(Wall Street Journal – September 4, 2012) Getting Back to Work-Energy: The Gas Glut
The summer of 2012 may well be remembered as the moment when the business world accepted that abundant and inexpensive natural gas wasn't going away anytime soon. It also marked the turning point when the U.S. energy market began to shake from the consequences.
Coal is hemorrhaging market share to natural gas in power generation. A growing number of companies are switching from diesel fuel to natural gas to run their vehicles. Meanwhile, the renewable-energy sector is facing an uphill fight in Congress to extend needed tax credits; subsidizing wind power is a harder case to make when the U.S. has an alternative in plentiful gas.
Energy companies have demonstrated they can wring natural gas—and oil as well—from dense rock formations using a combination of technologies such as hydraulic fracturing. That has triggered a huge increase in production, and a sharp decline in natural-gas prices.
A growing number of market watchers don't believe the nation is in a gas-supply bubble that will pop. "This is the way it is. Get used to it," says Rusty Braziel, president of consultant RBN Energy.
