Story on the net today about massive amounts of natural gas being found within the U.S. and new drilling techniques to get to it. Perhaps a answer for at least power generation.
Story said a completly different situation than as recently as ten years ago when natural gas supplies looked pretty dismal.
Energy-wise, we live in very turbulent times. What’s the best fuel for efficiency? For clean air? For lowest green house gases? What fuel alternatives are there? How can we decrease our energy use? How much will alternative energy sources cost in resources, effort, research and development, time, and money?
Energy-wise, we are living the old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times!” These are interesting times, aren’t they, for us, and for our children’s children?
With today’s technology “How can we decrease our energy use?” is the one we can address, short term and long term. Take a real look at your energy use. Do you really need a home as big as you have? Is it insulated properly. Do you need all those lights on? Do you need it that warm in winter or cool in summer? Do you need to live a far away from your job as you do? Can you take public transportation? Do you need a car that large etc.
I LOVE natural gas…But I heat with oil. Have been for the past 20+ years…Only because there are no natural gas lines on my road…and right now the gas company isn’t about to put them in. If there were a line I’d be using NG.
This is great for the people who already have natural gas…they might see a reduction in fuel cost.
Based on the projections that I have read, it sounds like Northeast Pennsylvania may become the next “boom area” for energy production. The shale that underlies the soil in that region appears to hold huge reserves of natural gas just waiting to be tapped by the appropriate technology.
Exxon-Mobil was very wise to purchase XTO Energy, simply because that company was in the forefront of the efforts to tap into this type of natural gas deposit. Energy independence does look like it is attainable within the next 20 years!
I have a brother-in-law in the East in a similar situation you are in. He is a farmer, and loves gas, but can only use propane, since it’s the only gas available in rural areas. He also has 50 acres of bush, and the dead trees supplement his fuel, since he has a dual fuel propane/wood furnace. In the evening as the wood fire dies down, the propane takes over automatically for the night until the next day when the wood furnace is replenished.
If they go away fro the weekend the propane furnace assures continued heat.
“Based on the projections that I have read, it sounds like Northeast Pennsylvania may become the next “boom area” for energy production. The shale that underlies the soil in that region appears to hold huge reserves of natural gas just waiting to be tapped by the appropriate technology.”
The gas held in the Marcellus shale formation is going to be a huge boom in the next decade or so. Right now, the biggest problem isn’t accessing the gas, it’s transporting it. Large companies are fighting over the rights to these wells but the existing pipelines are where the bottle necks are. These 1,000+ mile pipeline projects are incredibly complicated logistically, especially when they cross between state lines.
You’re right, there has been a revolution in the last 10 years on finding gas in shales, formations which were previously ignored. This has created two problems, though - there’s now so much gas being produced it has depressed prices some, and these are very expensive wells to drill, so drilling in some areas (such as the Barnett shale in Texas) has dropped way off. Also, the fracturing technology now being used to unlock these large gas reserves is being attacked as dangerous to ground water.
Another source of plentiful gas for the U.S. is LNG imports from tankers, the world market for LNG is also growing rapidly.
Here’s a map (the “Marcellus” is the eastern portion of the area labeled “Devonian/Ohio”). Note the volumes are in TCF (trillions of cubic feet). Remember the Alaskan gas everybody was so excited about? “Only” about 25 TCF or so, a small fraction of the amounts in these shale gas reservoirs.
Propane is fine…but it’s NOT much cheaper then oil. And in some towns (like mine) you can’t bury the tank, so you have to have this huge tank sitting in the middle of your yard. When we built our house our kids were small…so it would have taken up too much of the playground area.
I understand; my brother in law is a chicken farmer and uses propane to heat the baby chick barns as well. Their tank is huge, and sits near the barns. His cost per million btu’s is less because of the volume discounts he gets.