Today, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on “The Future of Natural Gas.” There were no partisan or ideological fireworks. The expert witnesses were Howard Gruenspecht (U.S. Energy Information Administration), Ernest Moniz (MIT), and George Blitz (Dow Chemical).
Moniz argued the environmental risks associated with natural gas were “challenging but manageable.” Blitz sounded a note of caution. Industry uses natural gas both as a feedstock and as a manufacturing fuel. Policy-driven increases in natural gas demand due to, for example, a Clean Energy Standard, EPA’s Utility MACT Rule, or tax incentives for natural gas vehicles could do what high gas prices did in the early 2000s — close factories and offshore jobs. I may blog on their testimonies later on.
Gruenspecht’s testimony provides a valuable primer on natural gas production, demand, reserves, and trends. This post excerpts some of the key facts and figures he presented.
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