Despite Near-Term Energy Woes, Experts Optimistic
March 21, 2012
Rising oil prices are having an impact on the world economy and, by driving up gasoline prices, becoming an issue in the U.S. presidential election campaign. Tensions in the Middle East, turmoil in Africa and rapidly rising demand in China are driving oil prices higher. But experts see many positive developments in the world energy sector.
The biggest development of an alternative to oil in recent years has been the expansion of natural gas production in the United States, using technologies that free up gas trapped in shale rock.
That is one of the reasons experts speaking at the annual IHS-CERA conference here in Houston earlier this month expressed optimism about the world's energy picture.
John Larson, vice president of consulting group IHS-Global Insight, says the shale production not only favors the prospect of producing more vehicles that run on natural gas, but also favors the expansion of renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar.
"One of the things that natural gas does and, sort of, the lower prices, is that it actually creates a reserve energy that can enable or allow the expansion of these renewables," said Larson.
Larson says gas can be used to run electrical generators when the wind doesn't blow or the sun isn't shining, but he says low-cost natural gas also provides a market challenge that wind is, so far, better able to meet.
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