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  • From: "Lynn Wigglesworth" <lynnw1366 AT hotmail.com>
  • To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Obama - Energy- Prosperity
  • Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2009 12:04:53 -0500

There are huge reserves of natural gas still untapped in the US. The Marcellus shale formation in PA, NY, and WV is thought to be far thicker than the Barnett formation in TX. It has just, in the past year, become worth drilling in the Marcellus formation. New technologies and higher natural gas prices will drive production. They started drilling wells over the summer and early fall; when oil prices went down again, so did natural gas, so the wells have been capped until prices go up; they aren't even on pipelines yet.

Since natural gas is also a finite resource, it's not the final answer, but it could reduce our dependence on foreign oil for a few years until we find a sustainable answer.

Lynn Wigglesworth
Tioga Co. PA

----- Original Message ----- From: "Frank Fries" <frank.fries AT imagewireless.ca>
To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2009 11:11 AM
Subject: Re: [Homestead] Obama - Energy- Prosperity


As I understand it:
- the US is currently importing some of your natural gas (NG). The US can
not presently produce as much as you are using and you have been increasing
imports.

- Currently the area of biggest growth in the use of natural gas in the US
is generation of electricity. There is only a small amount being used as
auto fuel. There are a number of attributes about natural gas that make it
harder to use as an auto fuel than propane for example, but it can and does
work well enough as an auto fuel once you have absorbed the expense of
conversion of the vehicle and the high pressure pumps, etc and can tolerate
a shorter range between fills.

- The ability to import is controlled by primarily pipeline capacity and to
a lesser extent LNG capacity.

- If the US converted even a small part of the transportation sector to NG
(say 25%), you would not be able to generate enough electricity at present
(unless you start building a lot more nukes and/or windmills and/or solar
and/or ...........)

- Beyond the pipeline capacity, there is definitely a finite amount of NG.
Like the peak oil debate, there is some speculation about exactly how much
there is (anywhere, to say nothing about it being reachable in an area that
is easy to transport from). Unlike oil however which peaks and starts to
slowly taper off producing less year by year, production in conventional NG
wells/fields does not peak and slowly decline. It works more like the gas
tank in your car, you can draw it out at full capacity until you are nearly
empty, then production drops off rapidly and then there is no more
recoverable.

Here is a link to a US govt website with some interesting facts about US
natural gas use, etc ...http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/ng_sum_top.asp

Frank
----- Original Message ----- From: "bobf" <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2009 7:11 AM
Subject: [Homestead] Obama - Energy- Prosperity


I did like Boone Picken's ideas about autos running on natural gas, we seem
to have plenty of that here in this country.

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