While most energy-driven headlines today deal with $100-plus oil, dirty coal, dangerous nukes or solar dreams, one cheap, plentiful and clean fuel is usually left off stage out of the spotlight — natural gas. That’s odd, because Americans use about 62.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, with some 2.1 quadrillion cubic feet in reserve. (One quadrillion is a thousand trillion.) It supplies 65 million households, 5.3 million commercial users and nearly 200,000 industrial-scale customers. Natural gas is critical to electrical power production and its importance in this area is growing dramatically. Read More
While most energy-driven headlines today deal with $100-plus oil, dirty coal, dangerous nukes or solar dreams, one cheap, plentiful and clean fuel is usually left off stage out of the spotlight — natural gas. That’s odd, because Americans use about 62.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, with some 2.1 quadrillion cubic feet in reserve. (One quadrillion is a thousand trillion.) It supplies 65 million households, 5.3 million commercial users and nearly 200,000 industrial-scale customers. Natural gas is critical to electrical power production and its importance in this area is growing dramatically. In the past 15 years, the amount of U.S. electricity provided by natural gas has grown from 13.2% to 23.2%. The total number of kilowatt hours attributable to natural gas is up 102.3%. And there are two reasons this trend is going to accelerate in coming years. First, gas is super efficient; it can approach 60% efficiency, nearly twice that of coal, which makes it an easier and more cost-effective way to generate power. Second, natural gas is far less polluting than coal, which is similarly cheap and abundant, and is… Read More