Natural Gas-- Fuel of the Future

From the fine folks at Carpe Diem, we learn that "more natural gas produced was produced in October - 2,330,551 million cubic feet - than in any previous month in U.S. history."  Natural gas now sells at less than half the price it was five years ago,  and with the vast quantities that are available the Energy Department is predicting lower prices for natural gas and  electricity for the next quarter-century.

Amy Myers Jaffe writes in the Wall Street Journal:

"We've always known the potential of shale; we just didn't have the technology to get to it at a low enough cost. Now new techniques have driven down the price tag—and set the stage for shale gas to become what will be the game-changing resource of the decade.

I have been studying the energy markets for 30 years, and I am convinced that shale gas will revolutionize the industry—and change the world—in the coming decades. It will prevent the rise of any new cartels. It will alter geopolitics. And it will slow the transition to renewable energy."

Grouch: Politicians tend to be backward looking reactionaries who repeatedly fail to recognize the obvious. While they are funneling billions of dollars on the hope that wind power, ethanol, solar, or bio-diesel might be the clean fuel of the future that can power the nation and reduce our dependency on foreign oil the answer lies right below their feet-- at least a hundred year supply of clean burning natural gas that could be used to power cars, electric plants and homes for a very long time while keeping energy dollars here in the US and creating US based jobs.