Stephen's posterous http://stephenloosli.posterous.com Most recent posts at Stephen's posterous posterous.com Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:46:52 -0800 Print Story: Dem candidate promotes energy in bid for Utah gov - Yahoo! News http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/print-story-dem-candidate-promotes-energy-in http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/print-story-dem-candidate-promotes-energy-in

Dem candidate promotes energy in bid for Utah gov

SALT LAKE CITY – Democrat Peter Corroon launched his gubernatorial bid Tuesday by saying Utah should become energy independent within 10 years by investing in renewable energy.

"While our federal government talks about it, Utah can achieve it." the mayor of Salt Lake County said in a speech officially announcing his candidacy. "We can and should become self-sustaining like the pioneers before us."

Utah has an abundance of energy resources — including coal, natural gas and wind energy — to meet the goal, he said.

Department of Energy statistics show Utah already produces more energy than it consumes but not in every category.

For instance, the state produces about 19.5 million barrels of petroleum a year while consuming 55.7 million barrels.

"That's a pretty big gap," said Rayola Dougher, senior economic analyst for the American Petroleum Institute. "It's not realistic or realizable for Utah" to meet its own petroleum needs.

However, she said states should look to their resources to keep more jobs and money at home.

Corroon's push for greater investment in renewable resources came as the state experienced its third straight day of having the worst air quality in the nation, making it unhealthy for elderly people and children with breathing problems to be outside.

Much of that pollution is the result of automobile emissions.

In an interview following his speech from the steps of Salt Lake Community College, Corroon said he doesn't want to restrict the availability of any resources.

"It's about expanding natural gas stations in Utah. ... It's about using solar panels on buildings so buildings can create their own energy," Corroon said. "It means that in Utah, we can supply enough of those energy resources to take care of our own demand."

Corroon said he wants state government to support job creation in the energy sector. He also promised a greater investment in education to help drive economic and energy development.

Corroon is challenging Republican Gov. Gary Herbert in a special election to complete the term of Jon Huntsman.

Huntsman resigned in August to become U.S. ambassador to China, handing over the reins to Herbert, who had served as lieutenant governor since 2005.

Democrats believe Corroon is their best chance to win a gubernatorial election since Scott Matheson did so in 1980.

Corroon has maintained high approval in the state's most populous county by developing a reputation as a fiscal conservative. He won a second term in 2008 with 66 percent of the vote but isn't well known outside the county.

Both candidates believe promoting energy and economic development along with improving education could lead to victory at the polls. Herbert highlighted those themes during his inauguration speech.

Neither Herbert or Corroon was expected to face any challengers within their own parties.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:36:07 -0800 MITEI | Natural gas to become number-one energy source for this century, says oil and gas expert http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/mitei-natural-gas-to-become-number-one-energy http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/mitei-natural-gas-to-become-number-one-energy

Natural gas to become number-one energy source for this century, says oil and gas expert

A broad-brush picture of the global supply of natural gas shows that there’s plenty of fuel, so much so that gas may soon be the dominant fuel for producing electricity, according to Leonardo Maugeri, senior executive vice president of Eni S.p.A, a leading energy company and a founding member of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI).

“Gas is the easiest option” for answering increasing concerns about fuel availability, price, distribution, and greenhouse warming, Maugeri told his audience at a MITEI-sponsored seminar. Maugeri is a member of the MITEI external advisory board, and his topic at the December 14 event was “All That Gas…”

Because of its competitive price, availability, and clean-burning qualities, he predicted, “natural gas is set to become the number-one energy source over the course of this century.”

The advent of plentiful natural gas is a recent and sudden development, he explained, driven in part by a major technological advance: the ability to fracture “tight” shale deposits to let trapped gas be affordably extracted. That has substantially changed the energy future here in the United States, and probably also abroad.

In this nation alone, Maugeri added, the proven supply of gas is now so huge there’s enough to last more than a century at present usage rates, with probably much more yet to be found both here and abroad.

He did warn, however, there are some environmental concerns. For example, it takes significant amounts of water—pumped at high pressure into the underground shales—to create the factures that liberate trapped gas. Some of that water may surface as a pollutant, causing its own set of environmental problems. He noted, however, that water issues for natural gas are no greater than and sometime less than for the alternatives.

“NIMBY (not in my backyard) is always around the corner” when it comes to major developments that are likely to involve pollutants, Maugeri said.

He also noted that the availability of so much gas has disrupted today’s global energy scenario, altering America’s plans to import liquefied natural gas from the Middle East and Africa. It is far cheaper to transport gas via pipelines from nearby domestic sources compared to using LNG tankers to bring it in from half a world away. And the price of natural gas is now high enough to spur domestic exploration and development.

Also, because burning natural gas is far less polluting than coal and oil for running power plants, it should become the dominant fuel as stronger emissions controls are imposed on the electric power industry. In terms of greenhouse emissions, natural gas is a far better choice than coal and oil, although less favorable than nuclear, which in use emits no heat-trapping gases. However, the construction of new nuclear power plants is an expensive and slow process burdened with regulatory hurdles and public fears, so it will be years before nuclear can actually compete with gas.

Historically, gas has been a poor cousin of the energy industry, a bothersome by-product of oil production. “It has been a very tiring and long journey” from natural gas being considered a curse to becoming a promising fuel for the future, he said.

Natural gas has traditionally been a nuisance, getting in the way of oil production, generally being burned off (flared), vented directly into the air, or re-injected into the ground to maintain oil well pressure. That is still happening, especially in the Middle East’s oil fields, although venting is now less common. Maugeri said gas released directly into the air is a far more potent greenhouse agent than the carbon dioxide that comes from flaring natural gas, although direct methane releases have a much shorter life span in the atmosphere than does carbon dioxide.

Overseas, the technologies required to fracture tight gas deposits are less well developed, and exploratory testing has only recently begun, especially in Northern Europe. Maugeri said that Europe’s major gas supply source, Russia, “has many, many [unconventional gas] options and it’s not even pursuing them right now.”

Asked about chances that arctic regions will be explored and developed for energy supplies, he replied: “I think that is very far away,” because the costs of development in the very cold regions are far higher than other energy sources.

—Robert Cooke, MITEI correspondent

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Wed, 30 Dec 2009 11:08:41 -0800 Toyota CNG Camry Hybrid Concept - LA Auto Show - Jalopnik http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/toyota-cng-camry-hybrid-concept-la-auto-show http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/toyota-cng-camry-hybrid-concept-la-auto-show

Toyota CNG Camry Hybrid Concept

Toyota has released images of the Toyota CNG Camry Hybrid Concept, or the T. Boone Pickens cruiser as we like to call it. Already known for their gas-electric hybrids, this concept combines the Hybrid Synergy Drive system with a natural gas-fueled engine. Toyota claims the Hybrid should travel more than 250 miles per fill-up, which could theoretically occur at any of the approximately 1,000 CNG refueling stations in the US. As this is currently just a concept, they've added an aggressive body kit with a covered grille which certainly distinguishes it from the regular Camry Hybrid. Natural gas has been part of the alternative fuel discussion because of its domestic production capacity and relatively stable price. Details about the CNG Hybrid Camry from Toyota below.

Toyota CNG Camry Hybrid


A Camry Hybrid Fueled by CNG

As you very likely know, we’re big believers in the concept of hybrid vehicles. We build gas-electric hybrids in several styles; one of them, our Prius, is the most fuel-efficient vehicle in America.

But we also believe that there’s more than one way to solve a problem. One problem we’d like to solve involves the unpredictable nature of gas prices.

Gas prices are relatively low now, but they were incredibly high last summer, and could well revert to those high levels. But the price of compressed natural gas (CNG) remains fairly stable, and there’s a strong, reliable domestic supply of CNG. It just happens to be one of many alternative fuel applications being explored in Toyota’s broad sustainable mobility research and development strategy.

That’s why we built a special concept CNG Camry Hybrid that we’ll display at the Los Angeles Auto Show on Wednesday.

To convert a stock Camry Hybrid to a CNG vehicle, the gasoline fuel system was replaced with a CNG system that includes a pair of CNG tanks installed in the spare-tire well of the vehicle’s trunk. Because it now lacks a spare tire, the CNG Camry Hybrid rolls on runflat tires.

And roll it does. With the proposed CNG equivalent of 8 gallons of gasoline in its tanks, the estimated range of the CNG Camry Hybrid is more than 250 miles. Link that efficiency to the price of CNG and you can see why we’re interested in this – as this is written, CNG is about a dime cheaper, per gallon, than the national average price of regular-grade 87-octane gasoline.

But price and efficiency are only the tip of the iceberg of CNG benefits. Natural gas also produces lower particulate emissions and lower levels of nitrous oxide (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2) and non-methane organic gasses (NMOG) when compared with gasoline. And because CNG is so clean, potential wear and tear on an engine fueled by it is greatly reduced.

Those are the considerable upsides to CNG. There also are downsides. An important one is that there are fewer than 1,000 CNG refueling stations in the U.S., with fewer than half of them open to the public. Also, natural gas is less dense than gasoline. So a CNG engine will have approximately 10% less power than an equivalent gasoline engine. Also, a CNG vehicle’s fuel tank must be cylindrical, so it is more difficult to package than a gasoline tank, which can be shaped to conform to any available space.

We want to underscore the fact that the CNG Camry Hybrid is just a concept vehicle. This concept vehicle is a statement that we intend to include CNG in our diverse portfolio of future alternative-fuel R&D. Our purpose in building it as a concept is to demonstrate the efficiency and adaptability of Hybrid Synergy Drive, and to demonstrate that we continue to work with a variety of powertrain concepts to ensure that we have products that meet the current and future needs of our customers on a global basis. We think you’ll find the CNG Camry Hybrid interesting. So if you’re visiting the LA show, feel free to drop by and take a look.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:21:10 -0800 Print Story: Gas 'gold rush' ignites in rural New York - Yahoo! News http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/print-story-gas-gold-rush-ignites-in-rural-ne http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/print-story-gas-gold-rush-ignites-in-rural-ne

Gas 'gold rush' ignites in rural New York

CALLICOON, New York (AFP) – After a lifetime struggling to make money from the land, New York farmer Bill Graby has discovered he's sitting on treasure -- possibly the biggest natural gas deposit in America.

"It's like winning the lottery," says the 6.6-foot (two-meter) dairy farmer from the picturesque town of Callicoon in the Catskills hills.

The deposit, called the Marcellus shale, stretches all the way from New York to Tennessee, containing 168 to 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation.

That dwarfs the previous big daddy, the Barnett shale in Texas, and by industry estimates could meet all US gas needs for years.

"The size is potentially tremendous for the nation as a whole," John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute, told a Pennsylvania College of Technology conference last month.

Environmentalists fear intense drilling could bring ecological disaster to the same pristine Catskills that also contain New York City's entire drinking water supply.

Many others, though, foresee an economic miracle that could turn an impoverished section of New York into "a Little Texas," as 56-year-old Graby puts it.

These are early days. Extraction is underway in Pennsylvania, but New York's authorities are still debating regulatory approval, with a decision expected in 2010.

Yet already energy companies are swarming across the countryside, offering to make millionaires of cash-strapped farmers like Graby in exchange for drilling rights on their land.

The economics are self-evident. There's not only gas, but a huge market nearby in New York and New Jersey, and a transport network that includes a big new pipeline opened a year ago to bring gas from Canada.

In a region blighted by bankrupt farms and a struggling tourist industry, the excitement is palpable.

"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity that can change this region," Graby said at Callicoon's old-fashioned cafe/petrol station by the snow-lined Delaware River.

Geologists long knew about the Marcellus Shale, which formed about 385 million years ago and extends more than 7,000 feet (2,133 meters) underground, mostly under New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.

But development was unprofitable until recent improvements in horizontal, rather than ordinary vertical drills, and in an extraction process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

"Nobody cared much about shales. They were all around us, but then the price of gas rose and there were some techniques that were quite useful... that made shales much more attractive," said Gary Lash, a geosciences professor at SUNY Fredonia university and an expert on the Marcellus.

In southern New York, the result is what the state's Department of Environmental Conservation likens to a "modern-day gold rush."

Graby and former teacher Noel van Swol have formed a landowners' association to bargain collectively with the gas companies.

A couple years ago, drilling rights were being sold to fast-talking company reps, or landmen, for a pittance. Now, they trade for small fortunes: about 5,000 dollars an acre for a five-year drilling lease and a whopping 20 percent of royalties on gas extracted, van Swol said.

That means a farmer leasing 200 acres would collect a million dollars upfront -- and the same again for an extension -- plus potentially astronomical royalties.

"It's the big play. This changes lives," says van Swol, sporting a solid gold ring decorated with an American Indian chief that he says brings him gambler's luck. "This is game changing."

Natural gas is a relatively clean-burning fuel, but the extraction process needed in the Marcellus is not pretty

Fracking involves shooting enormous quantities of water, mixed with chemicals and sand, at extreme pressure into the subterranean rock, smashing shale and forcing out gas. The process is often likened to an earthquake.

Ramsay Adams, executive director at Catskill Mountainkeeper environmental group, says the biggest worry is what happens next, when the poisonous mix is locked underground in the same hills as New York's drinking water aquifers.

"Thirty percent of these millions of millions of gallons of water are left down there," Adams said.

"Ultimately it will migrate up and go downstream. You could find the contamination downstream. No one knows. The gas companies don't know."

The gas industry says fracking is safe because gas wells are sealed from the water table, which is closer to the Earth's surface.

"Environmental extremists have poisoned the natural gas debate by implying that drilling operators will pollute our water and air," said Brad Gill, director of the Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York. "They have used bad science and twisted facts to oppose natural gas exploration."

New York's environmental body also says that "no known instances of groundwater contamination have occurred from previous horizontal drilling or hydraulic fracturing projects" during previous projects in the state.

But Adams and other environmentalists are lobbying for swaths of countryside to be off-limits, especially anywhere near to what Adams considers New York's true treasure -- water.

"They think they have found the Saudi Arabia of natural gas," Adams said, "but we are the Saudi Arabia of fresh water."

Many opposing the gas rush are second home owners from New York aghast at the idea of drilling rigs scarring the landscape.

Yet holdouts also include the Diehl family, which has been farming the same river valley outside Callicoon for six generations.

"It's all about the water. It's what we drink, it's what our animals drink. And once the aquifers are breached, you can't fix them," Alice Diehl, 58, said in the cozy kitchen of her hilltop house.

To compensate for a collapse in milk prices, the Diehls are working overtime on everything from making maple syrup and honey to selling Christmas trees.

They say nothing can persuade them to risk contaminating their beloved land, where Diehl ancestors lie buried among a copse of trees in a broad field.

"Money isn't everything," said Alice's husband Peter, a wiry, bearded man of 65. He looked out over the snow-covered valley. "They can pay you a lot, but if they ruin the land, you have nothing."

Alice Diehl smiled as she recalled a gas company landman coming to the house last summer and promising to make them "multi-millionaires."

"Pete just ran him off," she said.

As New York's authorities get closer to ruling, tensions are running high.

Van Swol compares environmentalists to Soviet dictators and Adams acknowledges that people like van Swol "probably see me as the devil. I'm standing between them and that money."

Peter Diehl even finds himself arguing with his own brothers, who farm other parts of the family's valley. All their signatures would be needed to deal with a gas company.

"It makes things a little tense at Christmas," as Alice Diehl said.

In the Callicoon cafe, the air was full of expectation.

"I want to see those drilling rigs coming into town!" exclaimed one local as he greeted van Swol and Graby.

"You and me both," van Swol answered.

Later, van Swol said: "When those permits get approved here, all hell's going to break loose."

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:20:04 -0800 Print Story: Gas could be the cavalry in global warming fight - Yahoo! News http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/print-story-gas-could-be-the-cavalry-in-globa http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/print-story-gas-could-be-the-cavalry-in-globa

Gas could be the cavalry in global warming fight

An unlikely source of energy has emerged to meet international demands that the United States do more to fight global warming: It's cleaner than coal, cheaper than oil and a 90-year supply is under our feet.

It's natural gas, the same fossil fuel that was in such short supply a decade ago that it was deemed unreliable. It's now being uncovered at such a rapid pace that its price is near a seven-year low. Long used to heat half the nation's homes, it's becoming the fuel of choice when building new power plants. Someday, it may win wider acceptance as a replacement for gasoline in our cars and trucks.

Natural gas' abundance and low price come as governments around the world debate how to curtail carbon dioxide and other pollution that contribute to global warming. The likely outcome is a tax on companies that spew excessive greenhouse gases. Utilities and other companies see natural gas as a way to lower emissions — and their costs. Yet politicians aren't stumping for it.

In June, President Barack Obama lumped natural gas with oil and coal as energy sources the nation must move away from. He touts alternative sources — solar, wind and biofuels derived from corn and other plants. In Congress, the energy debate has focused on finding cleaner coal and saving thousands of mining jobs from West Virginia to Wyoming.

Utilities in the U.S. aren't waiting for Washington to jump on the gas bandwagon. Looming climate legislation has altered the calculus that they use to determine the cheapest way to deliver power. Coal may still be cheaper, but natural gas emits half as much carbon when burned to generate the same amount of electricity.

Today, about 27 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions come from coal-fired power plants, which generate 44 percent of the electricity used in the U.S. Just under 25 percent of power comes from burning natural gas, more than double its share a decade ago but still with room to grow.

But the fuel has to be plentiful and its price stable — and that has not always been the case with natural gas. In the 1990s, factories that wanted to burn gas instead of coal had to install equipment that did both because the gas supply was uncertain and wild price swings were common. In some states, because of feared shortages, homebuilders were told new gas hookups were banned.

It's a different story today. Energy experts believe that the huge volume of supply now will ease price swings and supply worries.

Gas now trades on futures markets for about $5.50 per 1,000 cubic feet. While that's up from a recent low of $2.41 in September as the recession reduced demand and storage caverns filled to overflowing, it's less than half what it was in the summer of 2008 when oil prices surged close to $150 a barrel.

Oil and gas prices trends have since diverged, due to the recession and the growing realization of just how much gas has been discovered in the last three years. That's thanks to the introduction of horizontal drilling technology that has unlocked stunning amounts of gas in what were before off-limits shale formations. Estimates of total gas reserves have jumped 58 percent from 2004 to 2008, giving the U.S. a 90-year supply at the current usage rate of about 23 trillion cubic feet per year.

The only question is whether enough gas can be delivered at affordable enough prices for these trends to accelerate.

The world's largest oil company, Exxon Mobil Corp., gave its answer last Monday when it announced a $30 billion deal to acquire XTO Energy Inc. The move will make it the country's No. 1 producer of natural gas.

Exxon expects to be able to dramatically boost natural gas sales to electric utilities. In fact, CEO Rex Tillerson says that's why the deal is such a smart investment.

Tillerson says he sees demand for natural gas growing 50 percent by 2030, much of it for electricity generation and running factories. Decisions being made by executives at power companies lend credence to that forecast.

Consider Progress Energy Inc., which scrapped a $2 billion plan this month to add scrubbers needed to reduce sulfur emmissions at 4 older coal-fired power plants in North Carolina. Instead, it will phase out those plants and redirect a portion of those funds toward cleaner burning gas-fired plants.

Lloyd Yates, CEO of Progess Energy Carolina, says planners were 99 percent certain that retrofitting plants made sense when they began a review late last year. But then gas prices began falling and the recession prompted gas-turbine makers to slash prices just as global warming pressures intesified.

"Everyone saw it pretty quickly," he says. Out went coal, in comes gas. "The environmental component of coal is where we see instability."

Nevada power company NV Energy Inc. canceled plans for a $5 billion coal-fired plant early this year. That came after its homestate senator, Majority Leader Harry Reid, made it clear he would fight to block its approval, and executives' fears mounted about the costs of meeting future environmental rules.

"It was obvious to us that Congress or the EPA or both were going to act to reduce carbon emissions," said CEO Michael Yackira, whose utility already gets two-thirds of its electricity from gas-fired units. "Without understanding the economic ramifications, it would have been foolish for us to go forward."

Even with an expected jump in demand from utilities, gas prices won't rise much beyond $6.50 per 1,000 cubic feet for years to come, says Ken Medlock, an energy fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston. That tracks an Energy Department estimate made last week.

Such forecasts are based in part on a belief that the recent spurt in gas discoveries may only be the start of a golden age for gas drillers — one that creates wealth that rivals the so-called Gusher Age of the early 20th century, when strikes in Texas created a new class of oil barons.

XTO, the company that Exxon is buying, was one of the pioneers in developing new drilling technologies that allow a single well to descend 9,000 feet and then bore horizontally through shale formations up to 1 1/2 miles away. Water, sand and chemical additives are pumped through these pipes to unlock trillions of cubic feet of natural gas that until recently had been judged unobtainable.

Even with the big increases in reserves they were logging, expansion plans by XTO and its rivals were limited by the debt they took on to finance these projects that can cost as much as $3 million apiece.

Under Exxon, which earned $45.2 billion last year, that barrier has been obliterated.

The wells still capture only about a quarter of the gas locked in the shale formations. Future improvements could double that recovery rate. Bottom line: this new source of gas supply in Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, New York and other states holds out the promise of as much as 2,000 trillion cubic feet of supplies. It is estimated that the U.S. sits on 83 percent more recoverable natural gas than was thought in 1990.

"The question now is how does this change the energy discussion in the U.S. and by how much?" says Daniel Yergin, a Pulitzer Prize winning author and chairman of IHS CERA, an energy consultancy. "This is domestic energy ... it's low carbon, it's low cost and it's abundant. When you add it up, it's revolutionary."

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:02:43 -0800 Print Story: Exxon Mobil makes $29B bet on natural gas - Yahoo! News http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/print-story-exxon-mobil-makes-29b-bet-on-natu http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/print-story-exxon-mobil-makes-29b-bet-on-natu

Exxon Mobil makes $29B bet on natural gas

Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, is making a $29 billion bet that pressure to curb climate change will mean natural gas — cleaner than coal and suddenly much easier to reach — will become a crucial source of U.S. power.

Exxon agreed to buy XTO Energy in an all-stock deal at a 25 percent premium, showing how eagerly a company that is among the most conservative in a conservative industry is jumping into the market for natural gas.

As negotiators haggled in Copenhagen over a global plan to curb carbon emissions, the deal suggested Exxon sees change coming for an energy source best known now for heating homes.

The deal announced Monday was also the largest for the U.S. energy sector in at least four years and Exxon's biggest acquisition since it bought Mobil Corp. for $75 billion in 1999.

The technology to unlock natural gas from tight rock formations has advanced so rapidly that energy experts have raised their estimates of how much fuel is available by 35 percent in just two years.

The emergence of massive supplies of natural gas in the U.S. coincides with the nation's focus on cutting emissions.

The newfound supply and looming climate legislation have been cited by utilities this year as they have shuttered old coal-fired power plants and scrapped plans to build new ones.

Climate legislation would put utilities in the crosshairs, and many are aggressively seeking new fuels like natural gas to minimize the economic hit.

"From the outside view, it does look like this move makes much more sense in a world where there's carbon policy because that ensures a growing market for natural gas," said Amy Jaffe, a fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.

Just this month, Progress Energy became the latest utility to announce it would close coal-fired power plants in favor of natural gas. Exxon Mobil expects global demand for gas to grow 50 percent by 2030.

"Natural gas is really well-suited to meet that growing power generation demand, both from the standpoint of its lower environmental impact, but also its capital efficiency and its flexibility," Exxon Mobil chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson told analysts on a conference call.

Through August, utilities used gas to generate 23 percent of the nation's electricity, up nearly three percentage points from last year. Coal's share was down about 13 percent.

XTO claims about 45 trillion cubic feet of gas, much of it trapped in tight shale formations. Technology developed over the past decade has made it much cheaper to pull natural gas from those formations.

Already on Monday, energy experts were laying odds as to which natural gas companies would be sold next, and which major oil companies might follow Exxon's lead by snapping them up.

"Exxon is the group leader, and it sets the trend. I would expect more acquisitions in the next three to six months," said Fadel Gheit, senior energy analyst for Oppenheimer.

European oil companies are already cutting deals with Chesapeake Energy, one of the biggest independent U.S. natural gas companies. Companies like Royal Dutch Shell and Statoil want more exposure to natural gas fields in the U.S. and the technology to extract gas.

Potential targets include big natural gas companies like Chesapeake Energy, Devon Energy and Anadarko, Gheit said. Chesapeake Energy shares rose 6 percent in trading Monday morning and other companies saw shares rise as well.

Exxon is moving beyond the U.S. to ramp up natural gas production and last week gave the go-ahead for a $15 billion natural gas project in Papua New Guinea, a nation just north of Australia. The deal would position Exxon to provide energy to a fuel-hungry China.

Once the XTO deal closes, Exxon said it will establish a new organization to manage global development and production of so-called unconventional resources.

XTO's chairman and founder, Bob Simpson, said his company has the capability of developing the unconventional resources that have given North America more than 100 years' worth of natural gas supplies.

The deal was valued at about $31 billion based on Exxon's closing stock price Friday. Exxon shares fell nearly 5 percent on Monday, placing the deal's value closer to $29 billion.

Exxon, based in Irving, Texas, will issue about 0.7 shares of common stock for each common share of XTO, a 25 percent premium to XTO stockholders. Exxon will also assume $10 billion in XTO debt.

The deal values XTO's shares at $51.69, based on the closing price Friday. XTO shares rose $6.11, or 15 percent, to $47.60 in trading Monday. Exxon shares fell $3.41 to $69.42.

Simpson is one of the highest paid executives in the United States. His compensation last year was valued at $53.5 million. He retired as CEO of XTO, based in Fort Worth, Dallas, in 2008.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:02:54 -0800 Print Story: Weak demand puts natural gas prices at 52-week low - Yahoo! News http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/print-story-weak-demand-puts-natural-gas-pric http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/print-story-weak-demand-puts-natural-gas-pric

Weak demand puts natural gas prices at 52-week low

By CHRIS KAHN, AP Energy Writer Chris Kahn, Ap Energy Writer 5 mins ago

NEW YORK – Natural gas prices have slumped well below what they were last year, and that trend will likely continue into 2010.

The New York Mercantile Exchange contract for January delivery at one point dropped to a new 52-week low of $4.432 per 1,000 cubic feet on Thursday.

The government then reported that the amount of natural gas in storage rose again, surprising most energy experts. The country has never had this much natural gas in storage.

At this time of year, natural gas is almost always being drawn from the ground as people turn on the heat in their homes.

That's not happening this year because the winter has been so mild. Instead, more gas was placed into storage last week, the first time that has happened this late in the year since at least 2001.

The salt caverns and other places where the U.S. stores natural gas are near or at capacity because major industrial power users have been shuttering plants or slowing production.

For consumers, that likely means an extended period of cheap energy, though how long that will go on is not clear. But heating bills will be cheaper in most places and power companies that use natural gas also will feel less pressure to raise electricity rates.

Oil prices rose Thursday along with a weeklong rally on Wall Street and promising jobs numbers.

Benchmark crude for January delivery added 14 cents to $76.74 on Nymex. In London, Brent crude for January delivery rose 91 cents to $78.79 on the ICE Futures exchange.

The Labor Department said Thursday that the number of newly laid-off workers dropped unexpectedly to the lowest level since the week of Sept. 6, 2008.

Still, the U.S. continues to sip at its petroleum reserves as millions of laid off workers have stayed out of the morning commute. Oil companies are finding it easier to store crude and deliver it later when demand has hopefully picked up.

Refiners that turn crude into gasoline and other fuels have slowed production and even shut down facilities permanently.

"Demand is pretty bad," said Peter Beutel, an analyst with Cameron Hanover. "Refiners just don't have the incentive to run right now. So people will store crude, thinking that something will happen down the road."

That weak demand is also affecting imports.

Oil imports have sunk to the lowest point since the fourth quarter of 1990, when the U.S. was preparing for the first Gulf War, according to analyst Stephen Schork.

At the pump, retail gas prices ticked higher by less than a penny overnight to a new national average of $2.633 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. A gallon of regular unleaded is 5.3 cents cheaper than it was a month ago, but it's still 83 cents more expensive than the same time last year.

Refiners shut down much of their operations last year as energy prices tanked, and they're doing so again. Crude prices are still high enough that refiners are struggling to make a profit converting it into fuel.

In other Nymex trading in January contracts, heating oil increased 2.22 cents to $2.0586 a gallon and gasoline grew 1.45 cents to $2.0073 a gallon. Natural gas gave up 6.5 cents to $4.465 per 1,000 cubic feet.

___

Associated Press writers Pablo Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary and Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:00:52 -0800 Print Story: Natural gas plunges 12 percent this month - Yahoo! News http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/print-story-natural-gas-plunges-12-percent-th http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/print-story-natural-gas-plunges-12-percent-th

Natural gas plunges 12 percent this month

NEW YORK – Natural gas prices have dropped by more than 12 percent in the past month as the country continues to sip at its energy reserves and a balmy November allowed homeowners to leave the heat off.

Retail prices for natural gas, or what many consumers will pay to heat their homes, are expected to be substantially lower this year.

Spot prices for natural gas have dropped to almost half of what they were last year, though they've increased slightly this month, according to the Energy Information Administration.

The recession has kept natural gas demand low most of the year. With manufacturers shuttering factories and closing offices, the country is using less electricity and power plants are burning less natural gas.

Analyst Stephen Schork noted that with industrial production still weak, home heating would be the primary source of natural gas demand for the rest of the year.

"What does that say about the current recovery, or lack thereof?" Schork said in a research note.

The U.S. has added more natural gas into storage every week since March 27, and there is now more natural gas tucked away in the U.S. than at any point in history. Storage houses are crammed beyond their listed capacity in the West on the Gulf of Mexico, and they're nearing capacity elsewhere, according to data from the Department of Energy.

With so much in storage, natural gas futures prices have plunged on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The December contract fell from $5.045 to $4.412 per 1,000 cubic feet between Oct. 30 to Friday.

Benchmark crude also dropped Friday, giving up 81 cents to $76.65 a barrel on the last trading day for the December contract. Crude prices for January delivery lost 65 cents to $77.40.

At the pump, retail gas prices increased for the third straight day, adding less than a penny overnight to a new national average of $2.642 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. A gallon of regular unleaded is 4.6 cents more expensive than last month and 62.2 cents more expensive than the same time last year, when prices were in free fall.

In other Nymex trading, heating oil fell 2.14 cents to $1.975 a gallon. Gasoline for December delivery added less than a penny to $1.978 a gallon.

In London, Brent crude for December delivery fell 42 cents to $77.22 on the ICE Futures exchange.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:00:31 -0700 Exxon's Latest Quarter Signals A Turn to Natural Gas - BusinessWeek http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/exxons-latest-quarter-signals-a-turn-to-natur http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/exxons-latest-quarter-signals-a-turn-to-natur

Exxon's Latest Quarter Signals A Turn to Natural Gas

Posted by: Steve LeVine on October 29

Today’s message from Exxon: Think, value, embrace natural gas.

The world’s largest publicly traded oil company reported its third-quarter earnings today, and — apart from its missed profit numbers — natural gas is the most significant story.

It’s been clear for a year or more that Exxon — along with most of Big Oil — is becoming more of a natural gas-led company than a dominant oil play. That’s significant because generally oil earns a lot more money by volume than natural gas. But since accessible conventional oil is in shorter and shorter supply — at least at economical-to-produce costs — Big Oil is making a virtue of the necessity of turning to natural gas for replenishing its reserve base.

So it is that in Exxon's latest report, almost the only good news is that production was up by 3% compared with the same period in 2008. Look at the report, and you see that almost all this increase is from the company's newly producing natural gas fields in Qatar -- Qatargas 2 and Ras Laffan 3. These are liquid natural gas plays whose volumes are meant primarily for Asia.

Looking at the future, the message is the same -- a focus on gas, specifically the same two Qatari fields, plus Gorgon, an Australian joint venture LNG deal with Chevron and Shell. Such projects make Exxon "well-positioned for continued production growth," the company said in a statement.

On the plus side, Exxon argues that the natural gas fields will suffer much less of the long-term production decline that erodes the value of most oil and natural gas fields. So they will hold their value much longer without as much expensive maintenance.

In addition, natural gas emits about half the carbon as oil, so it would more easily satisfy any carbon-reduction mandates to come in legislation in Washington or a globally negotiated climate-change agreement.

Still, apart from its Canadian oil sands, Exxon's growth story for the last three or so years has been one-dimensional -- that of its enormous volumes of natural gas in Qatar and now Australia.

Big Oil usually argues against reliance on any single country or field. But times have changed. Chevron -- whose third-quarter figures come out tomorrow -- is dependent on Kazakhstan, for instance, for much of its oil volumes. BP relies to a large degree on Russia and Azerbaijan.

For Exxon, the story is natural gas.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 11:13:36 -0700 Print Story: Climate concerns turn city's smell into cash cow - Yahoo! News http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/print-story-climate-concerns-turn-citys-smell http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/print-story-climate-concerns-turn-citys-smell

Climate concerns turn city's smell into cash cow

GREELEY, Colo. – The smell of manure hangs over Greeley as it has for half a century.

These days it's more than just a potent reminder of the region's agricultural roots and the hundreds of thousands of cattle raised on the city's outskirts.

The stench smells like an opportunity.

Investors are lining up to support a planned clean energy park that eventually will convert some of the methane gas released from the manure piles into power for a cheese factory and other businesses. JBS, which runs two of the largest feed yards and the local slaughterhouse, is testing a new technology that heats the cattle excrement and turns it into energy.

"What once used to be a waste stream that was just a byproduct ... they are now recognizing has value," said Bruce Biggi, the economic development coordinator for the city of Greeley, which received an $82,000 grant from the governor's energy office this year for the park.

The idea is to lure new business to the area with what Biggi likes to call its renewable natural gas — the endless supply of methane from cheap manure.

By reducing the amount of the potent greenhouse gas released into the air, the projects also potentially could turn cow dung into dollars, if a climate bill before Congress becomes law.

"Agriculture and agribusiness is what Greeley is all about," Biggi said. "We needed to take that strong traditional economic base and ... merge it with emerging renewable energy and technology."

Waste may be the new energy crop in these parts. But elsewhere, communities are looking anew at power sources such as the sun and wind that may exist in their own backyards.

The shift is being driven partly by legislation in Congress that would reduce the gases linked to global warming.

The legislation, experts acknowledge, would do little to stem the heating up of the planet if other countries don't take similar action.

Should President Barack Obama sign the bill, it would put a price on each ton of carbon dioxide released. That would drive up the cost of polluting fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas and lead to investment in cleaner sources of energy.

Getting into the game now — like JBS and the investors eyeing Greeley's energy park are doing — could potentially reap profits: selling credits generated by reducing greenhouse gases now into the emissions-trading market the bill would create.

That market could prove lucrative for projects that reduce methane, which is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping heat in the earth's atmosphere.

The fear in Greeley, and elsewhere, is what else the legislation would change.

In the city and surrounding Weld County, the worry is it would raise energy and fertilizer costs for farmers. They need to pump water to irrigate their crops and rely on cheap manure — the same manure that will be tapped for energy — when high natural gas prices drive up the cost of fertilizer.

For the oil and gas industry, which produces more oil in Weld County than any other in the state, a shift to cleaner sources of energy could take away good-paying jobs. And it's not clear whether all those will be replaced by the new green jobs that supporters are banking on.

"I can't think of another place in the country like Weld County, where all the various interests are at play," said John Christiansen, a spokesman for Anadarko Petroleum Corp., which produces oil and gas from 4,600 wells in the county. Many are on fields planted with feed corn, which also is being used to produce ethanol for gasoline locally.

The confluence of different interests has made Weld County a frequent stop for members of Congress interested in how climate legislation is playing outside of Washington. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Rep. Betsy Markey, D-Colo., and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., all made visits over the summer.

"Our rural communities aren't sold on this yet, there is a lot of uncertainty. But I think in the long run it will stabilize energy prices," Markey said in an interview.

Markey voted for the climate bill when it passed the House in June. Her vote could play a role in her re-election race next year in the largely Republican district.

On an August afternoon, Markey and three other members of the state's congressional delegation were singled out for their climate bill vote. A billboard covered with signatures and topped with the words "Shame on you!" stood at the entrance of the lunchtime event, organized by the American Petroleum Institute. The event drew about 600 people to a cavernous exhibit hall outside of Greeley for a pep rally opposing the legislation. API is a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying organization for the oil and gas industry.

"Why would we do anything to drive up their cost of doing business? It makes no sense," local radio host Amy Oliver Cooke told the crowd. Many wore shirts that said, "Congress, Don't Take Away my Job."

"I can't afford the legislation and neither can you," she said.

David Eckhardt, a fourth-generation Weld County farmer, is struggling with the math. Despite meeting with Bennet and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Eckhardt remains skeptical of an Agriculture Department's analysis of the House climate bill that says farmers stand to make more money from trapping carbon in their soil and crops than they will pay out in higher energy prices.

"I know my fuel will go up, I know my chemicals will go up. And the question that was asked at the meeting we had with them was how much? And their answer was not as much as you think it will," said Eckhardt. "That's not an answer."

For Eckhardt, a climate law could change what crops he plants.

For JBS, which operates a feedlot down the road from his farm, changes are already afoot.

Fattening the tens of thousands of cattle the company slaughters annually at its Greeley headquarters requires flaking with steam the corn it receives from farmers. That can get expensive because it relies on traditional natural gas, which in recent years has been subject to price swings.

In 2006, with gas prices peaking, Tom McDonald, the environmental affairs manager for JBS Swift's cattle-feeding operation Five Rivers, started looking for ways not to waste the cows' waste any longer.

At one of the company's largest feedlots in Weld County, some of the manure that used to be raked up from the pens and stockpiled is now being fed into a manure gasifier. The apparatus, which looks like an extra large pizza oven, bakes the excrement, extracting the gases which in turn feed the fire. The heat generated can power the feedlots' boiler, reducing the company's natural gas consumption.

Eventually, McDonald says it could supply all the power the facility needs to make its corn flakes.

It would also help with global warming because the process converts methane into the less efficient heat-trapper carbon dioxide.

"These ideas had been kicked around for years and been dismissed because they weren't economical," said McDonald. "Well now the economics are coming in line and these systems actually have a payback are looking very promising."

___

On the Net:

JBS: http://www.jbsswift.com/

City of Greeley: http://www.greeleygov.com/

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee: http://tinyurl.com/ybcmypo

House Energy and Commerce Committee: http://tinyurl.com/ph52vs

Information on the House-passed bill, H.R. 2454, and the Senate bill, S. 1733, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov/

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:23:55 -0700 Betting Big on a Boom in Natural Gas - Yahoo! News http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/betting-big-on-a-boom-in-natural-gas-yahoo-ne http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/betting-big-on-a-boom-in-natural-gas-yahoo-ne

Betting Big on a Boom in Natural Gas

http://www.businessweek.com" class="provider-logo ult-section"> BusinessWeek

Related Quotes
Symbol Price Change
ACN 39.07 -0.07
FPL 53.10 +0.10
PGN 37.45 +0.24
POR 20.15 +0.11
RRC 53.04 -0.12
'; document.write(ad_content);

Earlier this year the time came for Lloyd M. Yates, CEO of Progress Energy (NYSE:http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=pgn">PGN - http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=pgn">News), to decide how the big Raleigh (N.C.) utility would meet the state's stringent smokestack laws. First he considered the easy solution: installing pollution scrubbers on the utility's old coal-fired plant in Sutton, N.C., at a cost of $330 million. Then his attention turned to natural gas, the price of which had plunged by two-thirds in the previous year. Sure, the recession accounted for some of the slide. But reports were also circulating of massive discoveries of natural gas in the U.S. Moreover, because the fuel emits half the carbon of coal, it seemed safe from the climate legislation being considered in Washington, which could impose steep penalties on emissions.

After weighing their options, Yates and his board decided against the scrubbers and opted to upgrade another coal plant to natural gas -- a $900 million project. In Yates' calculations, that would satisfy the smokestack law and more than pay for itself over time. "It was like deciding whether to put a catalytic converter on a '52 Chevy," Yates says. "It was: 'When do you buy the new car?'"

The U.S. natural gas industry hopes that as Lloyd Yates goes, so goes the country. In summer 2008 the U.S. and much of the rest of the world were consumed by talk of peak oil and natural gas and fears that high fuel prices would persist forever. Today analysts still worry about the oil supply but far less about natural gas. U.S. gas producers, capitalizing on a technological breakthrough, have in recent years unlocked an enormous volume of natural gas in the shale rock under Colorado, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, and other states. According to a July report by the Colorado School of Mines, the U.S. now holds 1,800 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, one third of it in shale, the equivalent of some 320 billion barrels of oil. That's more than Saudi Arabia's 264 billion barrels.

Of course, natural gas isn't interchangeable with oil and won't solve America's energy woes by itself. While natural gas can be used to heat homes and power vehicles, it's mostly used, like coal, to generate electricity.

But the supply estimates for natural gas are so vast and the plunge in prices so steep that they're forcing business leaders to rethink their long-term energy strategies -- quickly. Utilities are debating whether to retrofit coal plants for gas. Big corporations such as AT&T (NYSE:http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=t">T - http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=t">News) and UPS are beginning to convert large truck fleets from oil-based gasoline to natural gas. Even renewable-energy players are jumping in: As they try to coax more power from unpredictable wind and solar generators, they're finding that inexpensive natural gas helps keep their output steady.

It's not certain that the gas boom will fulfill its promise. "We don't know if it will be truly awesome or only theoretical in its impact," says David G. Victor, a professor and energy expert at the University of California at San Diego. While natural gas producers say they're sitting on the greatest volumes ever, they also face considerable barriers to getting their commodity to market. Prices are so low that many producers have closed their wells. Most utilities fitted with coal-burning units remain reluctant to invest in natural gas equipment. Critics say the water-intensive shale-drilling process poses risks to nearby drinking water supplies. And skeptics point to the late 1990s, another era when prices seemed permanently lowered, only to spike a few years later. "Utilities have been burned many times," says Andre Begosso, an energy strategist at Accenture (NYSE:http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=acn">ACN - http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=acn">News), a consulting firm.

Yet the opening up of U.S. shale gas may make the current wave of discoveries different from those of the past. A technique developed in the late 1990s by tiny Mitchell Energy & Development is driving the action. Before hydraulic-fracturing, as the technique is called, gas that was encased in solid shale was untappable. Mitchell and others figured out how to inject the rock with water and chemicals to release the gas molecules. Another recent advance has made it possible for drillers to fan out horizontally, recovering gas from far larger areas than in the past. U.S. natural gas production rose 14% between early 2007 and mid-2008, in large part because of new fields such as the Barnett Shale in Texas.

And the shale boom is only in its infancy. In 2004, John H. Pinkerton of Range Resources (NYSE:http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=rrc">RRC - http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=rrc">News) drilled the first such well in Appalachia, the Marcellus Shale, a 62 million-acre gas field spanning some 600 miles north to south. Since then Pinkerton has beefed up a one-person Pittsburgh office to 150 geologists, geophysicists, and engineers. Pinkerton says his production has quickly tripled, to some 90 million cubic feet a day. "We expect to double that next year, and again in the following years," he says.

In Raleigh, Progress Energy's Yates made his decision to shift to natural gas in the face of a state requirement to cut the utility's sulfur dioxide emissions in half, to 50,000 tons a year, by 2013. To do so in time, the utility had to act this year. After weighing the options it chose natural gas, in effect betting that prices would stay low for a while. Output at the plant will rise considerably, with a 950-megawatt natural gas unit replacing 397 megawatts of coal-fired capacity. And it will do so while also meeting the sulfur dioxide requirement: It will lower carbon dioxide emissions by 60% and nitrogen oxide by 95%, and will eliminate mercury emissions.

If Washington puts a cap on carbon emissions, Yates will likely face another decision on how to modernize Progress Energy's three other 1950s- and '60s-era coal-fired plants. Yates says natural gas will figure prominently in the calculations, while "we are not even considering coal because of its cost."

A few other utilities are making the shift to gas or considering doing so. Tampa Electric (NYSE:http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=te">TE - http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=te">News) has transformed its coal-fired Gannon Power Station into a natural gas unit at a cost of $750 million. In April, developers of the Highwood Generating Station near Great Falls, Mont., dropped plans to burn coal and chose natural gas for a new plant. Portland (Ore.) General Electric (NYSE:http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=por">POR - http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=por">News) is proposing to build two new natural gas plants.

Most utilities, however, remain on the sidelines. Natural gas prices have been so volatile over the years that executives are unwilling to make a long-term commitment. That's because if they lock in a guaranteed supply at higher prices than today's and prices don't rise to that level, they might have to raise the rates they charge customers. That wouldn't be an easy sell to regulators, who "are not keen on cost-recovery for wrong-way bets on supply contracts," says James Owen, spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, an industry lobbying group.

Oddly enough, natural gas is finding more popularity among utilities that embrace renewable energy. Fears that cheap natural gas might take investment from costlier solar and wind power have proven overblown; instead, utilities are building both. Because gas turbines can vary their output with precision, they complement wind farms and solar fields that generate irregular power flows. The result is a more stable and reliable energy supply.

Florida Power & Light (NYSE:http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=fpl">FPL - http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=fpl">News), the nation's largest renewable-energy developer, is building a solar thermal power plant that will be the nation's second largest. The Juno Beach (Fla.) company put its new facility next to an existing gas-fired plant so that when a cloud passes in front of the sun, the gas plant can keep the power flow steady. Public Service Enterprise Group, (NYSE:http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=peg">PEG - http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=peg">News) a major mid-Atlantic utility, is developing gas and renewable projects simultaneously. "The ease of dispatching gas-combustion turbines makes them perfect complements" for wind and solar plants, says PSEG CEO Ralph Izzo.

General Electric (NYSE:http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ge">GE - http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=ge">News) has targeted a line of fast-start gas turbines at renewable projects. As part of a $320 million investment, Topeka (Kan.)-based Westar Energy (NYSE:http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=wr">WR - http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=wr">News) has paired four of those turbines with 300 megawatts' worth of wind capacity spread around the region. It's a wind-rich area, where gusts not only die suddenly but also get too brisk, forcing the turbines to shut down for safety. In either event, gas turbines can kick in to maintain power. Westar committed to build the turbines back in 2006, when gas was double today's price. Now, with prices so low, "they offer an extra benefit, supplying regular power too," says Greg A. Greenwood, a vice-president at Westar.

Natural gas is also making a small dent in the transportation market. AT&T (NYSE:http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=t">T - http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=t">News) in March announced that it would be replacing 8,000 service vans with natural-gas-powered vehicles. The 10-year, $350 million upgrade came as part of a $565 million alternative-fuel vehicle initiative started last year. Rising gasoline prices are turning skeptics into believers. From April to July the average price of a gallon of gasoline jumped by 22%, to $2.46, while the price of compressed natural gas for cars rose just 6%, to the equivalent of around $1.73. "When the price of gas rises at the pump by a cent and you're buying about 80 million gallons of fuel a year, it gets pretty expensive," says Jerome Webber, AT&T's vice-president for fleet operations. The company is betting the new vehicles will save it 49 million gallons of gasoline over the next decade. Transportation giant UPS, meanwhile, deployed 300 new natural gas vehicles in February alongside 800 already on the road.

The market for natural gas vehicles is limited by the dearth of fill-up stations in the U.S. Just 1,100 of the country's 162,000 stations sell natural gas, according to Natural Gas Vehicles for America. But that number is growing. Clean Energy (CDNX:http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=lne.v">LNE.V - http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=lne.v">News), a Seal Beach (Calif.)-based company backed by T. Boone Pickens, has installed 184 natural gas stations in North America and plans to add up to 80 more in the next two years. Utah's Questar Gas has built 20 along that state's I-15 corridor and plans six more over the next 18 months.

Of course, the CEOs of natural gas outfits understand that such inroads don't amount to much compared with the massive reserves still sitting underground. They've descended on Washington in recent months to persuade lawmakers to create incentives for gas use in a climate-change bill moving through Congress. By boosting demand over the long term they hope to strengthen their position vs. Big Coal and Big Oil.

Whether or not they succeed in D.C., the shift away from coal and toward natural gas seems likely to continue, at least for a while, as the price and policy dynamics point in its favor. Says PSEG's Izzo: "We're building gas turbines because...there's no other option in the near term."

With Brian Burnsed in Washington

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:54:53 -0700 Print Story: Natural gas tumbles with most ever in storage - Yahoo! News http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/print-story-natural-gas-tumbles-with-most-eve http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/print-story-natural-gas-tumbles-with-most-eve

Natural gas tumbles with most ever in storage

By CHRIS KAHN, Associated Press Writer Chris Kahn, Associated Press Writer 35 mins ago

NEW YORK – Natural gas prices tumbled nearly 8 percent Thursday after the government reported consumption has dropped so low that the U.S. is now storing more than at any other time on record.

The report was welcome news for homeowners who heat their homes and cook their meals with natural gas. Suppliers already have cut rates in many parts of the country as stockpiles ballooned above the five-year average, and a continued drop in natural gas prices should convince others to cut prices as well.

Natural gas for November delivery lost 37.5 cents to settle at $4.466 per 1,000 cubic feet on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The Energy Information Administration reported Thursday that underground aquifers and caverns in the lower 48 states stored 3.589 trillion cubic feet of natural gas last week, topping the previous all-time high of 3.545 trillion cubic feet set on Nov. 2, 2007. Government records go back to 1975.

Analyst Steven Schork said supplies have grown so much that the U.S. is nearing its storage capacity for natural gas. If that happens, producers could dump more of it on the open market, dropping prices even more.

But Peter Beutel at Cameron Hanover said prices have dropped so low this summer that they'll likely spring back as winter approaches.

"We'll start drawing down those supplies," Beutel said "especially if it's cold and the economy starts to pick back up."

Elsewhere, oil prices ticked higher as the dollar strengthened and traders mulled a mixed bag of economic reports that suggested the country wouldn't enjoy a swift economic recovery.

Benchmark crude for November delivery added 21 cents to settle at $70.82 on the Nymex. In London, Brent crude lost 12 cents to settle at $69.19 on the ICE Futures exchange.

Reports by the Commerce and Labor departments said that while consumer and construction spending grew in August, the number of people claiming first-time unemployment benefits increased more than expected last week.

Although the Institute for Supply Management's index of manufacturing activity showed a second straight month of growth in September, the reading was well below what analysts expected.

The mixed economic news helped equities markets start the fourth quarter on a sour note. The Dow Jones industrial average lost about 147 points, and the Standard & Poor's 500 index gave up 21, down about 2 percent.

At the pump, retail gas prices fell by a penny overnight to a new national average of $2.469 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. A gallon of regular gas is 13.8 cents cheaper than last month and $1.15 cheaper than the same time last year.

In other Nymex trading, gasoline for November delivery added less than a penny to settle at $1.7579 a gallon, and heating oil lost a half cent to settle at $1.8274 a gallon.

___

Associated Press writers Pablo Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary and Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:07:01 -0700 Zero-Emission Cars: A Battle Among Technologies -- Printout -- TIME http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/zero-emission-cars-a-battle-among-technologie http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/zero-emission-cars-a-battle-among-technologie
Tuesday, Sep. 01, 2009

Zero-Emission Cars: A Battle Among Technologies

Q'Orianka Kilcher has never pumped a gallon of gasoline into her car. Never. Then again, she's never owned a car that needed gasoline. You could say she is at ground zero of the ZE, or zero-emission, vehicle future.

A 19-year-old actress living in Santa Monica, Calif. (she played Pocahontas in the 2005 movie The New World), Q'Orianka (pronounced Quor-ee-anka) is on her second hydrogen-fuel-cell car, a Honda FCX Clarity, a four-door with a 200-mile range. "I don't think I will ever buy a gas car," she says. "I can go everywhere I want to go with this. Plus, it's a guy magnet." (See the history of the electric car.)

Auto-marketing gurus take note: the brave new world of ZE cars is here, ready or not, and please make them sexy.

"ZEs are an entirely different paradigm," says Stephen Ellis, manager of fuel-cell-vehicle marketing for American Honda Motor Co. in Torrance, Calif. Ellis manages the rare $600-a-month leases (including free hydrogen fill-ups) for the FCX Clarity. "Knowing how to integrate these new technologies into existing lifestyles and then building new infrastructures to make it work is the trick," says Ellis. "It took a hundred years to create the gasoline infrastructure; this will be much faster."

There are three types of zero, or near zero, emission cars: electric plug-ins, hybrid plug-ins and hydrogen fuel cells (which create power by having oxygen and hydrogen pass over electricity-generating electrodes). But each major automaker has its own take on which advanced technology will win 10 years down the road. (See the video "Charge Your Car for 60 Cents.")

Nissan, for example, is pedal-to-the-metal with pure electric cars, having skipped fuel-cell technology altogether. It considers "interim hybrid technology," like Toyota's successful Prius, a mere passing phase. "The market-share winner will be the one that offers affordable, mass-market, zero-emission vehicles with a zero payback period for premium technologies," says Mark Perry, director of the product planning and strategy group for Nissan North America.

The automaker's first electric, the Nissan Leaf, was launched last month and is touted as the world's first affordable ZE. No price has been announced (the Leaf is still 14 months away from being available), but it's estimated to come in under $30,000. It seats five adults, goes 100 miles on a charge with V6 performance, offers advanced electronics and will reach 90 m.p.h. Nissan says it will produce 50,000 electric cars globally by 2010, and it's scaling up plants. At full capacity, its Tennessee plant will produce 150,000 ZE vehicles and 200,000 battery packs. But like all new technologies, the Leaf will have some marketing challenges, not all of which have been test-driven, according to Perry. (See "Aptera Electric Car in Best Inventions of 2008.")

"It's a very different sales process, especially with the inherent infrastructure challenges, like electric charging stations and in-home charging," he says. "It will be more of a consultative sale at the dealer level, and for some people, it may not be the right purchase."

"You'd never think of training consumers on how to fill up a gasoline-powered car," says Honda's Ellis. "But it's the very first thing we show them."

See the 50 worst cars of all time.

See the most exciting cars of 2010.

Dealers will ask prospective buyers some strange questions too, such as "Do you own a garage, for in-home refueling?" If the answer is no, an old-school, fuel-efficient Civic might be a better choice. And if your commute is more than 40 miles, well, you might want to kick the tires on a nifty hybrid. If, like Q'Orianka, you want a fuel-cell car, but you're not living in the Southern California hydrogen-fueling cluster, sorry. Only a dozen hydrogen-fueling stations exist, all in a 60-mile stretch between Newport Beach and Santa Monica.

According to Ellis, such customer research is necessary "to filter out customers so the experience is a positive one." Ellis has only 10 people on fuel-cell leases but is hoping for 200 next year.

In contrast to Nissan, Honda has passed up pure electrics, preferring instead to bank on lower-cost hybrids (Civic and Insight) and hydrogen fuel cells. Ellis, however, claims no distinction should be made between "FCs" and electrics, since a fuel-cell car is basically an electric car powered by hydrogen-created electricity.

Then there is Toyota, the 800-pound hybrid gorilla. Toyota has yet a third route to success: muscling up on its hybrid strength.

"We believe in not being first to market but being best to market," says Mary Nickerson, who is in charge of advanced-vehicle marketing at Toyota Motor Sales, also in Torrance. Last year, Toyota reached the 1 million sales mark with its Prius hybrid (gas-powered with fuel-saving electric technology).

"Our strategy is to be the hybrid masters, no pure electrics, and to explore fuel-cell technology," says Nickerson. "We feel it's going to take a lot more than one technology to make this new market work." Toyota began testing fuel cells in 2002. (Read "The Chevy Volt: GM's Huge Bet on the Electric Car.")

Toyota is investing heavily in its hybrid platform, offering more models, both larger and smaller. In 2010 it will start a demo program for plug-in hybrids with an "eco mode," or a downtown-use option, in which the vehicle will run for 20 miles on electricity before the gas engine kicks in.

Toyota's intrepid Prius customers are ripe for the next big thing, says Nickerson, noting research shows that a high percentage of Prius owners are likely to consider pure electrics or hybrid plug-ins. "Prius owners are people very comfortable trying new technologies because of their positive experience with Prius," she says. (Read "Nissan's New Leaf: An Electric Car and Charging Stations Too.")

But this same internal research shows some big inconveniences too. Some 21% of consumers will not consider a pure electric car because of the need to plug-in at home, according Nickerson. "We believe that 10 years out, the winners will be all new technologies, but hybrids will be the largest winner of them all."

Then again, as Honda's Ellis says, "It all depends on the price of gas."

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:16:13 -0700 Solving the Climate Change Puzzle; Natural Gas- Clean, Abundant, Efficient, American | True Blue Natural Gas - An Energy Blog from the American Gas Association AGA http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/solving-the-climate-change-puzzle-natural-gas http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/solving-the-climate-change-puzzle-natural-gas

Solving the Climate Change Puzzle; Natural Gas- Clean, Abundant, Efficient, American

August 26, 2009 by Lauren Blosse · Leave a comment
Filed under: energy, environment 

The answers to many of the questions our association receives may seem like second nature to our staff, but are unknown or unclear to the general public, such as: what are the chemical elements of natural gas? Where does it come from and how does it get to our homes and businesses? How can it help us reach our environmental goals as a nation?

Recently, the four groups that comprise the Natural Gas Council (AGA, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, the Natural Gas Supply Association, and the Independent Petroleum Association of America) set out to create a blueprint of the natural gas industry as a whole- from the burner tip in our kitchens back to the wellhead where the gas is produced.  The result is a comprehensive booklet, “Solving the Climate Change Puzzle;  Natural Gas- Clean, Abundant, Efficient, American,” which is now available to the public.

As our lawmakers try to secure America’s energy future by promoting clean, domestic energy, natural gas is both an immediate and long-term piece of that solution.

Be sure to let us know what you think.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:13:19 -0700 ksl.com - $15 million coming to Utah for alternative fuels http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/kslcom-15-million-coming-to-utah-for-alternat http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/kslcom-15-million-coming-to-utah-for-alternat
$15 million coming to Utah for alternative fuels
August 27th, 2009 @ 7:56am

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Nearly $15 million in federal funds will help upgrade and expand Utah's network of compressed natural gas stations and increase the number of cars, trucks and buses that run on cleaner-burning fuel.

The money is part of $300 million in federal stimulus funds being distributed by the U.S. Department of Energy to expand the nation's fleet of alternative fuel and energy-efficient vehicles.

Robin Erickson, director of the Utah Clean Cities Coalition, says the money will help pay for 16 new compressed natural gas fueling stations scattered throughout the state and upgrades to the state's 24 existing fueling stations.

Some of the money will also pay for a portion of three new biofuel stations in Salt Lake City, Provo and Plymouth.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:24:34 -0700 Ephren Taylor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/ephren-taylor-wikipedia-the-free-encyclopedia http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/ephren-taylor-wikipedia-the-free-encyclopedia

Ephren Taylor

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Ephren W. Taylor II is the CEO of a publicly-traded company in the United States[1].

[edit] Early life

Ephren W. Taylor II was born July 17, 1982 in Carlisle,[disambiguation needed] Mississippi, a town with a population of around 300 people. After his father completed college, his job took the family to several other areas of the country, eventually settling in Overland Park Kansas, outside of Kansas City Missouri.

Learning computer programming at the local library after school, Taylor started his first business venture at age 12, when he began making 3D videogames and selling them to his friends in school for $10 a copy. He sold over 100 copies of the game.

Recently, Taylor was named by The Michigan Chronicle as one of 2007’s ten people making a global difference. Taylor has been described as “walking history” by popular radio show host Tom Joyner.

In 2007, at City Capital Corporation, Taylor started the Goshen Energy initiative; which focuses on producing alternative energy specializing in biofuels. Taylor’s commitment to green energy is part of his concept of empowering local communities with both profitable and socially-conscious investing and development. Through his action on green energy and philanthropy, Taylor is leading a new wave of CEO’s focusing on corporate social responsibility.

Taylor’s diverse business portfolio is quickly transforming him into a household name. He appears weekly on FOX News and has been featured on network shows such as ABC’s 20/20 and Montel Williams show. He also has regular appearances in print and radio media including PBS, Black Enterprise, and the Miami Herald.

Beyond his unprecedented accomplishments at an early age in business, Taylor is an author, inspirational speaker, and real estate mastermind. His first book, “Creating Success from the Inside Out”, is published by the world’s number one business publisher, Wiley and is an Amazon and CEO Read best seller. The book serves as an expose of the mindset of today’s multi-millionaires while defining success as not only attaining wealth, but how to utilize it.

In celebration of their 170th anniversary, Taylor completed a specialized curriculum for high school-aged aspiring entrepreneurs at Cheyney University, America’s oldest historically black college and university. After providing a donation to get the program started, The Ephren Taylor Entrepreneur Academy opened in July 2007.

[edit] Business Dealings

Ephren Taylor became CEO of City Capital Corporation (traded under CTCC) in 2006. City Capital Corporation's interests include large-scale real estate developments in several states, as well as producing oil and natural gas wells. The company has a focused, socially-conscious mission, returning a significant amount of its profits to the local communities it partners with.

City Capital Corporation http://www.citycapitalcorp.net/ Personal web site for his book http://www.createthesuccess.com

[edit] References

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:48:05 -0700 Natural Gas: A Bridge Fuel for the 21st Century http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/natural-gas-a-bridge-fuel-for-the-21st-centur http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/natural-gas-a-bridge-fuel-for-the-21st-centur

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:08:42 -0700 The Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Bozeman Montana http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/the-bozeman-daily-chronicle-bozeman-montana http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/the-bozeman-daily-chronicle-bozeman-montana
Aug 6, 1:49 PM EDT

Tribal leaders mark entry in natural gas business

HARDIN, Mont. (AP) -- The Crow Tribe is officially in the natural gas business.

Tribal leaders joined executives from Ursa Major, an Oklahoma-based energy company, on Wednesday to celebrate the start of natural gas production at the new Venne-Old Elk compressor station near Hardin.

The station is named to honor former tribal Chairman Carl Venne and Secretary Andrew Old Elk, two deceased leaders who helped get the tribe involved in the natural gas project.

Production from seven wells drilled by Ursa Major officially began Friday.

Tribal leaders say getting the project up and running is a milestone for the tribe, and the first step in working with companies to develop the reservation's rich supply of energy resources.

"The Creator has blessed us and put us in the right place in terms of all the natural resources we have," said Cedric Black Eagle, tribal chairman. "We also thank Ursa Major for taking the risk with us to achieve this milestone."

Jason Frankenberg, vice president and general counsel for Ursa Major, praised the insight of Venne and Old Elk, as well as the continued support of Black Eagle, the other leaders and the tribe's Oil and Gas Committee.

"Nobody said it would be easy," Frankenberg said. "Many said it couldn't be done. Once a vision is shared, it's unstoppable. And today, natural gas is flowing from the Crow Reservation."

Ursa Major began talks with the tribe's executive branch in 2006 and started drilling exploratory wells in December 2007. By the fall of 2008, Frankenberg said the company decided to fully develop the project.

The company intends to drill seven or eight more wells by the end of the year and continue adding wells over time. Frankenberg said within five years, the goal is to have 100 wells.

Over the course of the natural gas partnership, the tribe could receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties. The tribe's first royalty check, for about $10,000, will probably come in about 45 days, Frankenberg said.

The reservation is along the northern edge of the Powder River Basin, which produces nearly half of the nation's coal annually.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:29:20 -0700 Legislation to Promote Natural Gas Vehicles | True Blue Natural Gas - An Energy Blog from the American Gas Association AGA http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/legislation-to-promote-natural-gas-vehicles-t http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/legislation-to-promote-natural-gas-vehicles-t

Legislation to Promote Natural Gas Vehicles

July 27, 2009 by Dan Gibson · Leave a comment
Filed under: Natural Gas 

As I’m making my daily rounds on the web, there are few subjects that come across my news feed more often than natural gas vehicles (NGV). The messages about the positive benefits surrounding NGV’s are abundant. In fact, those benefits are so positive that a bill, H.R. 1622, written by Rep. John Sullivan (R-OK), passed last week by an overwhelming 393-35 vote.

H.R. 1622 authorizes the Department of Energy to spend $30 million annually for a five-year period on research and development for natural gas vehicles.

Some highlights from our press release on H.R. 1622 and the benefits of NGV’s include:

  • Natural gas vehicles reduce carbon monoxide emissions by 70 percent and nitrogen oxide by nearly 90 percent when compared to most gasoline-powered vehicles.
  • Natural gas is available in extremely large quantities in the United States, with 100 years of supply of natural gas available today and new technologies coming online that have the power to unearth enough gas to supply the country for much longer. Video from the Potential Gas Committee press event here.
  • Natural gas costs one-third less than conventional gasoline at the pump.

You can read the full release about the legislation promoting natural gas vehicles here. You can also visit our friends at Natural Gas Vehicles for America.

If you have an NGV, feel free to leave a comment below on your experience.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli
Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:40:39 -0700 Boosting Energy Efficiency Could Save U.S. $1.2 Trillion http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/boosting-energy-efficiency-could-save-us-12-t http://stephenloosli.posterous.com/boosting-energy-efficiency-could-save-us-12-t

Boosting Energy Efficiency Could Save U.S. $1.2 Trillion

mckinsey-report
McKinsey & Co. have released another report about climate change, but this time they're putting it in motivating terms:  money, money, money.  The consulting firm has calculated the amount of cash the country could save over the next decade if we fully commit to becoming more energy efficient, and the amount is huge:  $1.2 trillion.

Of course, this savings can only be accomplished through a large investment in weatherizing homes, retrofitting buildings, efficiency education and government initiatives, etc. - costing about $520 billion over that same decade.  So, you're actually looking at a net savings of $700 billion, but that's still a nice big incentive to cut our energy consumption and help the planet at the same time.

The firm states that homes and businesses could trim 28 percent off their current energy bills and industries could trim 20 percent.  The report doesn't factor in transportation, just "stationary" uses of energy, but the study shows that through that large investment in efficiency, the country could slash 23 percent of its energy demand by 2020 and prevent the emissions of 1.1 gigatons of greenhouse gases yearly, the equivalent of taking the U.S. passenger fleet off the road.

As ecogeeks already know, a large portion of wasted energy is consumed by vampire power loads.  The study revealed that efficiency standards that prevent our electronics from sucking energy while not in use could lead to energy savings equal to the yearly electricity consumption of the Netherlands.

Click here to read the full report.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/94045/SGLHeadShot.jpg http://posterous.com/users/jYTbSdIaHf Stephen Loosli Stephen Stephen Loosli