MIT Technology Review / Natural Gas Changes the Energy Map

COMMENT: According to the CIA’s website as of January 2008, the United States has the sixth largest proven reserves of natural gas in the world and as much or close to as much as many OPEC members. The exception to this is Iran which has about 5 times the reserves of the U.S. Russia has roughly 7.5 times the amount of proven natural gas that the United States has and leads to world. Natural gas is cleaner than both coal and oil and could be cheaper, but there are trade offs. First, over the long term it may turn out that natural gas is not as abundant as oil and coal have been and could become more expensive to extract in places. Second, if there are subsidies or other incentives to drill, transport and use natural gas then other technologies may be under researched and innovation could slow. The article has a great example of what happened to Britain in the 1980s after the country discovered large natural gas deposits in the North Sea.

FURTHER READING:Energy Information Administration: Official Energy Statistics from the U.S. Government