Natural Gas: The Coming Boom
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Natural Gas: The Coming Boom
It looks as though President Obama and the Democrat controlled Congress will definitely attempt to pass some type of environmental legislation in 2009 or 2010. This legislation would be aimed directly at carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions and their role in global warming.
Dallas TX 7/29/2009 04:19 PM GMT (TransWorldNews)
Natural Gas: The Coming Boom
It looks as though President Obama and the Democrat controlled Congress will definitely attempt to pass some type of environmental legislation in 2009 or 2010. This legislation would be aimed directly at carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions and their role in global warming.
In the coming months and years, either a "Cap and Trade" system or a straight up carbon tax will be likely be passed by U.S. legistators. The moderates in Congress and most of the heavy industrial world, faced with the reality of some type of legislation, are rallying behind a carbon tax for its simplicity and for the fact that the cost can be passed along to the consumer much more efficiently and without the distortion and potential fraud of a cap and trade system.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation on June 26 that would place caps on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and sets nationals standard for the production of renewable electricity by 2020. The American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) would cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 17% by 2020, from 2005 levels, and by 83% by 2050.
While much of the focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions will be on the development of next generation renewable energy resources, natural gas can and will play a significant role in this evolving story. Natural gas per BTU of energy is much cleaner than oil or coal, the two primary fossil fuel alternatives, and thanks to new drilling technologies that are unlocking substantial amounts of natural gas from shale rocks, the nation’s estimated natural gas reserves have surged by 35 percent according to new studies.
So, if a carbon tax or a Cap and Trade system is ultimately put into place by U.S. legislators, natural gas will likely be a huge beneficiary. Natural gas could emerge as a critical transition fuel that could help to battle global warming. For a given amount of heat energy, burning gas produces about half as much carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming, as burning coal.
Industrial demand accounts for about 30 percent of natural gas consumption annually in the U.S. Thus, economic health of US industry directly influences natural gas prices in a significant way. During the past year, as world economies have struggled through the worst recession in the last 80 years, natural gas prices have been hovering near six year lows in the range of $3.50 per MMBtu. Domestic production has remained strong and recent gas producer’s quarterly earnings indicate that economic activity is beginning to recover as industrial demand starts to pick back up. This should strengthen natural gas prices in the short term, and in the longer term the move toward cleaner energy solutions should put natural gas squarely in the middle between dirty fossil fuels and clean renewable energy solutions.
Natural gas promises to be used as a transitional fuel to alternative to renewable energies like solar, wind and geothermal. Even influential oil-tycoon T Boone Pickens has proposed, and spent a considerable portion of his wealth, promoting the idea of natural gas powered vehicles.
Once fuel cell powered vehicles become practical, within 10 years with government encouragement /subsidy, natural gas is likely to be among the first fuels used by such vehicles. This reality will be encouraged if Pickens is successful in getting existing fuel stations in North America to add natural gas to their product offerings at the pump. Time will tell if that infrastructure will get built into our national transportation fuel system and if you will be able to buy and utilize natural gas powered vehicles. Natural Gas is already in use in many public transportation systems and municipal fleets.
While pure hydrogen vehicles may be a better environmental option (since the byproduct of the chemical reaction is pure water), the manufacture, storage and distribution of highly combustible hydrogen has many science, engineering and production problems that have yet to be solved. So keep a close eye on natural gas prices for possibly higher prices in the near-term as well as the longer-term. As the economy rebounds we think that natural gas prices will rise as industrial consumption picks back up and in the longer term we think that natural gas will be a key ingredient in the mix to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Buck
Natural Gas: The Coming Boom
It looks as though President Obama and the Democrat controlled Congress will definitely attempt to pass some type of environmental legislation in 2009 or 2010. This legislation would be aimed directly at carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions and their role in global warming.
Dallas TX 7/29/2009 04:19 PM GMT (TransWorldNews)
Natural Gas: The Coming Boom
It looks as though President Obama and the Democrat controlled Congress will definitely attempt to pass some type of environmental legislation in 2009 or 2010. This legislation would be aimed directly at carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions and their role in global warming.
In the coming months and years, either a "Cap and Trade" system or a straight up carbon tax will be likely be passed by U.S. legistators. The moderates in Congress and most of the heavy industrial world, faced with the reality of some type of legislation, are rallying behind a carbon tax for its simplicity and for the fact that the cost can be passed along to the consumer much more efficiently and without the distortion and potential fraud of a cap and trade system.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation on June 26 that would place caps on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and sets nationals standard for the production of renewable electricity by 2020. The American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) would cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 17% by 2020, from 2005 levels, and by 83% by 2050.
While much of the focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions will be on the development of next generation renewable energy resources, natural gas can and will play a significant role in this evolving story. Natural gas per BTU of energy is much cleaner than oil or coal, the two primary fossil fuel alternatives, and thanks to new drilling technologies that are unlocking substantial amounts of natural gas from shale rocks, the nation’s estimated natural gas reserves have surged by 35 percent according to new studies.
So, if a carbon tax or a Cap and Trade system is ultimately put into place by U.S. legislators, natural gas will likely be a huge beneficiary. Natural gas could emerge as a critical transition fuel that could help to battle global warming. For a given amount of heat energy, burning gas produces about half as much carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming, as burning coal.
Industrial demand accounts for about 30 percent of natural gas consumption annually in the U.S. Thus, economic health of US industry directly influences natural gas prices in a significant way. During the past year, as world economies have struggled through the worst recession in the last 80 years, natural gas prices have been hovering near six year lows in the range of $3.50 per MMBtu. Domestic production has remained strong and recent gas producer’s quarterly earnings indicate that economic activity is beginning to recover as industrial demand starts to pick back up. This should strengthen natural gas prices in the short term, and in the longer term the move toward cleaner energy solutions should put natural gas squarely in the middle between dirty fossil fuels and clean renewable energy solutions.
Natural gas promises to be used as a transitional fuel to alternative to renewable energies like solar, wind and geothermal. Even influential oil-tycoon T Boone Pickens has proposed, and spent a considerable portion of his wealth, promoting the idea of natural gas powered vehicles.
Once fuel cell powered vehicles become practical, within 10 years with government encouragement /subsidy, natural gas is likely to be among the first fuels used by such vehicles. This reality will be encouraged if Pickens is successful in getting existing fuel stations in North America to add natural gas to their product offerings at the pump. Time will tell if that infrastructure will get built into our national transportation fuel system and if you will be able to buy and utilize natural gas powered vehicles. Natural Gas is already in use in many public transportation systems and municipal fleets.
While pure hydrogen vehicles may be a better environmental option (since the byproduct of the chemical reaction is pure water), the manufacture, storage and distribution of highly combustible hydrogen has many science, engineering and production problems that have yet to be solved. So keep a close eye on natural gas prices for possibly higher prices in the near-term as well as the longer-term. As the economy rebounds we think that natural gas prices will rise as industrial consumption picks back up and in the longer term we think that natural gas will be a key ingredient in the mix to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Buck
Views: 67
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Terry L. Antee on -
10,000 years ago we had glaciers in Arkansas, we had wooly mammoths and mastodons roaming the earth. For the last 10,000 years it has been getting warmer and that was not caused by man or green house gas. It is caused by the position of the earth in relation to the sun. What you don’t hear on the news is the other planets are also heating up and man is and will never be responsible. Through out geological time the planet has warmed and cooled with out the help of man. This global warming is nothing more than a money grab by the government another tax, the expansion of government. We need change, change our government.
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Permalink Reply by Todd Blanchard on -
I think you miss the point, what ever the reason NG boom is good for your state and nation no matter how you look at it
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Permalink Reply by LP on
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I agree, Todd. Whatever promotes the use of natural gas is a good thing for everyone. More than anything else, it's great for the US economy. It will, literally, keep America from being beggers to the middle east for oil and beggers to China for ...moe money.
If the greenies want to embrace NG to "save the planet"...let them. If Al Gore wants to take credit for inventing natural gas....let him. Who cares. The point is that America has an energy source that is clean and abundant. It's ours !!! Be thankful.
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Permalink Reply by Grillin' - MmmMmm on
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Kind of like saying if I'm in the funeral home business, drunk driving is a good thing, right?? Anything to bring in revenue??
Crap and Tax and Trade and all fo the other mumbo jumbo schemes are bad news for this country and particularly for a state like Louisiana that relies heavily on the oil and gas biz.
But since I own a royalty in a gas well, anything that drives up the price of gas is good, huh? Drive companies out of the U.S., kill off jobs, that's okay as long as the royalty check goes up!
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Permalink Reply by JHH on
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very good points. but add the fact that the magnetic poles are also shifting and the earth's axis is shifting... all perfectly natural and happens often. jhh
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Permalink Reply by Earth Mama on
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It Must be true it was on FOX NEWS!
In new global warming special, Fox News interviews scientists with industry ties, records of misinformation
May 19, 2006 10:35 am ET
SUMMARY: On May 21, Fox News will air a one-hour special, Global Warming: The Debate Continues, in which host David Asman will "speak with scientists who are skeptical of what they view as alarmist fears about climate change." Among the roster of contributors are several global warming skeptics with ties to the energy industry and records of misinformation on the issue.
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On May 21, Fox News will air a one-hour special, Global Warming: The Debate Continues, in which host David Asman will "speak with scientists who are skeptical of what they view as alarmist fears about climate change." Among the roster of contributors are several global warming skeptics with ties to the energy industry and records of misinformation on the issue. In each case, their statements or studies questioning global warming theory have been debunked or proven misleading by the scientific community. It remains to be seen whether Asman will inform viewers of these records or of their associations with institutions funded by companies that have a financial stake in opposing policies that seek to combat climate change.
Global Warming: The Debate Continues follows Fox News' The Heat is On: The Case of Global Warming, a November 13 special that was heavily criticized by conservatives. It drew attention from two divisions of the conservative Media Research Center -- CNSNews.com (here and here) and the Business & Media Institute -- and Accuracy in Media editor Cliff Kincaid wrote a column blasting Fox News for running the special.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank heavily funded by corporate interests, asked Fox News to revise The Heat is On before it aired. As a March 19 Washington Post article reported, "The Competitive Enterprise Institute, which widely publicizes its belief that the earth is not warming cataclysmically because of the burning of coal and oil," says Exxon Mobil Corp. is a "major donor" largely as a result of its effort to push that position.
In recent months, Media Matters for America has documented numerous instances in which misinformation about climate-change issues has surfaced on Fox News (here, here, here, and here).
Asman will feature the following in his program:
Patrick J. Michaels
Patrick J. Michaels, a University of Virginia professor and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, is a vocal critic of global warming theory with strong ties to the energy industry. Michaels is chief editor of the World Climate Report, a biweekly newsletter on climate studies funded in large part by energy interests. According to an October 11, 2005, Seattle Times article, "Michaels has received more than $165,000 in fuel-industry funding, including money from the coal industry to publish his own climate journal." Michaels previously founded and edited the now-defunct quarterly World Climate Review. A December 1995 Harper's Magazine article reported that the publication was funded by the coal producer and electricity co-op Western Fuels and "routinely debunk[ed] climate concerns."
Michaels also has ties to the George C. Marshall Institute (GMI), described by Congressional Quarterly as "a Washington-based think tank supported by industry and conservative foundations that focuses primarily on trying to debunk global warming as a threat." Formerly a visiting scientist at GMI, Michaels recently participated in a February 24 roundtable discussion there. He is also the editor of Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), a collection of essays advertised on the Institute's website as raising "serious doubts about whether policies to 'fight' climate change are warranted at all." The Exxon Mobil Foundation donated $80,000 to GMI's Climate Change program in 2002.
Moreover, Michaels's employer, the Cato Institute, has received substantial financial support from energy companies such as Chevron Companies, Exxon Corp., Royal Dutch/Shell, and Tenneco Gas, as well as the American Petroleum Institute, Amoco Foundation, and the Atlantic Richfield Foundation. Cato also published his three books critical of global warming theory -- Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media (November 2004), The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air about Global Warming (May 2000), and Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming (January 1992).
As a guest on the May 16 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Michaels falsely suggested that former Vice President Al Gore endorsed exaggerating the threat of global warming, as Media Matters documented. Further, in March 2005, Fox News Washington managing editor Brit Hume apparently relied on a misleading article by Michaels that attacked the credibility of a World Bank scientist in order to discredit a recent United Nations report on world ecosystems written by a panel the scientist co-chaired.
Bjørn Lomborg
Bjørn Lomborg is the associate professor of statistics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. In his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge University Press, 2001), Lomborg purported to conduct a "non-partisan analysis" of environmental data in the hope of offering the public and policymakers a guide for "clear-headed prioritization of resources to tackle real, not imagined, problems." His conclusion was that the concerns of scientists regarding the world's environmental problems -- including global warming -- were universally overblown. But in January 2002, Scientific American ran a series of articles from four well-known environmental specialists that lambasted Lomborg's book for "egregious distortions," "elementary blunders of quantitative manipulation and presentation that no self-respecting statistician ought to commit," and sections "poorly researched and ... rife with careless mistakes."
A backgrounder by the Union of Concerned Scientists similarly reported that Lomborg's findings and methodology "fails to meet basic standards of credible scientific analysis":
[S]eparately written expert reviews unequivocally demonstrate that on closer inspection, Lomborg's book is seriously flawed and fails to meet basic standards of credible scientific analysis. The authors note how Lomborg consistently misuses, misrepresents or misinterprets data to greatly underestimate rates of species extinction, ignore evidence that billions of people lack access to clean water and sanitation, and minimize the extent and impacts of global warming due to the burning of fossil fuels and other human-caused emissions of heat-trapping gases. Time and again, these experts find that Lomborg's assertions and analyses are marred by flawed logic, inappropriate use of statistics and hidden value judgments. He uncritically and selectively cites literature -- often not peer-reviewed -- that supports his assertions, while ignoring or misinterpreting scientific evidence that does not. His consistently flawed use of scientific data is, in Peter Gleick's words "unexpected and disturbing in a statistician".
Indeed, in his analysis of the book, Peter H. Gleick, co-founder and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, took particular issue with Lomborg's handling of facts regarding temperature record:
Lomborg makes many errors, both important and trivial. He should have taken more care in checking basic information. For example, his assessment of the temperature record over the past century is just wrong (Ibid., p. 263) -- there is strong agreement among atmospheric scientists that warming is now occurring due to anthropogenic influences.
Nonetheless, Lomborg's book was embraced by global warming skeptics and their supporting institutions. For instance, in 2001, the "Cooler Heads Coalition" -- a group formed by the CEI and other industry-friendly organizations to "dispel the myths of global warming" -- invited him to brief members of Congress regarding his findings on global warming.
John Christy
John Christy is the director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama-Huntsville. Christy and fellow University of Alabama professor Roy Spencer co-authored a 2003 global warming study based on extensive data from weather satellites. Their report, which concluded that the troposphere had not warmed in recent decades, was ultimately found to have significant errors. As The New York Times reported, when their miscalculations were taken into account, the data used in their study actually showed warming in the troposphere.
Christy also contributed an essay skeptical of climate change to Global Warming and Other Eco Myths: How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to Death (Crown Publishing Group, 2002). The book was released by the CEI.
Roy Spencer
Roy Spencer is the chief research scientist at the University of Alabama-Huntsville. As noted above, he and Christy released a study in 2003 that, using faulty calculations, purported to show that temperatures in the troposphere had remained constant over the previous two decades.
Like Michaels, Spencer also has ties to the George C. Marshall Institute. Beyond his criticism of global warming theory, Spencer has also taken up another cause that places him well outside the scientific mainstream -- his view that "intelligent design, as a theory of origins, is no more religious, and no less scientific, than evolutionism."
— J.K.
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Permalink Reply by Spring Branch,mineral owner on
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Many opinions expressed here, Earth Mama......apparently yours? Did I get the date right? That broadcast was in 2006?
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Permalink Reply by P.G. on
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Natural gas should become the next boom through market forces and not manipulation. As soon as the economy recovers a bit, Oil prices will start going through the roof!
Natural gas will become very attractive.
We don't need no more stinking taxes!
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Permalink Reply by Terry L. Antee on
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My point was global warming is not caused by man, the government is lying to us to pass taxes, but it would be a good thing to use natural gas instead of oil or coal but that can be legislated with out taxing us. Burning oil may cause some of the cancer and other health problems we are haveing but it is not causing global warming. The companys that drill for oil and gas under the obama energy plan will lose all insentives to drill, this is an expensive business and it will need investors to keep it going in times like this. My view is there will be no recovery untill the people that create jobs know obama is not going to tax them to death with health care and cap and tax. Not trying to be polotical.
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Permalink Reply by easttexas12 on
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Cap & Trade will double the price/use of NG at the very least. The average family will pay much more for energy, no doubt. On a business level, its good for shalers, like us, not so good for Big Oil, Coal Industry, middle to lower income families. Do the Nat Gas producers want to have the EPA over them, instead of the TRRC? No, that's the pushback from the E&P's, thats their problem. Raising emission standards and use of NG is a good thing. Again, its good for shalers. When I say shalers I mean mineral rights owners within the Bossier/Haynesville Shale region. We would be one of the only winners in the Cap & Trade system... And Im selfishly OK with that! Ha
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