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73 comments on Weekend Open Thread...

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Nate Hagens on November 26, 2005 - 11:28am

Your observation should be of concern yes, until it is put in context. The US only has a FOUR year supply of oil left. We use 20 million barrels a day which is over 7 billion barrels a year. Our reserves are 29 billion (source BP website). So, the presumption is that we will, as we did with oil, start to import natural gas in a large way. As has been discussed, this is dangerous and difficult but looks increasingly likely. Even more likely is a turn to coal, which the US has plenty of (27% of the worlds total of 22,700 Quadrillion BTUs =5,690 quads.

At 1 trillion barrels of oil left globally - that entire allocation is only 5,205 quads and the entire world natural gas reserves are 6,343 trillion cubic feet which equates to 6,507 quads.

So, the US has rooughly equivalent BTUS stored in its coal as the entire world has in oil or natural gas. Can you say Fischer-Tropsch in a big way? Hello, greenland ice sheet. (and I live in Vermont)

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LeGorfou on November 27, 2005 - 3:50am

I think the point is that it is much easier to expand the imports of oil than of LNG. Oil can be safely pumped and stored with very primitive equipment that LNG is very difficult to handle and it is very difficult to expand the imports quickly.

Currently the US imports 300 billion cubic feet of natural gas a month (if I read the EIA site correctly) or which only 43 billion is LNG and the rest is by pipeline from Canada and Mexico. (Exports are 55 billion of which 5 billion are LNG - to Japan.)

Now current production is about 1,600 billion cubic feet. The figures have trended up and down and there is no obvious trend to show that it has peaked greatly, that I can see. This is because, I suppose, you can't store natural gas.

If it is going to start decreasing rapidly, LNG supplies cannot be expanded to make up the short fall, as I see it.

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