Natural gas and how it interfaces the world - a guest post by Tess Additon

I recently watched another video from the 2012 Natural Gas Symposium at CSU that was entitled “Natural gas and how it interfaces the world.”  This discussion was moderated by governor Bill Ritter and after all the previous talks on producing natural gas he shifted the focus to the future and how will be able to see this new fuel source taken advantage of across sectors.  Three main areas were represented: electricity generation, transportation, and new technology financing.  I was already fairly familiar with the large shifts from coal to natural gas for our electricity, which is especially common in Colorado.  In terms of transportation, however, I’ll admit I wasn’t sure exactly how natural gas fit into that future.  These days it is more common to see trucks driving around with stickers that say they are clean burning powered by natural gas and it turns out the trucking and bus industries are where this fuel has been initially targeted.  One out of every 4 to 5 buses in the U.S. are currently run on natural gas.  The benefits here exist mainly in the low cost and release of fewer VOCs into the atmosphere during combustion, yet a lack of infrastructure for storing and delivering this fuel remains a barrier.  For personal use, still only a few car and truck models are available but they are predicting an increased interest in the future particularly considering the competitive cost—it was mentioned that the cost of liquefied natural gas is equivalent to paying 38 cents a gallon in gasoline.  Innovative ideas in storage and shipping of natural gas are paving the way for even more advances and distribution around the world.  The financing piece also recognized that despite all the new opportunities arising from the low cost of natural gas, there is a need to develop technologies to help mitigate the negative impacts of production.  An interesting comment was made here towards the end of how Colorado is a leader in developing new technologies for the natural gas industry, yet Colorado as a state is not aligning itself with any side concerning associated environmental impacts.

The discussion on transportation sparked my interest to see what a car that runs on natural gas is like, so I looked further into the Honda Civic (http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-natural-gas/).  The 2012 Civic natural gas was named one of the 10 best green cars; its starting price is $26,305 and it gets an average of 38 mpg on the highway.  In comparison, the 2013 Civic hybrid starts at $24,360, getting 44 mpg on the highway, and the standard 2013 Honda Civic has a starting price of $18,165, averaging 39 mpg on the highway.   Looking at these statistics I’m not sure this natural gas vehicle sounds like a deal, but the pay off on its premium comes in fuel savings.  Fuel savings can’t be realized, however, without reliable delivery of the fuel in the first place.  As mentioned in the discussion, we are still lacking fueling stations for these vehicles plus the price of natural gas is regionally controlled and possibly at risk of volatile changes, so I don’t think as a consumer I would go out and purchase a natural gas vehicle just yet.  For now I’ll take the bus, which I can be happy is possibly clean burning…but is this really the truth?  Yes, the emissions from engines are reduced with natural gas but they still exist and are potentially high hazards during extraction.  Hopefully innovation isn’t occurring too haphazardly without concern of negative impacts, or we could in a sense be constructing another atomic bomb.  I think the low dollar cost is almost too tempting that I don’t trust what investors will do and I worry about the huge increase in demand if natural gas also takes over the transportation sector.  I understand its benefit in electricity since easy delivery and clean burning qualities give natural gas a big advantage in home use, but I would like to see other options explored in transportation.   People say how important it is to maintain a diverse energy portfolio to reduce risk, and in conclusion I want to stress how important it is we make sure this is done, even under the temptation of natural gas’s low dollar cost.