Natural gas, a low pollution fuel, is bubbling up through the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and going to waste. Elsewhere, it is being flared, i.e., burned as a torch at the wellhead (to celebrate the energy crisis?). At the same time, it is being imported in liquid form in costly supercooled tankers from Algeria, Libya. and other countries.

The estimated gas deposits in the US amount to a mindboggling thousand trillion cubic feet. But last winter, because of the gas shortage, Commonwealth Edison of Chicago had to shut down a 96 megawatt turbogenerator; crop dryers in Iowa could not be operated and farmers had to dump their wet corn harvest; school systems and other consumers changed to heating oil only to find that they ran out of oil, too.

Technology is not the culprit for this insanity, and environmental fanaticism is only partly to blame. The real offender is myopic overregulation of the market place. The Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs has identified no less than 64 government agencies meddling in fuels and energy by promulgating contradictory, and often totally inept, policies. The Internal Revenue Service's tax policies encourage exploration for natural gas (a little), and the Federal Power Commission's price fixing discourages it (a lot). At a wellhead price of 25¢ per 1,000 cubic feet, some companies find it entirely justifiable to flare the gas.

The danger signals were up 10 years ago, but they went unheeded by previous administrations. Not until April of this year did the Nixon administration come up with a long overdue and mild plan. In his message to Congress, the President made 14 proposals, including a 20% increase in energy research and development funding. Too little, too late, but most of the proposals were sound as far as they went. Congress has acted only on one of the proposals (the most debatable one, see following item). While Congress was wallowing in the Watergate Circus, the gas bubbled on in the Gulf of Mexico. Then Congress went into summer recess. And the gas bubbled on. It is still bubbling.

Vol. 1, No. 1 Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Volume 1 Issue/No.: Vol. 1, No. 1 Date: September 01, 1973 04:37 PM (For actual publication date see newsletter.) Title: Introducing Ourselves Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive All rights reserved.