Transition Canadian transport network to natural gas

Toyota Natural Gas/Hybrid Prius. Toyota will launch their Camry in NG/H this year.

Why is natural gas so important? Certainly it is not the value of the commodity in today’s market. The price has come off from last year’s high and taken natural gas out of the spotlight for now. But natural gas is poised to potentially meet or displace oil as the single most important energy resouse for transportation. And for good reason.

Horizontal drilling and fracturing (where rock is broken to release the gas) has advanced dramatically over the last few years making it economically feasible to unlock natural gas from shale rock formation. Massive shale gas discoveries in Texas (Barnett Shale), Pennsylvania (Haynesville) and British Columbia (Horn River) have had major impact on the amount of natural gas available. This increase in inventory has contributed to bringing the price of natural gas down to current levels and some would argue will bring down the price further. However the increase in supply has also occurred at a time when industrial demand is down. But its these massive new discoveries, increased inventories and lower prices that create a world changing opportunity.

In the USA there is a massive push lead by oil billionaire T.Boone Pickens to build wind farms to power the grid and divert natural gas to the transportation network. His reasons are the same reasons Canada should be considering a similar move. 1) Natural gas is clean burning; 2) We have lots of it – especially with the additonal of shale gas and the improving trasmport of natural gas in its liquid form around the glove (Liquid Natural Gas or LNG).

By investing in the necessary support infrastructure and properly developing the shale gas of northern BC as much as a trillion cubic feet could be brought to market to provide afforable clean energy. British Columbia can also encourage invesment in hydro, wind and solar power to divert more natural gas towards the transport network. By converting transporation vehicles to natural gas we would reduce our carbon footprint by millions of tons. To start, the Canadian and BC government should convert existing government transport vehicles to natural gas. This will also create new (and needed jobs) by developing a large aftermarket for natural gas conversion which is under $5,000 per vehicle and a payback through increased fuel effeciency within 30,000 kms – probably within 1 to 1.5 year for most government vehicles.

So the opportunity here equates to more new jobs, less carbon emmissions and increased fuel effeciencies. Lets start now!