Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire

Major Energy and Environmental News and Commentary affecting the Nuclear Industry.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Natural Gas And The Brutal Dethroning Of King Coal

Natural Gas And The Brutal Dethroning Of King Coal

Wolf Richter   www.testosteronepit.com
It’s been tough for natural gas drillers. The boom in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing that gave access to enormous gas-rich shale formations around the nation led to record production. Prices crashed. Drilling activity collapsed: rig count, down 45% from last year, hit the lowest level since July 1999. Producers are writing down their natural gas assets by the billions of dollars. Some will get wiped out. The price of natural gas has been below production costs for years, and the damage is now huge [read.... Natural Gas: Where Endless Money Went to Die].
On the other side, power generators have switched from coal to natural gas—with devastating impact on king coal. Coal has long been the dominant fuel for power generation. But April 2012, for the first time in the history of EIA data, power generation from coal-fired and natural gas-fired plants reached parity, each contributing 32% to total electricity generation.http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-08-16/natural-gas-and-brutal-dethroning-king-coal

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