Editorial: A huge boost for cleaner energy
MediaNews editorial
Posted: 05/23/2009 12:01:00 AM PDT
From ContraCosta Times - Bay Area News Group

THE OBAMA administration's ambitious goal to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions and wean the nation from dependence on foreign oil is admirable. But there is a wide gap between desire and reality with many alternative energy sources still in the early development stages.

Fortunately, there is a realistic bridge from where the nation is now, with its heavy dependence on oil and coal, to a future with sufficient supplies of green power from biomass, solar, geothermal, wind, tidal and other renewable energy sources. It is natural gas.

Not long ago it appeared that the United States was running out of retrievable natural gas and that we would have to import it from other nations in the form of liquefied national gas. In fact, port facilities were built to handle such imports.

However, in the last decade, new methods of obtaining natural gas from shale have opened up vast new domestic supplies.

In the last few years, a huge natural gas source was discovered in northern Louisiana. It is big enough to alter the nation's energy situation. The so-called Haynesville Shale discovery is conservatively estimated to hold 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That equals 33 billion barrels of oil, which is 18 years of current domestic production.

The Louisiana field could be several times that size and it is not the only new discovery. Huge natural gas resources are being discovered in

Wyoming, Arkansas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Texas as well.

Industry estimates say the United States has at least 2,200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that could be recovered with our new technology. That would be enough to meet 100 years of current U.S. natural-gas demand.

Natural gas is a fossil fuel and is not pollution-free. But it produces only half of the carbon dioxide that our cleanest coal-burning power plants create.

The climate-change bill being pushed through Congress now sets tough targets for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide. Replacing coal-burning power plants with natural gas would make a significant contribution to meeting those goals.

Jason Grumet, executive director of the National Commission on Energy Policy and a senior adviser to President Barack Obama during the presidential campaign, said, "The availability of natural-gas generation enables us to be much more courageous in charting a transition to a low-carbon economy."

Not only is natural gas much cleaner than coal or oil, we don't have to import it and we already have the technology to use it, not just in producing electricity but as a fuel for motor vehicles, especially diesel-powered trucks.

The only thing holding back greater production of domestic natural gas is limited demand, not supply. That situation could — and should — change dramatically as natural gas replaces coal and perhaps diesel.

Natural gas is not the final destination in reducing greenhouse gases, oil imports and air pollution. But it is a highly promising intermediary energy source that can in a relative short period of time cut carbon dioxide emissions and dependence on foreign oil.

We are encouraged that the Obama administration agrees.