Top energy business story of 2011-US NG price "free-fall"

[edatoakrun]

I have been benefitting with lower cost for my hot water heating (by NG) and electric bill that is generated by a good portion of NG. So have been thinking more about what I can do as an individual by adding solar hot water heater and photo voltaic solar for electric.

gascant's company is combining solar hot water & PV...
I forget the name of it but I'm sure he'll speak up.

I don't believe that quote is mine.

I wish I had N G. I use (considerably more expensive) propane, for my stove and to back up my solar water heater.

 

[Herm]

While sacrificing our fresh water supplies i'm many of the areas the gas is coming from.
Was that mentioned as well?

Thats overblown, lots of complaints about methane in well water decades before any fracking was done.. I'm sure accidents can happen but they are very rare.

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

Given the amount of methane being released "naturally" into the atmosphere as the ice melts, we may be screwed no matter what we do.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...arctic-ocean-as-sea-ice-retreats-6276278.html

 

[Nekota]

Given the amount of methane being released "naturally" into the atmosphere as the ice melts, we may be screwed no matter what we do.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...arctic-ocean-as-sea-ice-retreats-6276278.html

If you want to slow things down then a "Carrington Event" might raise some awareness of our fragile existence but I think we would be much worse off if one of those 500 year events came our way soon.

 

[AndyH]

While sacrificing our fresh water supplies i'm many of the areas the gas is coming from.
Was that mentioned as well?

Thats overblown, lots of complaints about methane in well water decades before any fracking was done.. I'm sure accidents can happen but they are very rare.

That's a BS diversion, Herm. The focus is on the water that starts to burn AFTER the area is drilled and fracked - not the areas of which you speak.

Don't get hung up on the post-frac damage anyway, Herm, as that's only part of the problem.

http://www.hydraulicfracturing.com/Water-Usage/Pages/Information.aspx
http://www.shalegaswiki.com/index.php/Amount_of_Water_Used
http://www.chk.com/media/educationa.../marcellus/marcellus_water_use_fact_sheet.pdf
http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/eagleford/wateruse.php

It's reported to take between 65,000 and 600,000 gallons of water to DRILL each well, and another 3.5-6.5 million gallons per well for hydraulic fracturing. (Note these are all pro-industry numbers...)

As for down here - see "Eagle Ford Shale" and "We Need Water to Drill and Frack" and "Texas Remains in an Extreme Drought that May Last Until 2020 and Some Towns are Importing Water By Truck"...

And just like potato chips - they don't drill just one...

 

[Herm]

are there any brackish aquifers nearby they can use?.. no need to use fresh water for fracking.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

watched a show about it. 60-80 truck loafs of water to frack but only 30-40 truck loads of water removed from the well. So half of the water going in does not come back. So where does it go? Usually right into the water table where it end up in the well with a direct line to the gas pockets that were previously sequestered in impermeable rock

 

[edatoakrun]

NYT OP-Ed today proposes using the NG glut to produce methanol, yet another contender for the successor to gasoline, as ICEV vehicle fuel.

Tom Ridge, a former governor of Pennsylvania, was secretary of homeland security from 2003 to 2005. Mary E. Peters was secretary of transportation from 2006 to 2009. They are members of the United States Energy Security Council.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/opinion/methanol-as-an-alternative-to-gasoline.html?_r=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

PRESIDENT Obama recently called the United States the “Saudi Arabia of natural gas” and asserted that it was time for our oil-dominated transportation fuel market to open the door to natural gas. He’s right. It would be cheaper for consumers and reduce the strategic importance of oil. But first we need cars that can run on methanol, a high-octane fuel made from converted natural gas...

Natural gas can also play other roles in the transportation sector. It can be used to generate electricity to charge the plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles that have entered the market...

Still, mass-market penetration of plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles will take some time, because of the high cost of automotive batteries...

Well, at least they seem to implicitly acknowledge that the huge program they are proposing is an exercise in planned obsolescence.

What they get wrong, IMO, is that using any natural gas derived fuel in an ICEV, has already been replaced by electricity generation and BEVs, as the "best use" for this resource.

 

[edatoakrun]

Today's WSJ has a couple of articles on the NG glut and new NGVs:

MARKETSMARCH 5, 2012, 10:44 A.M. ET.

Natural Gas Eyes Decade Low

NEW YORK—Natural-gas futures prices dropped 4% early Monday, as the latest weather forecasts show above-normal temperatures spreading across most of the U.S. into the second half of March...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203458604577263283091161056.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And it looks like Detroit has finally noticed:

U.S. auto makers are introducing pickup trucks powered by natural gas as they look to catch the growing wave of interest in the fuel as an alternative to gasoline.

On Tuesday, Chrysler Group LLC plans to disclose it will build the first production-line pickup truck powered by natural gas. The auto maker is promising to build at least 2,000 heavy-duty Ram bi-fuel trucks that run on a combination of compressed natural gas and gasoline starting in June.

General Motors Co. on Monday plans to disclose it will offer bi-fuel Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra 2500 pickups in the fourth quarter. ...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203986604577257770238882852.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[Stoaty]

Here is the view of one of the climatologists, Ken Caldeira:

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/03/12/442484/ken-caldeira-natural-gas-is-bridge-to-a-world-with-high-co2-levels-deployment-is-to-rampd-as-elephant-to-mouse/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"I see natural gas as a bridge fuel; unfortunately, it is a bridge to a world with high CO2 levels, melting ice caps, acidified oceans, etc.

Energy demand is going up exponentially. Dependence on fuels with fractionally lower emissions in the context of exponentially increasing overall demand is a recipe for increasing greenhouse gas emissions. So, if the goal is turn the Earth’s climate into something like what it was when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, natural gas is a good way to get there.

If we are serious about solving this problem, we cannot be further entrenching a fossil fuel industry that depends on using the atmosphere as a waste dump.

Dependence on natural gas is a delaying tactic. I just don’t understand the logic: “We will delay building the energy infrastructure that we need to solve the energy-carbon-climate problem, and build CO2 spewing natural gas plants instead, but you should be thankful that these engines of global warming aren’t as bad as what we could have built.”

The goal is not to do something that is fractionally less bad than what we are doing now; the goal is to deploy energy systems that can actually solve the problem.

Power plants, with retrofits, last 75 years or longer, so we are already building the energy infrastructure of the second half of this century. If that infrastructure is not based on near-zero-emission energy systems, we’ll find ourselves back in the Cretaceous, except this time we’ll be the dinosaurs."

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

In other words; carbon neutral is no longer good enough

 

[davewill]

In other words; carbon neutral is no longer good enough

Ummm, NO. Carbon neutral is fine, but natural gas isn't any kind of carbon neutral.

 

[edatoakrun]

It will be interesting to see where the republican party comes down, on the subject of large scale NG exports.

The big political contributors of "speech" (in re, "Citizens United...") in the petroleum industry, are practically wetting their pants, at the prospect of quadrupling the sales price of their NG, by building export facilities.

The "know-nothing", $2.50-a gallon-of-gas, tea party-ers, however, may howl about exporting our "strategic" energy, and America's large corporate NG users, whose profits are now being larded, by much lower energy costs than their foreign competitors, may throw quite a bit of "speech" the way of repub pols, also.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- At the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico along the Texas-Louisiana border, Cheniere Energy could be just weeks away from breaking ground on the first natural gas exporting facility ever built in the lower 48 states.

It's also where a new fight with echoes of the Keystone pipeline is building, pitting economic development against environmental protection.

To Cheniere (LNG) and its supporters, the 500-plus acre, $10 billion plant represents a boon for the American economy.

Known as Sabine Pass, they say the facility will support tens of thousands of jobs, raise billions in export revenue, and help put the nation on track to be an energy-exporting powerhouse.

But to critics it will greatly expand the use of hydraulic fracturing -- the controversial practice often used to extract natural gas. They also say that far from creating jobs, the plant may actually cost jobs and raise the price of natural gas in America...

http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/14/news/economy/sabine-pass-natural-gas/index.htm?section=money_news_economy&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fmoney_news_economy+%28Economy+News%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[AndyH]

In other words; carbon neutral is no longer good enough

Ummm, NO. Carbon neutral is fine, but natural gas isn't any kind of carbon neutral.

Absolutely - NG is not neutral at all.

As for neutral being good enough - have to agree with Dave. We're just under 400 parts per million CO2 after a record emission year, and methane emissions are up as well. We have to go negative for some time just to keep temperature rise to 2°C.

These is from a March 9th, 2010 presentation by Katherine Hayhoe (evangelical Republican, BTW). More current projections aren't as optimistic.

http://www.rep.org/climate_presentation.html

 

[edatoakrun]

Coal use is declining rapidly, in the US

By Joe Romm on Mar 12, 2012 at 11:10 am

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported on Friday:

… coal’s share of monthly power generation in the United States dropped below 40% in November and December 2011. The last time coal’s share of total generation was below 40% for a monthly total was March 1978. A combination of mild weather (leading to a drop in total generation) and the increasing price competitiveness of natural gas relative to coal contributed to the drop in coal’s share of total generation.

It’s a tad ironic that warming weather, driven in part by coal-fueled emissions, contributed to the drop in coal use.

Another reason for the steady decline in coal power is that the Sierra Club, with the support of centrists like Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, is working to shut down all U.S. coal plants in the Beyond Coal campaign.

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/03/12/442461/coal-power-drops-below-40-of-us-electricity-lowest-in-33-years/?mobile=nc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Of course, US coal is still finding plenty of buyers, elswhere. Most recent info I could find, is a few months old:

...Longer term factors include the contrast between declining US demand for coal and increasing European and strong rising Asian demand.

US domestic demand for coal will probably decrease from the current 44 percent of US electrical production to as low as 22 percent within the next 20 years, according to some analysts. Demand in the U.S. is dropping primarily due to new natural gas reserve discoveries and Clean Air Act regulations. [4]

In contrast, demand for coal is rapidly rising in Asia. U.S. coal exports to China surged from 2009 to 2010, jumping from 387,000 tons (January-September) to over 4 million tons the following year. Demand for US coking and steam coal also grew rapidly in Japan, India, and South Korea. Industry forecasters anticipate a “30-year super cycle in global coal markets.” U.S. companies hope to cash in on the market and dramatically increase coal exports, especially from the Powder River Basin (PRB) of Wyoming and Montana through ports on the US west coast. [5]

U.S. coal exports rose 49 percent during the first quarter of 2011 compared to the previous quarter, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration the .[6]

In November 2011 the DOE reported that six seaports on the Gulf Coast and East Coast of the United States account for the bulk of the country's coal exports. Additionally the report noted, "Six seaports accounted for 94% of U.S. coal exports in 2010, up from 63% in 2000. Over 68% of total U.S. coal exports in 2010 were coking coal, which is used in making iron and steel. Steam coal, used to generate electricity, comprised the remaining 32% of exports."[7]

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=U.S._coal_exports

 

[edatoakrun]

NG prices still falling, and bringing down kWh costs with them.

Plummeting natural-gas prices are pushing U.S. industries into virgin terrain, even beginning to dislodge cheap Western coal from its once-untouchable perch as the nation's favorite fuel for power production.

On Tuesday, natural-gas futures settled at $2.031 per million British thermal units—just a hint above $2, the lowest price since January 2002.

The shock wave for industry could intensify this summer because the U.S. is running out of room to store the glut of natural gas, which could drive gas prices down to sustained lows not seen in decades.

...The biggest winners from all this: electricity consumers. In February, Boston-based utility NSTAR told its business customers that it will cut their electricity rates 34% this spring, to 5.5 cents a kilowatt hour from 8.5 cents. In May, it expects to announce rate cuts for residential customers, too.

In many parts of the U.S., cheap gas is pushing wholesale power prices down to two cents to three cents a kilowatt hour and prompting utilities to cut rates...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303815404577335973150280672.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Its too bad we cant just store the excess for a rainy day

 

[edatoakrun]

This 87% US price decline in NG prices is now significantly larger, as a percentage, than was the worldwide crude oil price collapse of 1979 to 1987.

The soft demand for heating left the nation with more natural gas than in any March on record. Storage facilities are holding 60 percent more natural gas than usual, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The abundance has pushed prices down to just under $2 per million British thermal units from $15.38 in December 2005. Gas closed at $1.98 in Thursday trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange...

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/12/BUBI1O1TRG.DTL#ixzz1rvu491qu" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

DaveinOlyWA
Its too bad we cant just store the excess for a rainy day

I suppose we could pump the excess NG into geologically stable shale formations, from which we could retrieve it at will, in years, centuries, or millenia in the future.

Wait a minute...

 

[edatoakrun]

NG prices have bounced up the last few weeks, but the rapid shift to NG from coal for US electricity generation continues:

Power generation from coal is falling quickly. According to new figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, coal made up 36 percent of U.S. electricity in the first quarter of 2012 — down from 44.6 percent in the first quarter of 2011.

That stunning drop, which represented almost a 20 percent decline in coal generation over the last year, was primarily due to low natural gas prices. As EIA explains, natural gas generation will climb steadily this year, while coal will see a double-digit drop by the end of 2012:...

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/05/15/coal-generation-drops-19-in-1-year-in-us/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

NG prices have bounced up the last few weeks, but the rapid shift to NG from coal for US electricity generation continues:

Power generation from coal is falling quickly. According to new figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, coal made up 36 percent of U.S. electricity in the first quarter of 2012 — down from 44.6 percent in the first quarter of 2011.

That stunning drop, which represented almost a 20 percent decline in coal generation over the last year, was primarily due to low natural gas prices. As EIA explains, natural gas generation will climb steadily this year, while coal will see a double-digit drop by the end of 2012:...

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/05/15/coal-generation-drops-19-in-1-year-in-us/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

i dk about "rapid" we are shutting down our one and only coal plant for NG but the process is taking FOREVER. guessing that the coal plant needs to make back the cost of the "clean coal" upgrades installed in the 90's