Well, gas is still an average of a dollar more this year than it was this time last year.
What is being missed is that many new wells have been drilled, just not on federal land. The NYT had an article last month concerning several Louisiana Parishes that had gone from dirt poor to filthy rich over night. People who have lived in double wides and worked blue collar jobs for thirty years are suddenly recieving $70,000 a month from natural gas wells on their previously worthless property.
Forgot to say that the new Louisiana wells are predicted to produce 250 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The U.S. uses about 23 trillion a year. This find, then, is ten years of current usage.
This is a link to the Biloxi paper's article on the find:
http://www.sunherald.com/busines...ory/
714147.html
Also, there is growing research that oil may actually be a RENEWABLE resource naturally produced by reactions in the Earth's core. Russian energy scientists are publishing articles on the topic left and right. Before you laugh and remind me that oil comes from dinosaurs, we used to say that, but then why is there a moon of Jupiter made up of natural gas and why is methane found throughout the solar system?
Perhaps oil hasn't peaked and we've been had since Katrina and beyond.
But natural gas is a different deal, no?
I heard on NPR today about the boom Wyoming has experienced. It started with coal, but now they're really raking in the big bucks with natural gas wells.
No natural gas is not a different deal. Every cubic foot of natural gas pumped is one less barrel of fuel oil consumed. Natural gas can also be converted into liquid gasoline and liquid natural gas. It is, in fact, the same issue.
By the way, I was supporting your main point here, I hope. We should exploit all energy resources on privately owned land before touching any public land.
Natural gas can also be converted into liquid gasoline ...
I'd never heard that before. I've heard of LNG of course.
Every cubic foot of natural gas pumped is one less barrel of fuel oil consumed.
I'd like to avoid thinking of that part of the American psyche which isn't happy unless there's an ice cream cone in each hand.
Don't Americans have a gluttonous inability to not want both the nat gas and the oil?
Thresher, I like that. It's sort of like moving from heroine to methadone. You're still an addict, you just die more slowly.
Beale,
I only learned about the natural gas to gasoline conversion recently. Here is an article in the New Mexico Business Weekly about it. I didn't do any great research, this is the first site that comes up with a google search.
http://albuquerque.bizjournals.c.../09/
story5.html
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