The EIA weekly report released information that US petroleum supplies fell dramatically last week. While crude dipped only slightly, gasoline dove 6.4 million barrels (3.1%) and distillates fell 1.7 Mb. Along with the Georgia-Russia conflict, this news should put at least a temporary halt to price slides.
And the exciting trend is that while oil becomes harder to find and produce, we are getting much better at extracting natural gas from domestic fields. The EIA Short Term Energy Outlook raised its estimate of 2008 natural gas production to an 8% increase from 2007! They predict further production increases in 2009 above 3%. I gave a talk last September where I shared my hopes that energy companies find more natural gas than they do oil because natural gas emits more than 30% less greenhouse gases than oil. It’s nice to see that playing out in the US this year.
But I do not want to ignore the challenges in natural gas either. Production in Canada is falling, eroding their ability to export to us, and LNG imports for 2008 are predicted to be half their 2007 level. Which reminds us that we need to continue to generate new electricity from wind and solar. Wind power in March provided 1.3% of the nation’s electricity, passing petroleum as the 5th largest US electricity source and twice its contribution just a couple of years ago. It looks like wind and its little cousin solar will soon be able to provide all new electricity demand. A second quarter report by the American Wind Energy Association shares eye-popping growth in wind again this year, breaking the awesome records of last year. I will discuss this report in more detail tomorrow.
Until then, keep up your progress in the Sustainable Energy Transition
Tags: climate change, Natural Gas, Oil, Wind