The use of gas fuel, combined with the planned deregulation of power generation, should eventually cut electricity costs.
In the 1970s and 1980s the federal government poured billions of dollars into the Synthetic Fuels Corporation to develop liquid and gas fuel from coal, and into the fast-breeder nuclear reactor.
However, once built, these plants do not require fuel, although they will be tied to natural gas fuel costs as gas plants are generally used to buffer the intermittency of wind production, not included in this discussion.
In the Northeast, the massive Marcellus Shale offers enough natural gas to fuel the U.S. for over a decade.
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But Japan would end up paying a lot more to import liquefied natural gas to fuel those plants than for the coal burners.
Manufacturing is starting to return to the United States because of that low cost natural gas to fuel factories that make chemicals, fertilizer and such.
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When it builds a power plant, for example, it sells some of the expected output in the forward market and buys the gas to fuel that output.
In fact, the industry is investing billions of dollars a year of its own private capital to develop new methods to deploy natural gas to fuel cars and trucks.
In other words, there should be a cost for doing business and products that are critical for the economy should be regulated, such as electric, natural gas, fuel and health care, for starters.
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Other creative opportunities being explored include natural gas pumps (hooked up to the home) to fuel natural gas vehicles, and light duty vehicles relying on fuel cells (which manufacturers hope to begin building by 2015).
Fuel cells convert hydrogen, natural gas or other fuel into electricity through an electrochemical process.
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With the share of natural gas used to fuel power plants expected to keep rising, gas producers are saying that between 29, 000 and 62, 000 miles of new pipeline is needed over the next 25 years.
In Yerevan, Armenia, where I was last May, I noticed buses and lorries resplendent with rusty-looking cylinders of gas as their fuel supply, which is more cheaply obtained than liquid fuels, but I emphasise that it is petroleum gas (mainly propane and butane) that is used there and not biogas.
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On another energy-security front, Woolsey called on automakers to produce fuel-flex cars and for gas stations to offer motorists the choice of gasoline or methanol a liquid fuel made from natural gas to free American transportation from dependence on OPEC.
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The bill would allow for the early payment of the winter fuel allowance to people whose homes are not connected to the mains gas grid and whose principal source of fuel is home fuel oil, liquid petroleum gas or propane gas.
And again, the potential for natural gas as a transportation fuel, and the revolution in natural-gas production, undermine the economics of renewable motor fuels.
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While natural gas is a fossil fuel that emits carbon dioxide, tapping into the gas hydrates assessed in the study is not expected to affect global warming, said Brenda Pierce, coordinator for the USGS Energy Resources Program.
National Fuel Gas Co. shares are currently trading off about 1.2% on the day.
National Fuel Gas Co. shares are currently trading off about 1.6% on the day.
National Fuel Gas Co. shares are currently trading down about 2.4% on the day.
But then you had the Arab Spring, and that shot gas prices and fuel prices up.
Eventually we will convert natural gas to diesel fuel, but that technology is probably ten years away.
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By 2005 Toyota wants to build 300, 000 hybrid vehicles, powered by gas or diesel fuel and batteries.
Japan and Germany must embrace natural gas as the fuel to replace recent losses of nuclear power.
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This could make gas the preferred fuel for baseload power and make building old fashioned coal plants uneconomic.
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Chemical and fertilizer manufacturers like Dow and Potash, for example, use gas as a fuel and a feedstock.
Mr. MIKE HARMON (Resident): Yeah, I run out of gas waiting on fuel.
In most cases pollutants such as sulfur and mercury are stripped out after the fuel gas has been synthesized.
But northern Mexico, desperate for reliable gas supplies to fuel its thriving manufacturing sector, couldn't afford to be so absolutist.
In the past few years, the U.S. power industry has increasingly replaced coal with natural gas as the fuel of choice.
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