2014 ndi – Pre Camp Natural Gas Negative
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Natural Gas AdvUS Oil Independent Now/Has Enough CapacityUS shale deposits are sufficient – ensures US price dominance, solves manufacturing, and the free market will fill in.Bryce, 11/14/2013 (Robert, senior fellow with the Center for Energy Policy and the Environment at the Manhattan Institute, NYT, “OPEC Is Yesterday’s News” http://www.nationalreview.com/article/363900/opec-yesterdays-news-robert-bryce/page/0/1) While we continue to hear rhetoric about America’s lack of a comprehensive energy policy, the fact remains that other countries would love to be in America’s position. In 2012, the U.S. produced more natural gas — an average of nearly 66 billion cubic feet per day — than it has at any time in its history. The flood of natural gas now being produced from shale deposits has driven down prices (they’re now at about $3.60 per million BTU) and has given the U.S. a price advantage over nearly every other country on the planet, with the possible exception of Qatar. That cheap gas is fueling a resurgence in American manufacturing in everything from steel to fertilizer.¶ The surge in natural-gas production has occurred alongside huge increases in oil output. Last year, U.S. oil production rose by about 800,000 barrels per day, the biggest annual increase since 1859. And it is expected to rise by another 600,000 barrels per day this year. That increased oil production has led to a huge increase in U.S. oil exports. In July, the U.S. exported an average of nearly 3.9 million barrels of refined products per day. Back in 1973, those exports were a paltry 211,000 barrels per day. Shultz and Smith want readers to believe that over the last four decades, OPEC members have been dining out on America’s credit card. Here’s the reality: Since 1973, the OPEC countries have largely stayed poor while we got richer. OPEC member countries have a combined population of some 429 million. Their combined GDP is some $3.3 trillion, or about a fourth that of the U.S. The per capita GDP for all the member countries is $7,800. That’s about 62 percent of the world-average per capita GDP and less than one-sixth of the per capita GDP in the U.S., which is nearly $50,000.¶ In short, there’s a near-total disconnect between the reality of today’s global energy market and the OPEC-centric worldview that’s being promoted by Shultz, Smith, and their alarmist allies. The depth of the disconnect can be seen in their promotion of electric cars. The two are advocating electric vehicles even though the history of the electric car is a century-plus of failure tailgating failure. How much more in the way of subsidies do Shultz and Smith want? The Obama administration has already provided about $6.5 billion in handouts for what is clearly a failed concept.¶ It’s worth mentioning that Smith, as the head of FedEx, has an economic interest in getting the government to support the development of alternative fuels because his company uses enormous quantities of petroleum in its airplanes and trucks. Last year, Smith predicted that biofuel produced from algae would become a big deal. My prediction: Don’t count on it.¶ If the U.S. wants to reduce the amount of oil it uses domestically (and thereby increase its exports), the best course is to simply let the free market work. Indeed, it’s already working. Proof of that can be seen by looking at the soaring popularity of NGVs. All over the world, consumers and fleet owners are using more natural gas to fuel their vehicles because the fuel reduces emissions and, in many cases, it’s cheaper than refined oil products.¶ In June, the International Energy Agency estimated that global demand for natural gas in the transportation sector will nearly double, to about 9.6 billion cubic feet per day, by 2018. The agency also revealed a remarkable fact: “The expansion of gas as a transport fuel has a bigger impact on reducing the medium-term growth of oil demand than both biofuels and electric cars combined.”¶ In July, Simmons & Co., a Houston-based investment-banking firm, projected that by 2020 the number of heavy trucks in the U.S. fueled by natural gas will increase sixfold to some 170,000 vehicles.¶ In October, UPS announced it would spend $50 million on new liquefied-natural-gas refueling stations that will be used to fuel 1,000 of the logistics company’s long-haul trucks. Doing so will save the company about 24 million gallons of diesel fuel per year. Depending on where you are in the U.S., a natural-gas gallon-of-diesel equivalent is $1.00 to $2.00 cheaper than diesel fuel. If we assume a $1.00 differential, UPS could recover its capital investment in about two years. And here’s the most important part: UPS is making the switch not because of government mandates or subsidies, but because doing so saves money.¶ The takeaways here are obvious: First, the world’s consumers are diversifying away from oil because they have an economic incentive to do so. Second, the energy superpower of today is the United States, not OPEC. Third, providing more subsidies and mandates for inefficient and uneconomic oil substitutes will only result in a waste of taxpayer dollars. 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