Natural Gas - A Natural Bridge to Renewable Energy

By Steven Tyler

We’ve been reading of the promise of natural gas as a possible step change towards our move to renewable sources of energy. We are strong believers that the U.S. can and must do something to move towards energy independence but recognize it will have to be a step-by-step approach. One person who has been a big advocate of this approach has been T. Boone Pickens who of course stands to gain quite a bit from an expansion/increase in the use of natural gas but who also has invested significant funds in wind energy.

Today the Wall Street Journal had a piece on the huge natural gas finds that were recently discovered in Louisiana. We now have reserves of natural gas that would meet our needs for the next 100 years at present day usage levels. In addition, there seems to be reason to believe that additional reserves could be find in the U.S. if desired. Finds in our state of Pennsylvania have lead to a ‘mini-boom’ in some smaller towns in the state as companies have flooded in to explore for gas.

Given the well documented issues with coal and nuclear it seems to us that we ought to be devoting a lot more attention at the government level to the possibilities that natural gas offer us. We still feel that a floor needs to be put on energy prices such that if oil/gasoline drops below a certain level a federal tax kicks in. That ‘energy tax floor’ combined with conversion to natural gas could help us to bridge to renewable over a longer term yet with a very positive environmental and security effect.