Under the radar: Some trends are obvious enough and visible to all investors. Others are more-subtle, but are just as potent, and these often slip 'under the radar.'Case in point: Estimated U.S. natural gas reserves have increased 35%, due to new drilling technologies that are unlocking large amounts of natural gas from shale rocks, according to a new study by the Potential Gas Committee, The New York Times reported. Much of the reserve increase stems from the tech-based ability to obtain natural gas from shale rocks, which companies only recently discovered how to do, in a process called hydraulic fracturing.
Estimated natural gas reserves totaled 2,074 trillion cubic feet in 2008, up from 1,532 trillion cubic feet in 2006, when the last report was issued.
Energy/Economic Analysis: As oil billionaire and now natural gas advocate T. Boone Pickens has argued, natural gas is emerging as a preferred, lower-carbon, 21st-century fuel source for the United States, on a number of counts.
First, natural gas is cleaner fuel. Second, it's a domestic energy source and has the potential to displace oil (and imported oil) in industrial applications, and potentially, in vehicle engines. Natural gas also displaces the dirtier coal energy source for utilities' electric generation plants. Further, natural gas creates domestic jobs -- another major positive in a U.S. economy that needs all the good-paying, domestic jobs it can get. Finally, while natural gas does not represent a renewable energy source like wind and solar, it has the potential to help wean the nation off oil and also provides a modest energy cushion, if/when the next oil shock occurs. It goes without saying then, that the view from here argues that those homes/businesses that can convert to natural gas from oil should do so.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-07-2009 @ 7:33PM
sgentilejr said...
The writer of this article suggests that everyone who can should switch from oil to natural gas. Yet the truth is that even at $3.00 per gallon for heating oil it is still far cheaper to heat your home using oil. People on a tight budget cannot afford to pay higher prices by using ng to heat their homes. Plus with oil you can buy form which ever oil company sells it at the lowest price. Whereas if you use ng you have to pay whatever the utility company wants to charge you for ng and you have no say at all in how much you end up paying.
7-07-2009 @ 9:53PM
Kent said...
Amazing to know this. Having 2 quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas is equiavlent to about 330 billion barrels of oil. Top it off with our coal reserves equivalent to 1 trillion barrels of oil, U.S. is indeed energy independent more than we think. With green and renewable energy development ongoing, we need no longer worry about running dry. All we need is the new technology to harness this stuff all the way around. We still have oil reserves of 21 billion barrels, not counting ANWR and off-shore.
7-08-2009 @ 2:35AM
jack said...
Yet the truth is that even at $3.00 per gallon for heating oil it is still far cheaper to heat your home using oil. People on a tight budget cannot afford to pay higher prices by using ng to heat their homes.
7-08-2009 @ 8:43AM
J. Wilks said...
If demand for natural gas increased significantly, it's likely that prices would stabilize at a lower price than oil -- since there is so much raw supply.
7-08-2009 @ 1:59PM
Iridium said...
Yes Wilks but that is how the market is supposed to work.
It doesn't work that way. Even with massive inventories the price of natural gas would skyrocket if more people use it. It is the law of controlled supply and manipulated demand.