The latest issue of Bloomberg Businessweek devotes four pages to the potential for natural gas to become a go-to source for motor vehicle fuel.
The shale revolution, which in recent years turned fracking into a household word and the U.S. into the world’s second-largest natural gas producer, is only half a revolution. It increased supply enough to meet current U.S. consumption for 100 years. To truly upend the global energy balance, the U.S. must also revolutionize demand. And the only way to do that is to get natural gas into what has always been the greatest prize: light trucks, 18-wheelers, government and delivery fleets, and, of course, private cars.
More than 1,000 natural gas fueling stations already dot the U.S., with about half open to the public and the rest serving fleets. There are about 120,000 natural gas-powered vehicles on U.S. roads today and more than 15.2 million worldwide, according to Natural Gas Vehicles for America, an industry-funded trade group. By 2019 the number of natural gas consumer vehicles worldwide will rise to 25 million, says Navigant Consulting. “This is early days, but we’re on the brink of one of those tectonic shifts that occur every 100 years in the energy game,” says Kirt Montague, chief executive officer of Plum Energy, which develops fueling networks for trains, ships, and drilling rigs powered by natural gas. “For years, I felt like we were the only ones drinking the Kool-Aid. Now that’s no longer the case.”
Not so long ago, only T. Boone Pickens and a handful of outliers were talking about the natural gas motor-fuel revolution. Now hundreds of investors and entrepreneurs like Montague are tackling engine retrofits and distribution issues, industrial conglomerates General Electric (GE) and 3M (MMM) are getting into the hardware arena, and energy giants such as Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA) and Sasol (SSL) are betting tens of billions of dollars on the change. Chrysler, Ford (F), and General Motors (GM) have begun to offer dual-fuel pickups in their lineups. “It’s going to reduce our dependency on foreign oil; it will clean up the environment and take trucks off the highway,” says Matt Rose, CEO of BNSF Railway, which is testing natural gas-powered trains.
It’s yet one more reason why North Carolina is wise to move forward with a process for enabling fracking for shale gas to take place in the Tar Heel State.
