It should also be pointed out that natural gas is only this cheap because demand for it is relatively low. Throw the vehicle population of the US in there and watch prices skyrocket. Remember, the natural gas vehicles would then be competing with powerplants for the natural gas that’s out there. Then you can have expensive vehicle fuel and ridiculous electric bills at the same time.
With capturing all of it instead of burning it off will also raise production and lower the cost. So why is it that your glass is twice the size it has to be? Dealing with a problem that is either a glass half full or half empty is not the way one should be looking at efficiency when it comes to dealing with engineering problems.
Power plants would then revert to coal and nuclear fuel. The reason for coal and nuclear not being used is political, not economic or scientific
when oil and natural-gas prices tracked one another, if natural gas’s price (in mmcf) was at $8, oil would have been at about $48 — a ratio of 6 (barrels of oil) to 1 (mmcf of gas). But because of horizontal drilling, fracking, and OPEC’s thirst for U.S. dollars, natural gas at one point this year was under $2 per mmcf, while oil was well over $100 per barrel — a ratio of more than 50 to 1.
Remember, the natural gas vehicles would then be competing with powerplants for the natural gas that’s out there. Then you can have expensive vehicle fuel and ridiculous electric bills at the same time.IOW, a BTU from natural gas has recently been less than one eighth the price of a BTU of oil. That leaves room for a tremendous runup in natural gas price before you even get to the point where oil is only twice as expensive as NG. By the time NG prices run up that much, it will be even more lucrative to exploit more of the huge known, accessible reserves of NG with more horizontal drilling and fracking.
There is enough NG out there, easily accessible, to fuel transportation and power plants - and fuel steel mills instead of coal, to boot. You are thinking small.