Posted on 08/30/2009 1:00:33 PM PDT by kellynla
The hawk flies just above the car as it rounds the corner. It glides through the trees, and comes to rest on a branch.
Around the next corner, the road opens out into a fold between the hills. An old farmhouse and barn sits up slightly to the left.
This is rural Pennsylvania - lush, green, and refreshingly cooler than the humid east coast at this time of year.
And hidden underneath all this beauty, a natural resource that could answer the US's energy prayers.
Around another small hill, and along a gravel track, sits a gas platform. It is drilling down into what is the largest natural gas field to be discovered in the US.
'Energy independence'
The company drilling here is Range Resources, and according to its vice-president, Stephen Rupert, natural gas could help break this country's dependence on foreign oil.
"Natural gas is our cleanest fossil fuel. It can be used in cars, to generate electricity. It can be liquefied and used as jet aviation fuel," he says.
Then comes the killer comment, as far as US politics is concerned right now: "The natural gas that's being used in this country at this time can really get us to energy independence."
(Excerpt) Read more at newsvote.bbc.co.uk ...
And methane is less carbon-laden than any other naturally occurring fossil fuel for the unit energy it puts out when burned. The global warming people should be glad wherever it can be put to use instead of oil. But environuts seldom think straight.
Probably never occurred to them we could just drill for oil, and build a few nuclear power plants.
Why not drill both oil and natural gas?We have plenty of both.
No thanks. I can barely afford my winter heat bills as it is. I don’t need demand increased tenfold.
They thought the closing of Yucca Mountain was the death knell for nukes. Little did they consider that France, for one example, has a pretty efficient little nuclear “waste” recycling program going on. The “waste” can be kept in a small area at the nuclear plant that created it. From a terrorism danger point of view, it’s better to move the “waste” as little as possible than to constantly carry it across the country in an oversize truck which might as well have “KICK ME” painted on its side.
I think there's another one in the south of the US that doubles our known reserves, just by itself.
If supply soars to match, it’s a wash.
Recycling the waste requires movement across the country.
Propane handles better (it will liquify without requiring the enormous pressures needed to liquify methane at room temperature).
If surpluses of natural gas can be had (it’s often less messy than oil to drill for) then these can be used to feed generators if nothing better.
Kind of like the joke with DDT being harmful, and we are out of oil.
After a while, you want to just say ‘stop lying’.
Even in France? Is this a regulatory requirement or an engineering necessity?
Demand increases >> Prices increase >> Supply Increases. Econ 101.
Both. Plants do not have the equipment or experties and we don't want rouge entities reprocessing (can siphon off weapons grade materials).
Coal is a global warmist’s nightmare.
Personally, I can’t see any of the studies to date as showing that we can either out-cool or out-warm “Mother Nature” in any significant way.
Rogues have thus far found it easier to smuggle hot stuff out of discombobulated countries that can’t even count their own fingers and toes (e.g. members of the old USSR) or to gin up their own nuclear fuel (e.g. Iran, North Korea). A U.S. plant reprocessing its own fuel would be a comparatively difficult site to rob.
It's not that clean. With natural gas comes sour gas, and that stuff is deadly, and a huge problem around all natural gas drilling areas. A small town, or anyone on a farm downwind from a blowout could end up very sick with all sorts of health problems if they got a whiff of that stuff.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.