Natural gas supply shift requires $205 billion in new pipelines
Bill Loveless of Platts Energy Week recently interviewed Don Santa, President and CEO of INGAA (Interstate Natural Gas Association of America), about a study that his organization commission from ICF International. According to the study, the shifts in natural gas supply areas combined with shifts in the customer base, will require the construction of approximately 1400 miles of new natural gas pipelines every year for the next 25 years.
Rod – thanks as always for this post. If anyone would like to know more about natural gas pipelines and supply, The Oil Drum post Tech Talk – natural gas pipelines and regulation seems to be a good start. I found the Flow Diagram of the US Gas Distribution Network partway down the page particularly interesting; it shares features with the electrical grid and even has the storage feature that wind and solar facilities wish they had. The article goes into the regulation and competition dance that oil, coal, and gas have been in; they squabble among themselves but unite against a common threat. Exactly as you say, Rod.
They must be expecting the price of methane to increase a lot if they plan on investing $205B just to deliver their product over the next 25 years. Just think how much coal capacity could be replaced by nuclear with that kind of investment.
Seems like a lot of churning and expending of labor and resources just to stay at the same level of production. Too bad they can’t use things like rail lines insteal of pipelines. At least then there might be collateral uses for the lines after the gas well is tapped out.
Miles and miles of unguarded pipelines… And who’s worrying about terrorists attacks on nuclear plants again ?
@Cpragman
The coal industry is already tying up the rail lines and the roads