Douglas Korthof

Shale Gas: Promises, Promises, Promises

Tom, of course you're right. Natural gas is a funny commodity; we've really got too much of it, not a shortage. Like electric, it seems impossible to use much of it. Curiously, the price per 1000 c.f. (about $8, say) translates by rule of thumb to the cost per kWh in pennies (8 cents, that is) for generation of electric in a modern combined-cycle natural gas power plant.

Ironically, electric and natural gas is massively used in the oil extraction and refining industries; because it's so cheap, almost "free", it's used to explore, extract and refine difficult petroleum deposits. Also ironically, the natural gas (and electric) it takes to make a barrel of petroleum would take a CNG or all-electric car about the same distance as the REST of the barrel takes an oil-fired car. That is, we could just leave the oil in the ground, for using the electric and natural gas to travel the same number of miles, even in individual cars and CNG trucks.

But rationality plays no part in the charade of making oil to fuel oil-fired vehicles, and plump-up the wallet of multi-national oil companies that have no loyalty to US.