Feature
Story
Natural Gas vs.
Biomass Energy:
A matter of sustainability
Kevin Rhodes, PE, Project Director, Energy Utilities Group, Woolpert Inc.
Natural gas supplies are decreasing while demand – and prices –
continue upward. News? Hardly.
But it may come as news to some district
energy managers that these trends are
unlikely to reverse, or even to stabilize,
within the next 10 years. Moreover, liquefied natural gas will likely not be the
alternative that many energy managers
are expecting it will be. The good news
is that biomass energy may offer an
attractive supplement, or even a feasible
alternative, to natural gas.
First, it is important to understand
North America’s position in the world
as it relates to natural gas reserves (see
fig. 1) and its share of them. North America
possesses roughly 4 percent of the
world’s current proven natural gas reserves.
More discoveries will likely be made in
the future, but it is unlikely that the
continent's place in the pecking order
will change as a result. It is also important to understand that these reserves
must meet the demand of the whole of
North America – not just the United
States, whose proved reserves stand at
210 trillion cu ft (TCF).
23 TCF per year since the 1970s. At
this rate of consumption, U.S. domestic
reserves would last approximately 10
years. However, a relatively recent and
alarming trend that will undoubtedly
have an effect upon domestic demand is
the cancellation of planned coal-fired
electrical power generating capacity in
favor of natural gas-fired capacity. Even
before this development, natural gas
consumption for electrical power generation increased 38 percent from July
2004 to July 2006. We can expect demand
to continue to move upward.
In 2006, slightly more than 82 percent
of the natural gas consumed in the United
States was produced domestically, while
roughly 15 percent came via pipeline
imports from Canada and Mexico, and
a minuscule 3 percent came in the form
of liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports.
However, the increase in the total
number of natural gas wells in the
United States was not accompanied by
Figure 1. Proven Global Natural Gas Reserves. (Region, reserves in trillion cu ft, percent of total.)
Demand Up; Production
Past its Peak
In the United States, our burn rate
had been fairly steady, averaging about
Data from Information Administration. Graphics by Woolpert Inc.
