Americans still haven’t come to grips with the magnitude of the Marcellus Shale revolution. Gas companies have perfected two technologies, horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking), that have unlocked trillions of cubic feet of natural gas stored in shale beds. Virtually overnight, estimates of recoverable gas reserves in the United States have doubled. The energy potential far exceeds that of Saudi Arabia.
Fracking is a controversial practice because of the contamination risk it poses to underground water reserves. At the same time, natural gas is the cleanest of all fossil-fuel energy resources. In a new paper, “Ten Reasons Why Natural Gas Will Fuel the Future,” Robert Bryce with the Manhattan Institute for Policy research, explains why the trend to “decarbonization” in energy sources makes natural gas the preferred fuel from an environmental perspective.
Carbon, when released into the atmosphere, combines with oxygen to create carbon dioxide, the gas widely implicated in global warming. Fossil fuels release a lot of carbon. Wood has a carbon-to-hydrogen ratio of about 10 to 1, make it a tremendous source of atmospheric carbon when burned. Coal has a ratio of about 2 to 1, petroleum about 1 to 1.2, and natural gas 1 to 4. If the entire energy economy of the U.S. shifted to natural gas, we would see a dramatic fall-off in carbon dioxide emissions.
Of course, there is the non-trivial matter of price. Not only is natural gas now the least expensive of the fossil fuels, the cost of installing gas-fired electrical generating capacity is less costly than the alternatives. (See top chart. Click for more legible image.) As renewable fuels like wind and solar power constitute a larger percentage of the energy mix, gas-fired capacity will become more desirable. Because wind and solar are inherently variable, power companies need to add capacity that can offset fluctuations in energy production. Gas fills the bill. Coal and nuclear do not.
There is one more reason to like gas, which Bryce does not consider. Gas is the ideal fuel for a decentralized power grid. Coal and nuclear power plants require massive scale to be economical. Gas does not. It is entirely practicable to produce competitively priced electricity with scattered, small-scale gas plants. Gas is the fuel of the “small is beautiful” movement.
Implications for Virginia: As Virginians ponder their energy future, they need to consider two things. First, what energy mix do we want to build our electric-power infrastructure around? Should we be building more natural-gas facilities, and if so, where should we build them and what are the implications for the design of the electric power grid?
Second, what can Virginia do to produce more natural gas? The commonwealth will never be a major oil producer, but it has significant deposits in the coalfields and, potentially, offshore. The offshore drilling debate usually focuses on the merits of drilling for oil. But the BTUs buried off Virginia’s coast are more likely to come in the form of gas. Oil drilling raises fears of oil spills, some legitimate, some hysterical and ill informed. But I’ve never heard of a “gas spill.” Is there a compromise between drill-baby-drill and the environmentalists that would allow drilling for gas but not oil? Something to think about.
