Shale Gas May Fuel Your Car If Natural Gas Act Passes
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(Summarized From A Story In The Houston Chronicle.)
Will Congress Pass The Natural Gas Act?
With a nationwide surplus of natural gas coming from shale basins such as the Marcellus shale, Barnett shale, Haynesville shale and now the Eagle Ford shale, we are suddenly presented with a golden opportunity to lessen our dependence on foreign oil by converting many of our cars and trucks to use natural gas instead of gasoline and diesel.
In 2009 the United States bought more than four billion barrels of oil or more than sixty five percent of what we use from foreign nations. It has been estimated that we could reduce that amount by fifty percent within seven years if we switch many of our cars, trucks and buses to run on abundant natural gas. We now have over a century’s worth of supply at current consumption rates and that amount is growing each year with new shale gas discoveries.
T. Boone Pickens, long time oil man and recent convert to wind power, has proposed that we use wind for electricity and natural gas as a motor fuel. With an abundance of both resources in our country it is a plan that makes sense, even if it is self serving for Mr. Pickens, who has investments in both wind and natural gas.
Pickens has spent more than $62 million of his own money promoting wind and natural gas. He has changed the focus of his “Pickens Plan” from converting personal vehicles to instead focusing on city buses, garbage trucks and other commercial vehicles which account for much of the petroleum consumed in the country.
A program to convert these vehicles would create badly needed jobs and give us a technology that we could in turn export to other countries, reducing the trade deficit.
Below is a CNG filling station in California. There are hundreds of CNG filling stations like this one already in use, mostly by city and local governments for fleet vehicles. CNG can be used in both gasoline and diesel engines.
The Natural Gas Act, as it is being called, has various House and Senate versions. Basically it would provide funding and tax incentives for converting vehicles to natural gas, building CNG or compressed natural gas filling stations as well as helping companies that make natural gas conversion products.
Once a level of infrastructure is in place for commercial and government vehicles and the cost of conversion kits come down, it would be much easier to start converting private vehicles to CNG. Currently it costs around $3000 to convert a vehicle to natural gas. That amount will surely come down as competition increases.
Proponents of natural gas such as Pickens hope that the Natural Gas Act can be passed by Memorial day. While that might be overly optimistic, the legislation is slowly gaining steam. The Natural Gas Act has support from both Democrats and Republicans who realize the need to reduce foreign oil imports.
We need the Natural Gas Act. It is a matter of national security. The biggest transfer of wealth in human history, from the West to the Middle East, must stop now before it destroys the very foundations of our civilization. That’s no exaggeration folks.
Read this From The Institute For The Analysis Of Global Security:
“Our dependency on oil from countries that are either politically unstable or at odds with the U.S. subjects the American economy to occasional supply disruptions, price hikes, and loss of wealth, which, according to a study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy, have cost us more than $7 trillion present value dollars over the last 30 years. That is more than the cumulative cost of all of the wars fought by the U.S. since the Revolutionary War. The transfer of wealth to oil-producing countries – $1.16 trillion over the past thirty years – significantly increased our trade deficit. The Department of Energy estimates that each $1 billion of trade deficit costs America 27,000 jobs. Oil imports account for almost one-third of the total U.S. deficit and, hence, are a major contributor to unemployment.
The cost of securing our access to Middle East oil – deploying U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, patrolling its water and supplying military assistance to Middle East countries – is estimated at $50 billion per year, which adds additional dimes to each gallon of gasoline we purchase.
Political instability in the region breeds wars and embroils the U.S. in costly military actions. The 1990-91 Gulf War broke out as a result of an oil dispute between Iraq and Kuwait. The cost to the international community reached almost $80 billion. The cost of the 2003 Iraq war and the following occupation of the country is estimated at $200 billion.”
If you have the time, and feel that converting our vehicles to natural gas will help our national security and our economy, please drop your elected officials a letter or e-mail and let them know your thoughts here: Contact Your Elected Officials Now
