• Natural gas is the cleanest of the fossil fuels. Combustion of natural gas emits 30% less carbon dioxide than oil, and 45% less carbon dioxide than coal.
• Even if we used natural gas to totally replace coal generation electricity, domestic supplies would last for 50 years.
• Natural gas is used many ways, including as a source for heating, as fuel for electricity generation, and even as a power source for buses and other motor vehicles.
• Demand for natural gas is growing. It is relatively cheap, and the United States largely meets its needs with domestic sources. Even fossil fuel skeptics acknowledge natural gas as "an important bridge" to a renewable energy future.
• Energy analysts expect natural-gas prices to say low because of weak demand in the slumping economy – which isn’t the best of news for renewable energy in the short term.
• Natural gas fired combined cycle generation units can be up to 60% energy efficient, whereas coal and oil generation units are typically only 30 to 35% efficient.

Betting big on a boom in natural gas
Businessweek 2009
U.S. gas producers, capitalizing on a technological breakthrough, have in recent years unlocked an enormous volume of natural gas in the shale rock under Colorado, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, and other states.

Supply estimates for natural gas are so vast and the plunge in prices so steep that they're forcing business leaders to rethink their long-term energy strategies—quickly. Utilities are debating whether to retrofit coal plants for gas. Big corporations are beginning to convert large truck fleets from oil-based gasoline to natural gas. Even renewable-energy players are jumping in: As they try to coax more power from unpredictable wind and solar generators, they're finding that inexpensive natural gas helps keep their output steady.

Natural gas rush stirs environmental concerns
ABCnews 2008
Advanced drilling techniques that blast millions of gallons of water into 400-million-year-old shale formations a mile underground are opening up unconventional gas fields touted as a key to the nation's energy future. These deposits, where natural gas is so tightly locked in deep rocks that it's costly and complicated to extract, include the Barnett shale in Texas, the Fayetteville of Arkansas, and the Haynesville of Louisiana. But the mother lode is the Marcellus shale underlying the Appalachians. Penn State geoscientist Terry Engelder believes it could supply the natural gas needs of the United States for 14 years.

The technology that has raised concern involves horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. The latest technology, known as "slick water fracturing," uses far more water than earlier methods, 1 million to 5 million gallons for each fracking operation.

Unconventional gas will soon dominate U.S. production
Platts 2008
Higher gas prices and significant technological advances have led to a dramatic increase in production of unconventional gas resources in recent years, and that trend is expected to continue unabated, according to a study. By 2020, 69% of US gas production and 43% of Canadian gas will come from unconventional plays, said the report prepared by energy consultant ICF International.

U.S. awash in natural gas
Energy Tribune 2009
It’s abundantly clear that the U.S. has enormous quantities of natural gas – more gas than was ever thought possible. Thanks to the revolution in shale gas drilling and completion techniques, the US now likely has a century’s worth of gas available – without having to even think about imports.

Horizontal drilling and multi-stage fracking have radically reshaped the natural gas industry, from one where companies drilled a few wells in a given location in an effort to recover relatively small pockets of gas, to a situation where “resource plays” and the “gas factory” have become accepted industry lingo.

U.S. gas reserves at
31-year record
Oil & Gas Journal 2008
The United States finished 2007 with dry natural gas reserves at a record peak after additions more than doubled production, the US Energy Information Administration reported on Oct. 16. Total US year-end proved gas reserves reached 237.7 trillion cubic feet, 13% higher than their level at the end of 2006 and the highest level in the 31 years, the US Department of Energy forecasting and statistical agency said. The dry gas reserve additions mostly reflected development of unconventional gas resources including shale, coalbed methane and tight low-permeability formations. Application of advanced technologies such as horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing has made many of these unconventional resources economic to develop, it noted.

Shell discovers massive Norwegian gas field
Wall Street Journal 2009
Royal Dutch Shell PLC said that it made a natural-gas discovery in the Norwegian Sea that could be the country's biggest find since the giant field Ormen Lange was found in 1997.

The gas discovery, called Gro, is estimated to hold 10 billion to 100 billion cubic meters of recoverable gas, the country's Petroleum Directorate said, adding that the find is located in the deepest water of any Norwegian discovery to date.

Run cars on electricity, not natural gas
Earth Policy Institute 2008
While the idea of running U.S. vehicles on natural gas has received a great deal of attention, powering our cars with electricity is a more sensible option on all fronts—national security, efficiency, climate stabilization, and economics. Hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), like the Chevy Volt slated for sale in 2010, can use the existing electric infrastructure. Battery charging would occur mostly at night, when demand for electricity is low.

Burning natural gas in a new combined cycle power plant is three times as efficient as burning natural gas in a car. So keeping natural gas in the electric sector to help power a fleet of PHEVs is therefore the logical choice.

Driving with electricity is far cheaper than driving with gasoline or natural gas. The average new U.S. car can travel roughly 30 miles on a gallon of gasoline, which cost $3.91 in July 2008. Traveling the same distance with natural gas costs around $2.51, while with electricity it cost around 73¢.

While the price of residential electricity in the United States has increased only 30% since 1995, the price of natural gas has more than tripled due to rising demand and production costs. With the fast-industrializing economies of China and India expected to compete with the United States for natural gas, prices will likely continue their sharp upward trend.

America's natural gas revolution
Wall Street Journal 2009
The biggest energy innovation of the decade is natural gas—more specifically what is called "unconventional" natural gas.

Some call it a revolution. Yet the natural gas revolution has unfolded with no great fanfare, no grand opening ceremony, no ribbon cutting. It just crept up. In 1990, unconventional gas—from shales, coal-bed methane and so-called "tight" formations—was about 10% of total U.S. production. Today it is around 40%, and growing fast, with shale gas by far the biggest part.

It transforms the debate over generating electricity. In the face of new climate regulations, the increased availability of gas will likely lead to more natural gas consumption in electric power because of gas's relatively lower CO2 emissions. Natural gas power plants can also be built more quickly than coal-fired plants.

Natural gas: climate action game changer
Grist 2009
The increasing supply of U.S. natural gas may be the single biggest game changer for climate action in the next two decades. Other than energy efficiency and conservation, the lowest-cost option for achieving large-scale CO2 reductions by 2020 is simply replacing electricity produced by coal with natural gas.

Modern natural gas combined cycle plant has 60% lower CO2 emissions than a typical coal plant — and substantially lower (if not near-zero) emissions of a variety of toxic pollutants harmful to human health, perhaps most notably mercury.

Natural gas changes the energy map
Technology Review 2009
Experts now believe that the country has far more natural gas at its disposal than anyone thought three or four years ago. The revised estimates are largely due to advanced drilling techniques that make it economically feasible to extract the fuel from shale.

There is enough natural gas to supply the country for 90 years at current consumption rates. Even if we used natural gas to totally replace coal in generating electricity, domestic supplies would last for 50 years.

USA gas reserves contain more energy than Saudi Arabia's oil
Wall Street Journal 2009
According to the authoritative Potential Gas Committee, the U.S. sits on top of massive reservoirs of natural gas—an estimated 2,000 trillion cubic feet—that contain more energy than all the oil in Saudi Arabia.

Natural gas is already cheap, available and ready to meet the nation's power needs while improving climate security. It emits about half the carbon dioxide per British thermal unit of energy, and far fewer of the heavy metals than does coal.

U.S. natural gas supplies surge
Wall Street Journal 2009
The amount of natural gas available for production in the U.S. has soared 58% in the past four years, driven by a drilling boom and the discovery of huge new gas fields in Texas, Louisiana and Pennsylvania, a new study says.

How natural gas vehicles work
HowStuffWorks.com
Natural-gas vehicles use the same basic principles as gasoline-powered vehicles. They mix fuel with air in the cylinder of a four-stroke engine then ignite it with a spark plug to move pistons up and down.

Most NGVs operate using compressed natural gas so the fuel takes up less space. At a fueling station, gas is compressed to 3,000-3,600 pounds per square inch before being pumped into high-pressure, cylinders. An NGV can be fueled at a "fast-fill" pump in about the same time it takes to fuel any gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicle. Alternatively, an NGV can be fueled in five to eight hours using a "slow-fill" method. The home refueling stations offered by Honda are of the slow-fill variety, requiring car owners to refuel their vehicles overnight.

The biggest advantages of NGVs are they reduce environmentally harmful emissions and, on average, natural gas costs one-third less than gasoline at the pump.

Natural-gas vehicles can achieve up to a 93 percent reduction in carbon monoxide emissions, 33 percent reduction in emissions of various oxides of nitrogen and a 50 percent reduction in reactive hydrocarbons when compared to gasoline vehicles. PM10 particles transport and deposit toxic materials through the air. NGVs that operate in diesel applications can reduce particulate matter 10 (PM10) emissions by a factor of 10.

NGVs, however, give up precious cargo and trunk space to accommodate the fuel storage cylinders. Not only that, these cylinders can be expensive to design and build -- a contributing factor to the higher overall costs of a natural-gas vehicle compared to a gasoline-powered car.