Natural Gas

Clear Skies for Gas

Unconventional sources brighten the U.S. supply outlook.

The future of natural gas supplies in the United States looks promising due to rising projections of recoverable resources, including unconventional production. A strong supply outlook bodes well for using natural gas as a low-emission transportation fuel.

The New Gas Wisdom

Unconventional gas sources put a ceiling on future prices.

Unconventional gas and LNG are changing the outlook for future gas prices.

Back to Gas

Utility turbines bridge the capacity gap.

Utilities are turning to natural gas as a bridge fuel, and to support non-dispatchable renewables.

Nuking the Tar Sands

Can nuclear heat allow for low-cost commercial reclamation?

Deposits of unconventional fuels—both crude oil and natural gas—occur in geological environments with very low energy. The exploitation of these low-energy deposits/reservoirs will require significant external energy to replace that lost or never provided by Mother Nature’s handiwork.

Standard-Offer Service: Beauty or Beast?

Is development of retail choice compatible with best-priced standard-offer service for smaller customers? Conflicting policy priorities threaten to distort Maryland’s retail energy markets.

The Late Great Gas Utility

By abandoning R&D and marketing, the gas industry may have sealed its own fate.

Gas producers and utilities have all but abandoned R&D and marketing. Is it too late to reverse the death spiral, or can the industry learn from other check-off marketing successes?

U.K. Carbon Lessons

Emissions regulations are reshaping the U.K. and Irish energy markets.

As U.S. policymakers consider how to tackle the challenge of greenhouse-gas constraints, the U.K.’s approach to the problem offers instructive examples.

Letters to the Editor

A lengthy letter to the editor addresses whether the Energy Information Administration’s gas-market forecasts, as laid out in a recent article, are biased. The authors of the original piece, Timothy J. Considine and Frank A. Clemente, then respond to the letter.

The Case That Mattered

What’s the story with AES Ocean Express?

In January 2004, FERC authorized AES Ocean Express LLC (AES) to construct and operate natural-gas pipeline facilities to transport revaporized LNG from an offshore receipt point at the boundary between the Exclusive Economic Zone of the United States and the Commonwealth of the Bahamas to onshore delivery points on the east coast of Florida. AES proposed to connect its planned pipeline to the pipeline system of Florida Gas Transmission (FGT). AES and FGT were unable to agree upon the terms and conditions to be included in FGT’s tariff regarding the LNG delivered through AES’ proposed pipeline, leading to AES filing a formal complaint with FERC, wherein it alleged that FGT sought to impose unreasonably restrictive gas quality and interchangeability standards on LNG delivered into the FGT system.

Gas-Market Forecasts: Betting on Bad Numbers

Why predictions from the Energy Information Administration may contain systematic errors.

Natural-gas estimates from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) are supposed to be “policy neutral.” Are they? Over the past decade, EIA forecasts for NG differ substantially from actual outcomes—even though overestimations of supply capabilities could lead to underestimating the costs of carbon regulations.