A shale-driven glut of natural gas has cut electricity prices for the U.S. power industry by 50 percent and reduced investment in costlier sources of energy.
With abundant new supplies of gas making it the cheapest option for new power generation, the largest U.S. wind-energy producer, NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE), has shelved plans for new U.S. wind projects next year…
h/t Maz2
What? What?! This cannot stand. Cheaper energy, produced domestically without the government?
Obama and his EPA will soon put a stop to this nonsense.
Near the end of the link: “The way to make $4 gas $8 gas is for everyone to go out and build combined-cycle natural-gas plants,” Michael Morris, non-executive chairman of American Electric Power (AEP) Inc., said at an industry conference in November. “We need to be cautious about how we go about this.”
So, for the short term, a glut, which may impact drilling here in Canada. But it looks very rosy for the long term.
The only problem with NEE shelving plans for a bird-blender farm is that they are still around. Bankruptcy would have been a better outcome ala Solyndra.
Trust me Obama will make this illegal someway. Lower energy bills is heresy to the green commiserate.
Just as the real price of tobacco, or booze is for the Nero-Puritians. How dare anyone fool with his vision of windmills across the Globe.
On a lighter note , it just goes to show how fundamentally wrong the chicken littles are when it comes to energy. Just like the Climate augurs are with reading the entrails of vapor trails.
That must have been an agonizing decision for electricity producer CEO’s to make – gas power or wind power.
Agonize for all of 0.2 microseconds and then decide to build gas fired electricity generation plants.
Anything that reduces the price of electricity is a good thing. I do, however, worry about becoming overly reliant on natural gas. Right now methane clathrate mining is still experimental. What is really needed is a mix of practical technologies (wind and solar don’t meet the practicality criterion). I’m a bit disappointed in the lack of investment in nuclear power — this is going to be the primary future energy source and would be a valid venture to be funded by government funds. Just think of how much further the US could have been if all the money wasted on corn ethanol, wind power and solar power had instead gone to fund nuclear power and research into LENR’s.
Low natural gas prices are something that benefits people in all parts of the country except BC where the idiotic carbon tax keeps rising and one is penalized for using more electricity than that needed to keep on 1 CFL in ones house (OK a slight exaggeration but my home computer network is now up to 10 machines, with a few additions over the Christmas period, and one doesn’t turn a computer off once it’s been powered up. Also, I like to keep the house well lit this time of year as I don’t like short days).
The Marcellus shales in Pennsylvania and New York are estimated to have 250 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas.
If that sounds like a lot, it is.
There will be no NY Shale production, so long as the Watermelons are running the show.
Oh, and Lisa Jackson.
Who is she?
Director of the EPA.
What was she?
Jon Corzine’s Senatorial Chief Of Staff.
Any questions?
The profits generated by an economy based on lower cost fossil fuels will fund research on developing viable alternative sources of energy.
No profits, then no investment capital.
No investment capital, then no research.
No research then no results.
This does not augur well for Dalton McGuinty’s plans to supply the world market for wind propellor blades out of Ont. Ont. is about to be the last man standing in the whirlygig power generation scam.
Don’t bet on it. Sask Power is about to double their wind power.
and to think we used to just burn the shit off in a flarestack!
Just think of how much further the US could have been if all the money wasted on corn ethanol, wind power and solar power had instead gone to fund nuclear power and research into LENR’s.
Yes, they would have been well on the way to solving the energy shortage rather than just delaying it for a few decades. “Planning” in the USofA means shoving the problem forward into the next administration. That’s why the US will continue to sink to 2nd rate nation status, and why the long-term-thinking Chinese will own a big chunk of US real estate in a decade or so.
To Two?
Trust me Obama will make this illegal someway. Lower energy bills is blasphemy to the green commiserate.
Just as the real price of tobacco, or booze is for the Neo-Puritians. How dare anyone fool with his Vision of windmills across the Globe.
On a lighter note , it just goes to show how fundamentally wrong the dooms daters are when it comes to energy. Just like the Climate augurs are with reading the entrails of vapor trails.
As my 13 yr. old niece would say:
Aaawkward!
I’m a bit disappointed in the lack of investment in nuclear power
~Loki
Uranium was my No.1 investment this year.
Nice to see those clowns in quebec missing out on it.
Anyone notice all the recent publications that anticipate the US as becoming a net Exporter in short time? What might that have to do without the politically blocked Keystone?
The US is primarily exporting refined products, and will continue to do so. With the economic slowdown there is a surplus of refined products. They either shut down refinery production or export it. They have a negative balance of trade so exports make very good sense.
Obama will never allow it to be developed.He has visions of windmills around the world.
“instead gone to fund nuclear power”
oh yes oh yes.
let’s get into some really serious cost overruns a la Pickering.
and leave the 5,000th generation to clean up the nuclear waste.
brilliant stuff from the right.
You don’t clean up nuclear waste, you store it.
Well that certainly explains why my Nova Scotia Power bill is going (or gone) up by 9% and there is a multimillion tax dollar tidal turbine sitting in dockyard. We need a good fracking here because the taxpayer has already been given a good …
“It’s like giving a machine gun to an idiot child.” – Paul Ehrlich
Nothing torques of Ehrlich like postponing the apocalypse a generation.
If Romney does nothing more than get out of the way of energy development, it will be a successful presidency.
Great news.
Hmm, explains why U.S. hydro costs are now lower than those in Ontario and Ontario companies are heading for the hills.
If the USA can become energy self-sufficent consider the trade balance implications. A USA in surplus changes a lot of the current math.
This explains the desperate campaigns to stop fracking…..they are like the anti-gun lobby busy commisioning junk science by credentialed activists.
A surplus/drop in NG prices….that’s not they way they planed it. All that trouble to suspend drilling in the Gulf is now wasted.
People in Ontario better stand by and wait for Dalton to put a tax on Natural gas,we just can not have any form of energy that is cheaper than wind or solar.Come to think of it Ontario has already been “fracked” by Dalton and the 40 theives in his cabinet.
“we just cannot have any form of energy that is cheaper than wind or solar.”
Frankemm, I don’t think there is any form of energy that isn’t cheaper than wind or solar.
@ Dale: I sure wish that somebody would pass that info on to Dalton and the 40 Theives.