"Estimate Boost for Clean-Burning Natural Gas Reserves Sparks Hope For CO2 Cuts" Green Car Advisor

Estimate Boost for Clean-Burning Natural Gas Reserves Sparks Hope For CO2 Cuts

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Is T. Boone Pickens on to something?

The oil billionaire-turned natural gas booster (and investor) has said time and again that there's lots of natural gas out there, plenty to power our cars, factories and power plants.

Now there's a new study by the nonprofit Potential Gas Committee that increases previous estimates of domestic natural gas supplied by a pretty staggering 35 percent.

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Excess natural gas from Barnett Shale deposits in Texas is burned away.

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The group, whose analyses of resources are closely watched by the government, energy companies and investors, said that the U.S. has 1,836 trillion cubic feet of "likely and potential" natural gas resources.

That's more than 500 trillion cubic feet more than estimated in 2007 and the highest estimated in the committee's 44-year-history, according to a report by the Energy & Environment news service.

Threat to Drinking Water?

Add the Energy Department's estimates of proved reserves and the total U.S. future supply of natural gas is 2,074 trillion cubic feet.

The increase comes largely because it has been determined that it is commercially viable to suck gas from major shale formations in Texas, Louisiana, Appalachia and the Rocky Mountains.

Nothing comes easy, though, in our highly politicized and environmentally conscious country: They're fighting in Congress over a technique called hydraulic fracturing that's used to break open the shale and release the gas.

Several Democrats have introduced legislation, E&E News reports, that would reverse an exemption granted in 2005 and make the fracturing technique subject to regulation under the national Safe Drinking Water Act, which requires disclosure of chemicals used in the process.

Industry groups and their allies are complaining that such regulation would slow down access to the new reserves.

And hey, what's more important, protection of our drinking water or the ability of a handful of energy companies to make big bucks, fast, by exploiting our natural gas resources?

Plus for CO2 Reduction Effort

Whether the hydraulic fracturing process ends up being regulated or not, an increased supply of natural gas could have positive implications for the U.S. in its efforts to reduce the national carbon footprint.

The stuff burns far cleaner that gasoline or coal, so could be used to replace both - gasoline in cars and coal in power plants - and help cut carbon dioxide emissions.

"I think this is a big deal," said physicist and climate specialist Joseph Romm, a senior fellow of the Center for American Progress and a former Energy Department official.

As do we.

Even if it does help make Pickens richer.

John O'Dell, Senior Editor