Recent years have seen fundamental changes in the supply and competitive landscape of the North American natural gas market. In response to high natural gas prices that prevailed during most of the last decade, gas producers in the lower 48 now have developed new sources of supply and technology, particularly to access new shale gas formations. These new supplies have encouraged a substantial expansion of the natural gas pipeline network in North America to allow the producers to reach end-use markets.

Lockheed Martin teams with Tendril; Pattern Energy 101 MW wind plant starts operating; Alstom to supply steam equipment to GWF plant; Siemens wins government efficiency contract; GE Jenbacher introduces high-efficiency gas engine; OpenADR Alliance forms; Better Place gets into San Francisco taxis; EnerNOC enters TransAmerica Pyramid; and more.

Don’t overlook high-quality, project-based emissions reductions.

By Mike Burnett and Bjorn Fischer

Mike Burnett is executive director of the Climate Trust. Bjorn Fischer is business development manager at the Climate Trust. Contact Fischer at bfischer@climatetrust.org. The Climate Trust is a non-profit committed to providing high quality, project-based reductions and advancing the policies that support them. Its offices are located in Portland, Ore.

Pipelines

An economic perspective on long-term contracting for gas pipeline service.

Predictably, pipelines and other industry stakeholders are among the biggest supporters of long-term contracting for pipeline services, as they try to make life easier for themselves.¹ In its 2003 natural gas study , the National Petroleum Council (NPC), mainly an industry group, argues that long-term contracts are essential for stimulating adequate investments in gas pipelines needed to meet future natural gas demand.

Presenting a program to stimulate robust coal-gasification technology deployment at low federal cost.

Near-term deployment of gasification technologies can supplement natural-gas supply, reduce demand, and promote long-term U.S. energy security and affordability. But near-term deployment must overcome high capital costs that affect commercial competitiveness and capital availability.

THE EPA SPEAKS OUT:

The Environmental Protection Agency reviews how the multi-pollutant control concept is to work.

DER:

This final installment of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's series on distributed energy resources investigates efficiency, the environment, and generation displacement.

Distributed energy resources (DER) have been touted as a clean, efficient way to generate electricity at end-use sites, potentially allowing the exhaust heat to be put to good use as well.

The Geopolitical Risks of LNG

To many energy-industry analysts, 2005 is a make-or-break year for the U.S. gas market. If we don't have at least several liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals in construction by the end of the year, the country arguably will face serious gas-supply shortages and price spikes beginning in about 2008.¹

Power Measurement

A new way to measure what matters most: how close a unit comes to meeting its total potential profit.

Approximately 65 percent of capacity additions in the last few years have been gas-fired, combined-cycle units. Recent market conditions have been hard on these new resources, which have suffered from significantly low capacity factors. But such units are popular because of their flexibility.

AN EXPENSIVE EXPERIMENT?

Dollars and Sense

Financial data raises doubts about whether deregulation benefits outweigh costs.

This year, U.S. electricity consumers will spend more than $1 billion financing the operation of six regional transmission organizations (RTOs).¹ RTO costs have nearly doubled since 2001 and now outweigh nearly all of the benefits anticipated by the national cost-benefit studies.