Natural gas industry

“ Allowance in a rate to compensate for gas removed from gas lands, whether fixed as of point of production or as of point of delivery, probably best can be measured by a functional test applied to the whole industry. For good or ill we depend upon private enterprise to exploit these natural resources for public consumption. ”

“ In 2011, natural gas provided 25 percent of the energy consumed in the United States. Its production creates jobs and provides economic benefits to the entire domestic production supply chain, as well as to chemical and other manufacturers, who benefit from lower feedstock and energy costs. By helping to power our transportation system, greater use of natural gas can also reduce our dependence on oil. And with appropriate safeguards, natural gas can provide a cleaner source of energy than other fossil fuels. ”

“ The heart of this problem is the elusive, exhaustible, and irreplaceable nature of natural gas itself. Given sufficient money, we can produce any desired amount of railroad, bus, or steamship transportation, or communications facilities, or capacity for generation of electric energy, or for the manufacture of gas of a kind. In the service of such utilities one customer has little concern with the amount taken by another, one's waste will not deprive another, a volume of service and be created equal to demand, and today's demands will not exhaust or lessen capacity to serve tomorrow. ”

“ Although, for a period of perhaps 20 years, the natural gas could be so priced as to appear to offer an apparent saving in fuel costs, this would mean simply that social costs which must eventually be paid had been ignored. 'Careful study of the entire problem may lead to the conclusion that use of natural gas should be restricted by functions rather than by areas. Thus, it is especially adapted to space and water heating in urban homes and other buildings and to the various industrial heat processes which require concentration of heat, flexibility of control, and uniformity of results. ”

“ But the wealth of Midas and the wit of man cannot produce or reproduce a natural gas field. We cannot even reproduce the gas, for our manufactured product has only about half the heating value per unit of nature's own. [38]
Natural gas in some quantity is produced in twenty-four states. It is consumed in only thirty-five states, and is available only to about 7,600,000 consumers. [39] Its availability has been more localized than that of any other utility service because it has depended more on the caprice of nature. ”

“ The great economic question, however, connected with the use of natural gas is, How will it affect the industrial interests of the country? There are grounds for the belief that a sufficient supply of natural gas may be found in the vicinity of Pittsburg to reduce the cost of fuel to such a degree as to make competition in the manufacture of iron, steel, and glass, in any part of the country where coal must be used, out of the question. ”

“ To help Virginia clean your air and keep your coal, Congress needs to get the Clear Skills bill to my desk this year.
Improving our electricity supply also means making better use of natural gas. It's an important power source for our farmers and manufacturers and homeowners. We need to increase environmentally responsible production of natural gas from federal lands. To further increase our natural gas supply, Congress needs to make clear federal authority to choose sites for new receiving terminals for liquified natural gas. ”

“ Natural gas occurs in very large quantities in the United States, where it is conveyed through pipes under pressure for hundreds of miles, and distributed among factories and houses for driving machinery, heating, and cooking. In England and Europe the petroleum engine and coal-gas engine have been most utilised; but of late the employment of smelting-furnace gases—formerly blown into the air and wasted—and of "producer" gas has come into great favour with manufacturers. ”

“ Food and trees can be grown. Water supplies are constantly replenished by nature, but there is no regeneration in natural gas." It is thought that natural gas forms so slowly that millions of years will be required to make the present concentrated supply. As far as we are concerned, when the present supply is used up, it is gone forever. Since natural gas is a most efficient fuel, every housekeeper and householder should feel obligated to waste none of it. ”

“ The development of natural gas will create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner and cheaper, proving that we don’t have to choose between our environment and our economy. And by the way, it was public research dollars, over the course of thirty years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock, reminding us that Government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground. ”

“ Notwithstanding this guarded announcement, it is evident that the discovery of natural gas has begun a revolution in fuel, which will have permanent and far-reaching economic and social consequences, whether the supply of gas is limited or inexhaustible. ”

“ In the case of manufacturing establishments, the gas is led into the mills overhead, and, all the pipes being in the open air, no danger of explosion is incurred.
The following extract from the report of a committee, made to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers at a recent meeting, gives an idea of the value of the new fuel: "Natural gas, next to hydrogen, is the most powerful of the gaseous fuels, and, if properly applied, one of the most economical, as very nearly its theoretical heating power can be utilized in evaporating water. ”

“ The supply can not be expected to last beyond the middle of the present century. "The known natural-gas fields aggregate an area of 9,000 square miles, distributed through 22 States. Of the total yield from these fields during 1907, 400,000,000,000 cubic feet, valued at $62,000,000, were utilized, while an equal quantity was allowed to escape into the air. The daily waste of natural gas—the most perfect known fuel—is over 1,000,000,000 cubic feet, or enough to supply every city in the United States of over 100,000 population. ”

“ In short, the advantages of natural gas as a fuel are so obvious to those who have given it a trial, that the prediction is made that, should the supply fail, many who are now using it will never return to the consumption of crude coal in factories, but, if necessary, convert it or petroleum into gas at their own works. ”

“ Medicine Hat, in the valley of the South Saskatchewan and the centre of a magnificent ranching and mixed-farming district, is a division point of the Canadian Pacific Railway, with extensive railway shops operated with natural gas for fuel. The light, heat, and power, derived from this gas are sold to manufacturers at 5 cents per thousand cubic feet, and for domestic purposes at 1 cent. The factories and industries now using natural gas pay out about 21⁄2 million dollars annually, which will be considerably augmented by factories in course of construction, and to be erected. ”

“ The other part of the business-to reduce to possession an adequate supply of natural gas-is of opposite character, being more erratic and irregular and unpredictable in relation to investment than any phase of any other utility business. A thousand feet of gas captured and severed from real estate for delivery to consumers is recognized under our law as property of much the same nature as a ton of coal, a barrel of oil, or a yard of sand. The value to be allowed for it is the real battleground between the investor and consumer. ”

“ The feverishness of speculation will abate; many anticipations will not be realized. It will be discovered that there is a limit to manufacturing, even with fuel that costs next to nothing. The supply of natural gas no doubt has its defined limits. ”

“ Now, one of the biggest factors in bringing more jobs back is our commitment to American energy. The all-of-the-above energy strategy I announced a few years ago is working, and today, America is closer to energy independence than we’ve been in decades.
One of the reasons why is natural gas – if extracted safely, it’s the bridge fuel that can power our economy with less of the carbon pollution that causes climate change. Businesses plan to invest almost $100 billion in new factories that use natural gas. ”

“ With the source of supply thus tapped to serve centers of large demand, like Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cleveland, Youngstown, Akron, and other industrial communities, the distribution of natural gas fast became big business. ”

“ Utilization of natural gas of highest social as well as economic return is domestic use for cooking and water heating, followed closely by use for space heating in homes. This is the true public utility aspect of the enterprise, and its preservation should be the first concern of regulation. Gas does the family cooking cheaper than any other fuel. ”

“ So that with the prospect of coal becoming as rare as the dodo itself, the world, we are told by scientists, may still regard with complacency the failure of our ordinary carbon supply. The natural gases and oils of the world will provide the human race with combustible material for untold ages—such at least is the opinion of those who are best informed on the subject. For one thing, we are reminded that gas is found to be the most convenient and most economical of fuels. Rock gas is being utilized abroad even now in manufacturing processes. ”

“ The shortage of natural gas available to some interstate pipelines and local distribution companies has been so severe as to cause them to curtail or to be in imminent danger of curtailing natural gas supplies to residences, small commercial establishments and other high priority users, so as to endanger life or health, and risk damage to plant or other facilities. ”

“ Second, the Commission concluded that price could usefully serve as an incentive to exploration and production only if it were computed according to the method by which gas is produced. Natural gas produced jointly with oil is necessarily a relatively unimportant by-product. The value of oil-well gas is on average only one-seventeenth that of the oil with which it is produced. ”

“ These alternative fuels-such as ethanol, methanol, natural gas, propane, electricity, and biodiesel-can make significant contributions to our energy security and environmental quality. By increasing the use of alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) , we can reduce our demand for imported oil, create new products, jobs, and businesses, and improve air quality by dramatically reducing carbon dioxide emissions as well as the hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter that are such major contributors to urban air pollution. ”

“ While holding companies dominated both production and distribution they segregated those activities in separate subsidiaries, [66] the effect of which, if not the purpose, was to isolate some end of the business from the reach of any one state commission. The cost of natural gas to consumers moved steadily upwards over the years, out of proportion to prices of oil, which, except for the element of competition, is produced under somewhat comparable conditions. The public came to feel that the companies were exploiting the growing scarcity of local gas. ”

“ For illuminating purposes it is the cheapest form of artificial light; as a fuel it is supplanting coal, where the latter is dear or its cost of carriage high, as on ocean steamers. Finally, the construction of light and convenient gasoline motors has given it great importance as a source of motive power. Natural gas is closely related to petroleum, but the supply has been so reduced by rapid and reckless use that it has but a limited economic outlook and is of local significance only. ”

“ If, however, it is decided to cheapen domestic use by resort to industrial sales, should they be limited to the few uses for which gas has special values or extend also to those who use it only because it is cheaper than competitive fuels? ”

“ Large and wasteful production of gas in connection with production of oil in the Panhandle field, and, more recently, in connection with the operations of plants 'stripping' the gas of its natural gasoline content, 'has resulted in the migration of tremendous quantities of natural gas from the southwestern side of the field to the northeastern side of the field. ”

“ In other words, the gas-engine will owe its supply of cheap fuel to the electric current derived at small expense from natural sources of power.
Calcium carbide, by means of which acetylene gas is obtained as a product from water, becomes in this view stored power. The marvellously cheap "water-gas" which is made through a jet of steam impinging upon incandescent carbons or upon other suitable glowing hot materials will, no doubt, for a long time command the market after the date at which coal-gas for the generation of power has been partially superseded. ”

“ All agencies shall develop and implement programs to reduce the use of petroleum in their buildings and facilities by switching to a less-polluting and nonpetroleum-based energy source, such as natural gas or solar and other renewable energy sources. Where alternative fuels are not practical or cost-effective, agencies shall strive to improve the efficiency with which they use the petroleum. ”

“ A lack of permanence gives to the gas-using industries a migratory character, a movement to and from gas regions. For several years such plants have operated up to their full market capacity in Kansas and Oklahoma. The financial depressions of 1907 and of the past year checked some of factory building in and near the gas regions. For about two years certain companies have been diligent in selling equipment for making gasoline from natural gas. ”