Demand for Natural Gas Brings Big Import Plans

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Demand for Natural Gas Brings Big Import Plans, and Objections

By SIMON ROMERO
Published: June 15, 2005
Just as the 19th century was shaped by coal and the 20th century by oil, people in the energy industry say, this century will belong to natural gas. But to judge by the battle over energy legislation that began yesterday in Congress, it will not happen easily.
The New York Times

International energy companies, the Bush administration and governments in gas-rich countries are aggressively championing the creation of a global market for natural gas, with the United States at its center as the largest importer. They are promoting the fuel as more plentiful and less polluting than oil and needed to sustain economic growth.

But in the same way that American oil output began to fall short in the 1960's and has steadily diminished as a source of energy, the United States is already running low on its own production of natural gas. To fill the gap, vast amounts of gas will have to be imported - in liquefied form, arriving by tanker on the coasts of the United States or elsewhere in North America.

Like oil, large reserves of natural gas are found far from the big markets for the fuel, in countries like Qatar, Iran, Russia, Angola, Yemen and Algeria. Competition for gas projects in these places has prompted a frenetic race among international oil companies to meet demand for the fuel in rich industrialized countries.

continued
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/business/15gas.html?th&emc=th

In reading this article my first thought was out of the frying pan and into the fire. We are falling into the same trap. Having to rely on foreign sources for our energy needs. Instead of OPEC it will be GEPC or something similar that would have the US in a strangle hold. In addition the transport and handling of the commodity would appear to be far more dangerous and difficult than oil.
I understand the need for fuel what I do not understand is why the US governments energy policy does not include adequate [no matter what it takes} funding to support the development of alternate renewable sources of energy. That it would seem IMO should be a national priority rather than something on the back burner.

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The US needs a renewable energy policy and program but that doesn't eliminate the need for natural gas in the mean time. We could use nuclear, wind, solar, etc.. to produce electricity at centralized facilities but you aren't going to see a nuclear stove or furnace in homes or even industrial plants.

Natural gas is a much better option in the mean time than coal is. It's going to be 20-30 years minimum before something else comes along to replace fossil fuels completely. Why not use the natural gas in something productive? Just venting it into the atmosphere isn't going to help anyone with the global warming issue.

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Fishin
I was not suggesting that natural gas not be used. What I was decrying was the governments lack of effort in the development of alternate sources of energy.

And In addition pointing out that we are traveling the same road as we do with oil. Depending on as sources some of the most volitile areas of the world.
If it were not for the need to protect the worlds source of supply of oil. Would we now be involved in Iraq or for that matter Saudi Arabia, Iran and etc.?

They will continue to have us by the short hairs.

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A new fuel fix: boon or bane?

Quote:

The US increases natural-gas imports to meet energy demands. Will it create a new dependency?

By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

FALL RIVER, MASS. – Climbing to the top of a dizzyingly curved stairway welded to the side of a huge cylindrical tank, Tom Gehrig thinks he can see America's energy future. It's a gargantuan tank - dwarfing the one he's standing on - which he would build here in Fall River, Mass., to hold 200,000 cubic meters of imported liquefied natural gas. LNG would help meet the United States' growing energy needs, but this project has sparked protests by residents of this working-class city, worried about terrorist attacks. "I'm a believer in free markets," says Mr. Gehrig, president of Weaver's Cove Energy, gazing across the site. "If people don't want LNG, the question I would ask them back is: 'What are you going to do?' "

What indeed?

For three decades, the US has coped - sometimes uncomfortably - with its growing reliance on foreign oil. But at least that dependence was limited to transportation, while domestic coal and gas continued to power the nation's factories and heat its homes. Now, the rising price of domestic natural gas has triggered a plan to dampen those price hikes by bringing in foreign LNG.

That may be smart economics, at least in the short term. But some analysts worry that in the long run, the US may be setting itself up to become dependent on a second foreign fuel, just as it has become increasingly dependent on foreign oil since the 1970s.

"All we're talking about doing is replacing one dependency with another," says Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington, D.C., a think tank focused on energy security issues. "The main sources of natural gas are located in the Middle East and Russia. So we're talking about the same sort of problem."

Continued
http://csmonitor.com/2005/0623/p13s01-sten.html

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Demand for Natural Gas Brings Big Import Plans

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