Why is Natural Gas Priced So High?
Over the weekend a discussion about prices of natural gas came up. Why is natural gas so high priced? It isn’t a petroleum by-product or anything. And we’re supposed to have plenty of the stuff. Well by time I looked everything up, it turns out we have a natural gas shortage on the way. Production of natural gas has been declining for a while. Hurricane Katrina didn’t help the offshore drilling for natural gas in the gulf either.
What I found while looking to find why natural gas prices are high is that most of our power plants are fueled with natural gas. So when we use electric, natural gas is used in massive amounts by that industry. An article in Rolling Stone about all types of fossil fuels stated:
American natural-gas production is also declining, at five percent a year, despite frenetic new drilling, and disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and the acid-rain problem, the U.S. chose to make gas its first choice for electric-power generation. The result was that just about every power plant built after 1980 has to run on gas. Half the homes in America are heated with gas. To further complicate matters, gas isn’t easy to import. Here in North America, it is distributed through a vast pipeline network. Gas imported from overseas would have to be compressed at minus-260 degrees Fahrenheit in pressurized tanker ships and unloaded (re-gasified) at special terminals, of which few exist in America. Moreover, the first attempts to site new terminals have met furious opposition because they are such ripe targets for terrorism.
Not good. I also caught an article about Conoco Phillips being prepared to fund a new natural gas pipeline off the north slope of Alaska through Canada to us down here. It would cost over 30 billion dollars. But it wasn’t clear the route they plan to take and the environmental impact this pipeline would make. The article made it appear CP wasn’t concerned with government funding for the project, which usually means they can circumvent any major regulations, by the government.
The NRDC had an article particularly about any proposed pipelines for natural gas out of Alaska. Are they on their toes or what? Until everyone gets the details of just how Conoco Phillips plans on building this pipeline and through where, everyone needs to rethink yet another unrenewable fuel.
Despite everything I read, our demands are so high that if the energy source is not renewable on a mass scale, we are just buying ourselves a quick fix not a cure. Read all the articles below. They each give a perspective. I can see that there just may be an alternative in the mix that will keep the environment safe, offer a tremendous service that will give us enough natural gas until we come up with a permanent fix, not to mention a lot of jobs will be created for that pipeline. It’s little too early to tell if this is a good feasible idea.
I know I like to stay warm in the winter, and prefer gas because I live in the country. My mother always said to have a gas stove in the country. You will always have food and warmth if the power fails. We also have a wall unit with no electronics. If the pilot is on, I have heat even without electricity. But I’m hoping that with so many incredible advances I’ve seen and read about, we might not need a pipeline anytime soon. I have to think that maybe by time that pipeline is finished, it could end up being an outmoded energy solution. What I do know is that we better get moving on something we can all live with well into the future.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7203633/the_long_emergency
http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/rep/chap3.asp.
http://enews.earthlink.net/article/bus?guid=20071130/4750ea50_3ca6_1552620071201-448662628.