Natural Gas is not a solution, long or short term...

Every reliable source I've read says that the NG supplies in the US have been dwindling for over 30 years. Worse, among the world reserves for untapped NG, the US ranks among the lowest. Perhaps even worse, the cost of compressing (liquefying) and shipping NG from countries with the largest reserves, Russia for example, would make it as energy-expensive as importing petroleum. And, would do nothing to reduce US dependence on foreign energy sources.

Plus, while the energy-cost, of converting existing transportation equipment to NG, is something I have yet to fully research, you can bet it won't be cheap. And that's not even considering converting airlines (the weight of the tanks alone would reduce the passenger/cargo capacity incredibly making airline travel even more expensive)... The task quickly becomes enormous and quite complex.

Wouldn't it be better, and simpler, if we just unite to make our individual lives more energy efficient? And to actively attempt to get the government to provide incentives for individuals and businesses to focus on conservation and truly alternative sources of energy?

--del

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Permalink Reply by Del Ogren on September 8, 2008 at 5:59am

If you could spell "research", I might take your points more seriously.

However, even though it's off the topic of this particular thread, I agree that Brazil is closer to being correct when it comes to converting bio-mass into alcohol than the US. High sugar grasses like sugar cane make way more energy/economic sense than low sugar grass seeds like corn.

But we're talking about whether NG makes any sense at all, as even a short-term answer to reducing imported oil on this thread. And I remain convinced that the answer is, no.

--del

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Permalink Reply by Tamara on September 10, 2008 at 2:33pm

It not polite to speak in all CAPS....ok

Mr. Pickens himself states its a short-term solution, a gas to end dependence. 30 years, that is short term for switching from oil to something else.

I will happen, that is about the way the cookie will crumble.

If you refuse to get an NG car, okidokie!

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Permalink Reply by neil cox on September 8, 2008 at 7:22am

Hi James: Which data do you suspect is distorted to make CNG look good? Both our official leaders and the power behind them have a vast array of objectives, so my guess is the many conspiracies are very weak. Some data is subject to common sense and applying a little arithmetic. The CNG vehicles built by GM, Ford and others in the USA, will use some energy, making the conversion, but not as much energy as after market conversions. Both are trivial compared to the imported oil not used. Adding natural gas pipe lines will use lots of energy, so we likely should not try to sell CNG vehicles where adequite supplies of natural gas are not already in place. Bio CNG can fill in the gaps at slightly higher price. My guess is less than half of USA vehicles on the road will be CNG, but 1/3 will be a large reduction in imported oil.
Perhaps T. Boone Pickens added natural gas to his plan partly to appease the powerful natural gas interest who could otherwise block the construction of the power lines to carry the wind turbine gigawatts to big population centers. Sometimes we do things because it is the only workable way to get off foreign oil before the USA economy collapses.
Those of us incline toward conservation are opposed by other family members who don't want to be inconvenienced in the slightest. We are near the limit of what can be done with conservation unless we are willing to have the police shoot the violators, such as Al Gore and Rush Limbaugh. Neil

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Permalink Reply by nepa on September 10, 2008 at 2:23pm

Check out www.NortheastNaturalGas.com for information about what is going on in the marcellus shale natural gas drilling in the northeast. Join the forum, start asking questions and giving your comments.

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Permalink Reply by Tamara on September 12, 2008 at 8:50am

A Natural Gas System Alternative Already exists, and just need to be expanded. Have you found a solution that is better??....or maybe you have a solution for the world...

Go ahead and give us your plan.....if it is better T Boone already stated he will push your plan instead of his...so let hear it

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Permalink Reply by Warren Reynolds on September 14, 2008 at 6:09pm

Mr. Ogren: I agree with you that NG is not the solution. As I have read all the comments below this one, it appears that we have a lot of NG. However, if that is true, why have we built a LNG (liquiefied natural gas) ship terminal on the East coast with a second one under constructuon to receive LNG from OPEC nations ? Sounds like we are right back where we started from in our dependence on OPEC.

Mr. Greene: Existing cars CAN be converted to hydrogen. There are electrical-carburetor conversion kits that have been sold over the past 4 years to do just that. I know I drove a friends P/U truck that was converted hydrogen in 1999 at an environmental show.

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Permalink Reply by Casey Kitagawa on March 9, 2009 at 10:36pm

NG supplies dwindling? Hardly. Look at the Haynesville Shale and Marcellus Shale discoveries! 30 years ago the prevailing thoughts of geologists and gas companies were that shale was unproductive. With the modern technologies of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, we have been able to tap into astonishing reserves of gas. Take a gander at the Barnett Shale play and what it did for the city of Fort Worth. Thousands of jobs created, Billions of dollars generated for the city and local economy. The current conservative estimate for recoverable gas from the Marcellus Shale which lies beneath NY, PA, WV, OH, and KY is 50 TCF of gas. Some put the estimates at twice that. And thats with the technology that we have currently. I'm in the industry, in just the last 5 years we have come forward by leaps and bounds and I believe that recovery ability will grow. America is so rich in natural gas we should be exporters of it. conversion of vehicles as well as more electric generation from natural gas would be great for the economy, the environment, and the nation as a whole.

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Permalink Reply by Shelly Thomas on March 12, 2009 at 2:16am

Natural gas is not good for the environment. How can you say such a thing? It's a fossil fuel. It pollutes. It is only 25% cleaner than regular gasoline.

What chemicals do you use in drilling for natural gas? How much water? Do you use benzene?

"In July a hydrologist dropped a plastic sampling pipe 300 feet down a water well in rural Sublette County, Wy. and pulled up a load of brown oily water with a foul smell. Tests showed it contained benzene, a chemical believed to cause aplastic anemia and leukemia, in a concentration 1,500 times the level safe for people."

See this Scientific American story: "Drill for Natural Gas, Pollute Water"
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=drill-for-natural-gas-pollute-w...

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Permalink Reply by Shelly Thomas on March 12, 2009 at 2:11am

I would like to know why this community thinks natural gas is a good idea. Wind energy, solar, geothermal -- are all renewable energies that are clean. We can get electricity from those places. But natural gas is not clean, it's not green, it's not renewable, and it's not "alternative". Yet T. Boone Pickens is portraying it that way, both when he talks about it, and in every email from him I get. This is, sorry to say, deceptive, to say the least.

Natural gas is a fossil fuel. It pollutes. It's not clean. According to the naturalgas.org website:

"In fact, according to the EPA, compared to traditional vehicles, vehicles operating on compressed natural gas have reductions in carbon monoxide emissions of 90 to 97 percent, and reductions in carbon dioxide emissions of 25 percent." That is from naturalgas.org

Obviously, carbon dioxide -- CO2 -- is a huge problem. It's the main greenhouse gas that is leading to climate change, and transferring vehicles to burning natural gas is not going to cut down on these emissions very much.

I like the focus on wind power, but this natural gas thing is deceptive at best. It would be BEST if we stopped supporting natural gas, another fossil fuel, as an answer to anything. It's not.

Yet people here are now saying that we should get all police cars on natural gas, all trucks, all cabs, etc. etc. That would be a disaster. We need to be pushing hybrid cars and electric cars.

I also wonder if people are aware how natural gas is drilled? It's done in a way that uses lots of chemicals, in a process invented by Halliburton, and it includes Benzene. The process of drilling for this so-called green fuel uses lots of water and injects benzene into groundwater. Benzene causes cancer. Does anyone here know this? You can easily look it up. Scientific American had a good article on natural gas drilling last summer.

There is nothing clean about any fossil fuel. If we are thinking about the future, we have to drop drilling for fossil fuels completely.

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Permalink Reply by Shelly Thomas on March 12, 2009 at 2:23am

You're right. No fossil fuel, including natural gas, is an alternative or clean fuel. We should be moving to electric and hybrid vehicles.

As for semi trucks not being able to run on electric batteries -- true. I think we should get semi-trucks off the roads and go back to shipping freight by trains. Trains are much more efficient and they don't pollute nearly as much. Semi Trucks ruin the roads and cause accidents. I'd like them off the roads completely, eventually. I don't know why we shifted to trucks from rail in the first place.
Why not go back to trains?

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Permalink Reply by SJC on March 12, 2009 at 2:45pm

Having every truck and bus running CNG and not using imported oil sounds fine with me. We can convert biomass like corn stalks to methane (the main component in natural gas) using thermochemical methods (gasification and synthesis). There are One Billion Tons of biomass available each year in the U.S. that can be converted to fuels (USDA/DOE Billion Ton Study) and this is after all the required biomass is left on the land for healthy soil. The biochar left over from the process is returned to the soil to make it even healthier. That makes more than 140 billion therms of synthetic methane for use in buses, trucks and cars. The synthetic methane gets there using the same natural gas pipes we have NOW. No new refineries, tankers trucks, gasoline and diesel tanks leading into the ground.

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Permalink Reply by Terrence Abrams on March 13, 2009 at 5:34pm

The main problem with LG, or NG, is that the automobiles Picken's is pushing only get 1/3 to 1/2 (on a good day with no AC running) the range of any other low mileage gasoline automobile. That sucks bad! Pickens has said electric for short range, NG for long range vehicles. Well that would make ol' T.Boone richer than sin again, as cars have to charge up 3 times as often, thereby paying more for NG, and trucks, god help us, they'd be filling up ever 80 miles.

Now the better biodiesel's with the new formulated engines, hell, the Sonata, Acura, Camry class cars already get a whopping 48 mpgs highway there, roughly 37-38 city, Hybridize that, and you're cruising around 60 mpg.

Algae_Oil biodiesel and jet fuel is already being developed for all aviation carriers right now after successful test flights, and other sources of biodiesel are coming on board.

The newer biodiesels burn at 20-40% cleaner rates than gasoline or conventional diesel, and the refinement process is completely carbon-emission and pollution free.

I have to agree with the cynics, its not only T. Boone, but Obama won't push the truth either. Gulf-Chevron along with Boeing in partnership, BP, Origin Oil, and Exxon-Mobil are already becoming the leaders in this area, so the big three better have a lot of diesel cars ready. T. Boone and Obama have hard core interests in not having Big Oil become Big Energy, so niether will even talk about it much.

Obama will mention it, T. Boone has been acting like it has no chance in hell ever.

Well, his plan is dead. Bio-diesel's will save Detroit, help the environment, win the day, and NG can be put to better, low cost use to heat homes nationwide and off of coal fuels.

Taaaa-daaaa!!!