X-Message-Number: 22576 From: "Mark Plus" <> Subject: Study Calls for More Natural Gas Sources Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 09:25:57 -0700 More evidence that fossil fuels depletion is starting to kill industrial civilization, as Richard C. Duncan predicts in his "Olduvai Theory" (http://dieoff.com/page224.htm). Put this in context with OPEC's cutback in oil production and the rash of blackouts and brownouts industrialized societies have experienced this year, ranging from New Zealand to Japan to Western Europe to the U.S. [Mark Plus]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60756-2003Sep24?language=printer washingtonpost.com Study Calls for More Natural Gas Sources Much Higher Prices Are Inevitable Without Major Policy Changes, Group Warns By Peter Behr Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, September 25, 2003; Page E03 A major energy study by the Bush administration and industry leaders warns that the nation's conventional natural gas production is irreversibly declining and consumers will pay $1 trillion in higher gas prices in the next 20 years unless new sources are rapidly developed. The National Petroleum Council study calls for changes in federal policies to accelerate imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), construction of a natural gas pipeline from Alaska, and increased drilling in currently protected federal lands and coastal areas in the lower 48 states. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is to release the study today, as Republican congressional leaders try to complete a package of new energy laws to submit to the House and Senate before Congress adjourns in October. The doubling of natural gas prices over the past two years results from a "fundamental shift" in the U.S. supply-and-demand balance for gas. Dwindling conventional production cannot keep up with a growing use of gas to generate electricity, the NPC said. Gas prices are more than $5 per thousand cubic feet for November delivery and had climbed to more than $6 during the Iraq war -- a level that has battered U.S. production of chemicals and other products made with gas. The study warns that prices will rise to more than $7 per thousand cubic feet in the next two decades even with construction of an Alaskan gas pipeline, increased energy conservation and an increase in LNG imports. To restrain these prices, new policies are required to open more protected lands in the Rocky Mountain region to gas development and to gain even larger imports of LNG, the report said. The NPC's most controversial proposal may be its recommendation for lifting current moratoriums on gas production off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and in the Gulf of Mexico near the Florida Panhandle. Other studies of the natural gas outlook have reached similar conclusions about the risks of declining conventional production. The NPC report will face a certain attack from environmental groups that oppose expanded gas drilling on protected federal lands. "The report will be replete with such code words as 'balance' and 'supply diversity' that we believe are euphemisms" for more drilling, said Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust, an environmental lobbying group. But a spokesman for industrial gas users said the report shows that congressional proposals for increased gas development haven't gone far enough. "The NPC report demonstrates that the natural gas provisions in the current energy bill don't provide the solution to one of our nation's toughest problems -- high prices that have caused the loss of jobs and contributed to our nation's economic downturn," said Greg Lebedev, president and chief executive of the American Chemistry Council. _________________________________________________________________ Get MSN 8 Dial-up Internet Service FREE for one month. Limited time offer-- sign up now! http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22576