The natural gas game changer

T. Boone Pickens is going to love this.

If preliminary reports are true, a natural gas field in Alaska’s North Slope could be a game changer in terms of domestic energy independence.

The U.S. Geological Survey on Wednesday (Nov. 12) announced that Alaska’s North Slope holds one of the nation’s largest deposits of recoverable natural gas in the form of gas hydrates — 85.4 trillion cubic feet, or a whopping 11.5 percent of the volume of gas in all other technically recoverable gas fields on land or in offshore waters control by the United States/

For further perspective, consider this: This would be enough natural gas to heat more than 100 million average homes for 10 years, according to current usage rates provided by the Energy Information Administration. The world consumes about 104 TCF of natural gas a year and the United States uses about 23 TCF of natural gas per year, according to the Energy Information Administration.

And consider how “big” the Fayetteville Shale Play in central Arkansas has been in terms of domestic U.S. production. The Fayetteville Shale Play has produced about 106 billion cubic feet since 2004, or about 26.5 billion cubic feet per year. At that annual rate, it would take 3,222 years to drain the newly discovered gas field in Alaska.

Brenda Pierce, manager of the agency’s energy resources program, called the find "groundbreaking.” He told the Washington Post in its report, "I don’t want people to think our problems are solved, but this has real potential."

Also, the gas is accessible using conventional technology and government officials say the recovery methods will not cause permanent harm to the environment. That hasn’t stopped the Sierra Club, which opposes any drilling in that part of the world.

Industry and government officials say it could be years — likely more than a decade — before gas could be extracted and shipped to the contiguous 48 states.