Deutch: don't obsess over the BP disaster; instead look ahead on gas
Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 12:04AM 
John Deutch (MIT and former gov bigwig) is the latest to tout the "revolution" on the horizon. He worries that accidents like BP's Gulf disaster or Three Mile Island (great example) have too much lasting--and negative--impact on US energy policy.
Actually, the entire Core stands to benefit from the shale gas revolution, as it re-empowers a host of countries who previously viewed themselves as energy dependent.
Two huge impacts:
- Short-run: gas crowds out coal in electricity generation--crucial for coal-gobbling China especially (although hard to shift percentages when your energy use grows that fast); and
- Long run: gas becomes more attractive for transportation.
Guess who leads the world in NG use in transpo?
That would be Pakistan, with 2.4m vehicles and 3000 fueling stations. The US has only 100k vehicles and 1300 stations, meaning gas now accounts for 0.1% of the 12mbd oil we use for transpo.
As energy "independence" arguments go (I usually hate them), this one is pretty sound.
Reader Comments (2)
There is a lot of controversy over fracking. For example, homeowners in the Catskills are terribly worried about the potential for water table pollution, and they are fighting the companies who want to start up there. (There is history of money buying legislation there, so it may be a losing battle.) But there does not seem to be enough credible research or experience regarding the water table issue, and it is hard to take the word of companies who are trying to push this technique of extraction through, after the disasters caused by Exxon and BP. This may indeed be a way towards real energy independence, and we can take that broad view of it, but if one's family's drinking water is threatened, how broad a view can one accept.
Although this may seem irrelevant, I also refer you to the case of Centralia, a little publicized coal disaster that started in 1962 and is ongoing. I was there, in 1965. It is one sad and scary place. http://www.offroaders.com/album/centralia/centralia.htm
While natural gas, IMO, is preferable to both crude-based products for transportation and coal for electrical power generation, it seems that most of the newly-discovered supplies are all in the "unconventionl" camp and require "fracking" (hydraulic fracturing) to fully exploit.
what is your opinion on the environmental effects of this process?