Cincinnatus BLOG *** Political Commentary - Social Commentary

The key to producing less carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels is to use the fuel with the lowest carbon to hydrogen ratio. Coal is the least desirable because there are roughly 2 carbons for each hydrogen; oil is cleaner because it has the inverse ratio of approximately one carbon for 2 hydrogen molecules; and best of all is methane (CH₄), with 4 hydrogen molecules for each carbon molecule. Although natural gas is primarily methane, it does contain, some longer chain hydrocarbons such as ethane, propane, butane, pentane etc. that make it slightly less desirable than pure methane. Thus, the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions when natural gas is substituted for gasoline in an automobile is about 25-30%.

In addition, natural gas vehicles reduce carbon monoxide emissions 90-97%, reduce Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) emissions 35-60%, emit fewer toxic and carcinogenic pollutants, emit little or no particulate matter, and eliminate evaporative emissions i.e. Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). (When NOx and VOCs react in the presence of sunlight, they form photochemical smog.)

Natural gas is not the perfect solution to our need for a clean transportation fuel but it is certainly a good one and one that can be deployed in tens of millions of standard size vehicles in a relatively short period of time. The perfect solution will take at least a decade or two to be developed for standard size cars and trucks. Voltaire had it right: Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien or “the perfect is the enemy of the good”. Waiting for the perfect solution to emerge may be preventing us from adopting good policy today.

There is a surfeit of natural gas and with the advent of new technology more is being discovered all the time. According to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy 2008, proven global natural gas reserves increased approximately 23%, to 6,405 trillion cubic feet between 1996 and 2006.

But someone forgot to give the news to the Department of Energy. In their “Annual Energy Outlook 2008 with Projections to 2030″ the DOE states that “total natural gas consumption increases from 21.7 trillion cubic feet in 2006 to a peak value of 23.8 trillion cubic feet in 2016, followed by a decline to 22.7 trillion cubic feet in 2030″. Talk about being behind the curve! By the way, natural gas is a lot cheaper than oil.

In the 1980’s, a Houston wildcatter named George Mitchell drilled the first well into the Barnett Shale formation that stretches through north and central Texas. It took almost two decades and a substantial investment to develop the horizontal, hydraulic technology essential to bringing that gas to the surface. But today there are nearly 7,500 gas wells in the Barnett Shale and last year it alone produced 1.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. This technological breakthrough has lead to an impressive increase in domestic natural gas production, up 8% in 2008, from 52.97 to 57.14 billion cubic feet per day. This growth is expected to continue as new wells are drilled in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, and we begin to look at massive new reserves in Appalachia and Canada. One additional benefit of this rapid rise in domestic production has been the dramatic reduction in importation of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).

Shale - the dense rock formations that are common in many parts of the United States has long been known to hold natural gas. The success of the Barnett Shale technology has created a frenzy of activity in locating and exploiting domestic natural gas. The recently discovered Haynesville Shale in northwest Louisiana and East Texas has an estimated 250 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas, five times as much as the Barnett Shale. The Marcellus Shale formation in Appalachia could be even bigger. By one industry estimate, US shale could hold as much as 840 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. To put that in perspective 840 trillion cubic feet of natural gas is the equivalent of more than 140 billion barrels of oil, or put another way more than half the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Demand is growing, but more slowly than supplies. In 2008, U.S. consumption of natural gas was up 5.5%, spurred largely by a gradual shift from coal power plants to cleaner burning gas-fired ones. Surprisingly, natural gas suppliers are looking for new outlets for their cheaper, cleaner fuel. Could be that too many people took the Department of Energy’s projections seriously and concluded that natural gas is not a significant part of our clean energy future.

Not only can natural gas be used as it is now to heat 50% of the homes in America, it can cleanly fire more power plants and can be used as a less expensive substitute for gasoline while producing 25-30% less carbon dioxide emissions.

While there are only about 130,000 Natural Gas Vehicles (NGV) in the U.S there are nearly 4.5 million of these alternative fuel vehicles worldwide, mainly in Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, Italy, Germany and India. In Italy alone there are more than 400,000 NGV’s, demonstrating that this is not a pie-in-the-sky idea, but one that is easily implemented.

Europe has adopted this technology and has built the infrastructure to support it. Germany has nearly 800 compressed natural gas filling stations and Italy 600. The major automobile manufacturers Volvo, Mercedes etc. all produce natural gas and bi-fuel cars. Unfortunately, the Honda Civic GX is the only production car available in the United States that runs on compressed natural gas and, in spite of the fact that is probably the cleanest mainstream car on the road today, it is only sold officially in New York and California where there are sufficient fueling stations to support it. Honda does offer a home refueling kit called “Phill” that taps the natural gas entering the home, but it requires 12 hours to fill the tank. Even so, it is capable of powering the car for 200-250 miles.

Natural Gas only has three things going for it - it’s Clean, Cheap and American. The only potential problem is that if we don’t switch to clean natural gas quickly enough we could cause a glut and make it uneconomical to continue to bring new supplies on-line.