Natural Gas

[Orange_Juice]

Here is an interesting story from Utah about cars converting to natural gas.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/business/30gascars.html?th&emc=th


I've been closely watching the stock market this week and all the companies involved in making things to drill natural gas are shooting higher in price as they have discovered how to get the gas deeper in the ground.

Also, this means that solar energy is a no go for awahile because this gas boom will keep natural gas prices cheap.

 

[Mr. H.]

Very prophetic. Hydraulic fracturing. And see how far it's come in the last 4 years?

Today, natural gas is less than half the price it was when this thread was started.

 

[waltky]

GM offers NG option on cars...

GM chief touts a new way to gas up that Chevy
March 7, 2013 - The head of General Motors called Wednesday for a national panel to craft a long-term energy policy built on the nation's newfound bounty of natural gas and tight oil.

Daniel Akerson, who has served as GM's chairman and CEO since 2010, also said his company is building more natural gas vehicles - including ones that can run on either compressed natural gas or gasoline until the natural gas is more widely available - in order to take advantage of the cheaper, cleaner burning fuel. Akerson spoke Wednesday at the IHS CERAWeek energy conference, and his call for a long-term national energy policy echoed that of other executives, who said companies are reluctant to invest in multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects without some assurance of where the country is headed. "Everywhere you look, there's an opportunity to seize the energy high ground," Akerson said.

He suggested that President Barack Obama name a "blue-ribbon commission" made up of energy producers and consumers, tasked with developing a plan to take advantage of the oil and gas that new technology is unlocking from shale and other tight rock. That would include raising the nation's standard of living with affordable energy, cleaner air and water and a lower trade deficit, he said. Similar panels, notably the Simpson-Bowles commission charged with finding a way to lower the national deficit, have failed. But Akerson said after the speech that he's not discouraged. "There's a clear need, and it has long-term impact on many levels," he said. That could be said of Simpson-Bowles, he acknowledged. "Call me a fool, but I'll take another tilt at the windmill."

While many CERA- Week speakers are from energy companies, Akerson said GM and other automakers have earned a place at the table for developing a comprehensive energy policy - which he noted has eluded American presidents dating back to Nixon - because light-duty cars and trucks consume 60 percent of transportation energy in the United States. He talked about the success GM and the rest of the industry have had in improving fuel efficiency, after some difficult years in which they produced cars that consumers didn't really want. GM will meet the next level of mileage standards without sacrificing the "cool" factor, he promised.

And he said GM's increased efficiency will save 12 billion gallons of fuel over the life of the vehicles it builds between 2011 and 2017. He said that will conserve 675 million barrels of oil, nearly equal to the amount the U.S. imported from Persian Gulf states in 2011. But Akerson also joined a growing chorus calling for expanding a refueling network to provide compressed natural gas and liquefied natural gas. There has been a movement for long-haul trucks and smaller fleet vehicles to be converted from diesel to natural gas to take advantage of the lower-cost fuel. But a lack of refueling stations has kept the movement small.

Akerson said a 5,000-vehicle light-duty fleet could save $10 million or more a year by switching to compressed natural gas. To capitalize on that, GM recently included among its products 3/4-ton pickups that can run on gasoline or natural gas and compressed natural gas-powered vans, he said. He singled out Clean Energy Fuels for its work in building a national LNG refueling chain, and stopped short of saying the government should mandate a nationwide natural gas refueling infrastructure. But he noted that most residential neighborhoods have natural gas service that could supply refueling facilities.

Source

 

[editec]

I think you can expect a blowback in the natural gas pricing.

The public objection to FRACKING isn't going away.

As more and more evidence comes to light about how toxic this process is, and as more and more Americans find the ground waters polluted, FRACKING is going to get way more expensive, hence the market for nature gas is going to drive the cost up.

 

[RGR]

I think you can expect a blowback in the natural gas pricing.

The public objection to FRACKING isn't going away.

As more and more evidence comes to light about how toxic this process is, and as more and more Americans find the ground waters polluted, FRACKING is going to get way more expensive, hence the market for nature gas is going to drive the cost up.

NIMBY will never go away, so you are right in that regard. But the process being toxic? The misunderstandings and ignorance that NIMBY is based on doesn't make the process toxic.