I am concerned that not many on the other side of the argument have fully functioning brains. I hate to be a pessimist, but I think the Obama win has set back the push for more use of natural gas.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by jim neely on November 6, 2008 at 9:41

gas to liquid seems to be the most practical way to use natgas for transportation . the btu cost of natgas make the products clean diesel jet fuel etc the least capital intensive as all the existing infrastructure can be used . a natgas compression station to quickly fill a vehicle costs $ 750000 . to convert a vehicle for cng use costs $ 6500 each . a home compressor takes 8 hrs to nfill the cng tank . diesel from natgas has all the support in place . when blended with regular diesel at % 20 the fuel meets ca clean air regs . i just don't understand why t boone and the pols are pushing cng .

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bud on November 6, 2008 at 10:14

I think the costs of conversion will be a lot lower than your quotes with quantity. I personally converted a gasoline generator to CNG with a kit I bought on the internet for about $300. The only change needed was to the carburator. Existing filling stations can be used as supply points. I cannot believe that it would take $750,000 to develop such a supply point.

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next ›
• Page