What we have here is a failure among gas industry advocates to sing the same song from the same song book.
The Dallas Morning News reported Friday that T. Boone Pickens said
"Natural gas is just a bridge," he said in a speech at the
Cape Cod ocean vista lovers have no monopoly on wanting to preserve their views. In the middle of the country, where oceans of prairie are envisioned bearing the weight of a wind-powered future, some people don't think much, either, of turbine-crowned horizons.
The Kansas Supreme Court has now upheld a county government decision banning utility-scale wind farms, which the county commissioners determined "would be incompatible with the rural, agricultural and scenic character" of the place.
Have no fear, natural gas is here, and with it are "tremendous opportunities to reduce carbon emissions by putting natural gas to more use in the electric sector," Skip Horvath, president and CEO, Natural Gas Supply Association, insisted Monday.
Horvath's assertion was prompted by a question posed in National Journal's blog by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman: Should we start swapping coal-fired power plants for natural gas-fired plants? (A timely question as the gas lobby presses for incentives in the climate change bill.)
Bingaman, a Democrat from New Mexico, said the idea was posed October 28 by Lamar McKay, chairman and president, BP America. McKay testified before Bingaman's committee "that replacing about 8-10 of these old coal plants per year in this manner would account for about 10% of the cumulative 2020 domestic emissions reduction contemplated by pending climate bills, and that these reductions would come at a cost equivalent to about $13/ton of CO2 reduced," the senator said.
"I Want to Talk About Me," Toby Keith sings, and the natural gas industry seems to be singing along. But already "It's All About You," other traditional power-fuel groups might vocalize in return, along with the youth group pureNRG. For those sectors, the conversation always seems to get around to gas, anyway.
The gas industry is still seeking more from the climate change bill Congress will pass ... sometime. Probably. After having been scolded roundly by former Senator Tim Wirth and others several months ago for having missed the boat on the issue, the gas sector got itself in gear.
It hasn't succeeded so far in getting provisions it wants the Senate to include, so the industry, along with coal and nuclear, and efficiency interests, is continuing to work senators on the issue. The Kerry-Boxer bill is the vehicle for action, though it could be viewed as only a kind of position paper: A lot of horse-trading is yet to come.
The American Petroleum Institute and
"Like the House climate change bill, the Senate's Kerry-Boxer bill would hurt our economy by killing American jobs, increasing energy costs and undermining our nation's energy security," said API President Jack Gerard, the bad cop in what is shaping up as a bad cop-good cop routine. "The cost of Kerry-Boxer is even more than the House bill, and punishes consumers and businesses that depend on transportation fuels. Anyone who drives, rides a bus, flies on an airplane or ships goods to market is likely to see their costs rise."
In a recent chat with analysts, the chairman and CEO of Schlumberger indicated that his company is willing to accept federal regulation of the widespread gas drilling practice of hydraulic fracturing.
Schlumberger is a French-American oilfield services company based in
That point of view is not shared by Bruce Vincent, incoming chairman of the Independent Petroleum Association of America. Speaking on behalf of the IPAA before the House Natural Gas Caucus the same week, he said: "Those who seek to inhibit or prevent the development of natural gas recognize the linchpin role that fracturing plays in shale gas production."
Glenn English, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, suggested Tuesday that there might be "the basis for a deal" with environmental interests on transmission-line siting, though it was not quite clear just what the elements would be. Still, it almost refreshing to have the transmission issue come up in discussion of climate-energy legislation. It hasn't gotten much play over the last few months, though it remains one of the nightmares lurking in the closet.
At a CQ-Roll Call Group event in Washington, our colleague Cathy Cash reports, English identified what is unarguably "not a scientific problem" but "a political problem. ... Are we going to have renewable energy play a major role? If so, then we're going to have to have the political will and stomach to vote the authority to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to accomplish this objective."
Overheard at the Solar Decathlon on the National Mall Sunday, the event's last day: "I almost can't wait. Can you imagine how great it would be to never go to a gas station again? Never pay an electric bill? Never have a power outage?"
This is the business that energy companies are in. A business that everybody hopes will go away.
That's not the way with most businesses. I mean, shoes, for instance: You don't hear most of us going around wishing never to have to find a cool pair of shoes again. Or fantasizing about building our own sofas.
If you build it, will they come?
Tres Amigas appears to think so. If the company builds a power hub in
But a lot needs to fall into place if the 22 square miles Tres Amigas has obtained the lease rights for is to be more than a field of dreams.
Along come the contrarians. As shale gas is hailed as the resource that will enable natural gas to be our long bridge to a low-carbon future, two people in one day call the thought a bubble that needs to be burst.
The director of a geoscience consulting firm told a Denver meeting that shale gas companies have been seriously overstating reserves that can be produced commercially. He said they are promoting two miracles, our colleague John Kingston reports: that producing shale gas can be both low-risk and high-reward, and that an exploration venture can have both high capital costs and low gas prices -- "and still make lots of money."
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