Just like Allen County at the end of the last century, the whole nation now finds itself with more natural gas than it can put to good use.
Allen County solved its “problem” by giving the stuff away. Zinc smelters took advantage. They set up shop here and smelted zinc from ore hauled in from as far away as Colorado to take advantage of free fuel. Iolans heated, cooked and lit their homes with gas they paid a token $1 a month to buy in unlimited amount. They built a “gas cannon” to amuse the population with explosions and fiery displays. A ring of fire lit the courthouse square.
U.S. gas companies haven’t been forced to go that far, but the surplus has caused prices to fall like a stone. Gas now sells for $2.08 for 1,000 cubic feet — half last year’s tariff. But the combination of limited storage space, a warmer than average winter and continued high production levels, could bring the price down to $1 or even lower, an analyst for Citigroup commodities told the Associated Press.
The surplus has developed because of new drilling and production techniques, which have made production from shale deposits possible. Today that drilling has dropped off sharply because of steadily dropping prices. Rigs have gone back to seeking oil, instead, because that commodity’s price has stayed above $100 a barrel.
Energy, however, is energy. Natural gas is now being used to replace coal in electric generating plants and to power buses and big equipment such as garbage collection trucks. One would hope that more and more vehicles can be switched from diesel and gasoline to natural gas to take advantage of the worldwide surplus and relieve the price pressure on oil.
Perhaps the most significant opportunity to replace oil with gas exists in the New England states, where oil is used to heat homes and business buildings by a great many. Perhaps the cost of converting from one fuel to another makes that conversion impractical. Such changes don’t take place quickly, but the prospect of taking another stride toward energy independence is appealing.
As frosting on the cake, burning gas rather than coal to generate electricity produces much less carbon dioxide and spews far less sulfuric gases into the atmosphere, thus delaying climate change for an unknown length of time.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
