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At a time when the cosmetics market is intertwined with natural and organic trends while striving for corporate responsibility, questions are asked across the supply chain such as: What constitutes a sustainable business? What is the definition of a natural and organic product? How do I continue to maintain a high level of innovation and technological development while complying with necessary international regulations and standards?

Understanding FDA’s perspective on standards for using the terms “natural” and “organic” and receiving the information needed for certification under the USDA regulations are just part of what will be addressed at IntertechPira’s Sustainability in Cosmetics 2008 conference set for November 10 – 12, 2008 at the Royal Plaza Hotel in Orlando, FL, US.

Green innovation, led by Dr Timothy Long, Associate Director and Senior Science Fellow from Procter and Gamble will delve into Green Innovation by explaining how to bring environmental sustainability to the mainstream consumer, how to develop “sustainable innovation products” and when used to advance programs in social sustainability, how product innovation can significantly improve the lives of consumers around the world. From a manufacturer’s perspective, materials’ suppliers have many ways of targeting sustainability in developing and producing products. William J Schulz Jr, Science and Technology Leader from Dow Corning Corp will discuss how water-based granular materials offer novel, sustainable product forms as well as why combining silicones with natural materials can yield synergistic benefits.

“This conference is a first for us and we are very pleased with the amount of industry support”, said Conference Director, Christine Groff. “Featuring a line-up of expert speakers from around the world, two pre-conference seminars, lively discussions and numerous networking functions, questions on current trends in the research, development and marketing of natural and organic cosmetic products will be answered.”

Co-chaired by Andrew Douglass of Rhodia Novecare, Dr Liliana George of Estée Lauder, and Dr Donald Owen of Owen Biosciences Inc, delegates will be led through two full days of discussion, interaction and networking. Unlike large trade shows, Sustainability in Cosmetics 2008’s individualized; roundtable atmosphere will provide a unique opportunity for attendees’ voices to be heard while networking with industry leaders to gain advantages, share expertise and find solutions.

Both timely and practical, major players within the industry including Aveda, Beraca, Natura Cosmeticos, SEKI Cosmeticals LLC, Ecocert, Rhodia Novecare, Dow Corning Corp, Cognis Care Chemicals, Evonik Goldschmidt GmbH, Procter and Gamble, FMC Biopolymer, Estee Lauder, Sophyto Organics, Symrise AG, UK Soil Association and Owen Biosciences Inc will share their views on social responsibility and environmental sustainability through interactive case studies.

To view full program details, including company presentations and registration options visit:

www.sustainability-in-cosmetics.com

Ford Motor Company to present current and future water reuse technology for the automotive industry at IntertechPira’s Treatment Approaches for Water Reuse 2008 conference. Scheduled to present on Friday, November 14, 2008 at the Royal Plaza Hotel in Orlando, FL, US, Bill Gaines of Ford Motor Company will discuss and examine water-consuming processes and their water quality requirements, current economically justified water reuse technologies, emerging issues and present and future applications.

“With over 100 leading industry executives expected to attend, this conference is a great opportunity to network with key experts and end-users,” said Conference Director, Christine Groff.

Co-Chaired by Dr Brian Dempsey of Penn State Institutes of Energy and Environment and Dr Stephen Vasconcellos of GE Water and Process Technologies, Treatment Approaches for Water Reuse 2008 will offer a comprehensive overview of the latest technologies and treatments for water reuse and reclamation, as well as for compliant disposal of industrial wastewater.

Session breakout topics include opportunities in sustainable water treatment, membrane technology, treatment approaches, novel materials and case studies with presenters from PFW Water Mutual Fund, PSIEE Pennsylvania State University, Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation, Ford Motor, IBM, Ferrate Treatment Technologies LLC, Veolia, Nalco, Kennedy/Jenks Consultants, Pall Corporation, GE Water and Process Technologies, Intereco, Severn Trent, Dontech, Koch Membrane Systems, Kemira and Clean Water Technology to be featured during the two day event.

At a time when the demand for high-quality fresh water has industries, municipalities and other entities transitioning towards regulatory and economic considerations to evaluate reuse options, IntertechPira’s Treatment Approaches for Water Reuse 2008 conference is both timely and practical, providing a unique opportunity to gain the necessary knowledge and network with industry leaders from around the world to gain advantages, share expertise and find solutions on this dynamic and growing industry.

To view full program details, company presentations and registering options including the early bird September discount, visit: www.waterreuse-conference.com

With video archives already available, and open media in full bloom, the recent GoingGreen 2008 conference in Sausalito can now be viewed for free by anyone. GoingGreen was produced by AlwaysOn, a conference company founded in 2002 by Red Herring founder Tony Perkins, now going into its 7th year of dreaming up and successfully producing terrific, elite events that cater to private sector entrepreneurs and investors. Up until 2007 AlwaysOn had not done an event in the cleantech sector. In early 2007 Perkins asked us, EcoWorld, to design a program for GoingGreen, based on our long-standing status as an online environmental publication aimed at an audience of consumers and businesspeople, with a consistently optimistic editorial position that adheres to free-market, libertarian, technocratic ideals at least as much as collectivist ideals.

There was too much good, too much substance, too many clean technology options presented at GoingGreen in Sausalito last week to summarize here. The panels spanned the gamut of clean technology applications, and some of them were mesmerizing. This conference was a conversation about clean technology – and every company CEO there was creating a clean technology application. But what were the reactions to GoingGreen in the blogosphere?

Like AlwaysOn, the position of EcoWorld is to encourage open media. For example, during the entire GoingGreen conference, there were two large projection screens above the stage, they were about 10′x10′ each, in a relatively small main room that only held about 200 people. One screen showed closeups of the panelists, the other showed whatever comments were being posted by the audience via the internet. Some panelists are not used to this – and more to the point – AlwaysOn has never held events that went into as many controversial areas as GoingGreen goes. Green and clean technology are leading the high-tech world into a hopefully benign if not synergistic collision with two huge forces; the biggest industries on earth, and the environmentalist community.

So here are a few reactions in the blogosphere to GoingGreen: From Stowe Boyd’s influential journal /Ground, in a post entitled “GoingGreen Sounds A Bit Off,” “My sense is that GoingGreen is motivated by some deeply wrongheaded principles, and while they may not be shared by all the speakers, choosing someone like Ed Ring to moderate confirms that Tony Perkins is somewhere to the right of Dick Chaney.”

Stowe did a little checking on EcoWorld and apparently was put off by my use of the term “global warming alarmists,” in the recent post “Is the Earth Warming or Not?” He might have considered more the entirety of this post, where (1) we are reacting to yet another attack by an organization tasked to demonize “deniers” on the internet, and (2) the data in this post regarding climate trends, from the gentleman who had just been attacked, atmospheric scientist Dr. Roger Pielke Sr., which deserve serious reporting and peer review. In any event, we welcome the opportunity to use a more acceptable term than “alarmist.”

On another post on the respected blog EcoLocalizer, in a post entitled “Venture Capital Meets Green Technology at Going Green Conference,” Keith Rockmael writes “What the heck are these guys making up this [the agricultural] Green panel anyway? We might as well had four guys from Monsanto up there uttering the benefits of GMOs and how much benefit they bring farmers. Ceres and Mendel Biotechnology who made the Going Green Top 100 companies have investers/partnerships with, among others, Monsanto. Oops did someone not do their green due diligence homework? Maybe they could add Exxon-Mobil as a top green company for next years conference.”

Only private companies are eligible for the GoingGreen 100, but we did try to get Exxon-Mobil to attend this year; their top executives were all booked up. And we are looking for people who are inventing or implementing clean technology applications, not the “sustainability outreach manager” that the mega-corporations tend to still try to shuffle out to any “green” conference. So when big companies present at GoingGreen, it will be so we can take a look at their technology, whether it is desalination or water reuse or microbial processes or any other fascinating innovation.

Why the negative tone to these two reports? If EcoWorld wants to publish material prepared by “global warming deniers,” it is a matter of open media principle. Our goal as well is to always respect divergent points of view. Isn’t that a good thing? If a global warming “alarmist” has something valuable to contribute to the conversation then we encourage their comments. As for plant genomics, why the selectivity? Scientists are genetically engineering everything today, from human chromosomes to enzymes that eat waste and excrete fuel. Why is the plant genomics conversation taboo? As a conversation about technology, GoingGreen was a great success, but we also need a conversation about the conversation.

Credibility is earned from examining the content of an argument, not by denying the right to argue or even converse. Why is global warming skepticism – whatever that is supposed to mean – sufficient reason to excommunicate an environmentalist from the fold? Because we value a continued conversation on topics ranging from global warming to genomics to “smart growth” somehow means we don’t agree on any other environmentalist values? Isn’t such dogmatic dismissal of a heretic the same behavior as the clerics of old? Isn’t to declare the scientific explanations for any phenomenon as beyond debate to deny the conversation that defines science? How is this indictment any different from that famous line, “you’re either with us or your with the terrorists?” And what of the conversation among journalists – the decorum, the dialogue? Is journalism green, yellow, red, blue, or truly transchromatic?

The conversation about what is clean and green and what we ought to do about that as a people is long and nuanced, as is the conversation about climate trends and what we ought to do about them. Our goal isn’t to fight fire with fire; nor will we ever waver from our committment to open media. But with open media comes responsibilities similar to those we hold as citizens of a democracy; to be civil, to recognize complexity, to rely on intellectually honest arguments, to avoid certainty, to encourage debate, to commit to earning credibility. It is too bad when all credibility often requires is an opinion, a judgement, instead of due diligence. Perhaps we are all guilty of this at times.

An example of a journalist who did provide a service, instead of a sermon, while covering GoingGreen 2008, is the diligent Katie Fehrenbacher, writing for the excellent website earth2tech, who in her post “How to Invest in Clean Abundant Water” has rendered a professional report on Christopher Gasson’s (Editor-in-Chief of Global Water Intelligence) introductory remarks before he moderated GoingGreen’s water panel. And here are Gasson’s seven areas of innovation in water that investors should be interested in funding – if you’re still with me, courtesy of a blogger who saw some of GoingGreen’s technological content, rather than framing the ideological context, and furthered a conversation worth having:

Christopher Gasson’s Seven Water Innovations 2008
1 Scalable solar desalination
2 Cheap clean water for agriculture
3 Lower energy salt separation
4 Value In Wastewater
5 Sludge Management
6 Real-time water quality monitoring
7 Distribution solutions for drinking and wastewater

(Pavo cristatus)

From the DOE online reference, CO2 Emissions Report, Table 1, you will see that in 1999 in the USA there were nearly 1.8 million metric tons of CO2 emissions from the burning of coal to create electricity, which yielded nearly 1.9 million kilowatt-hours of power. This means in that year in the USA, for each megawatt-hour of coal-fired electric power, there were .95 tons of CO2 ejected into the atmosphere. It is likely the global efficiency of coal-fired electricity plants in the USA in 2008 exceeds this standard, but for the sake of a numerically clear argument suppose for every megawatt-hour of coal-fired power, 1.0 ton of CO2 enters the atmosphere.

Currently the United States emits about 6.0 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year, and about 50% of that, about 3.0 billion tons, comes from coal-fired electricity plants. In the entire world, annual CO2 emissions approach 30 billion tons per year, and it is safe to say about half of these emissions come from coal, although worldwide, coal is used at scale for a variety of fueling applications and not just for electricity. So how much would it cost the USA or the world to replace every megawatt-hour of coal fired electricity with solar electricity, and how much does today’s global installed base of roughly 10 gigawatts of photovoltaic array cut into the annual worldwide CO2 emissions from coal?

Ameren’s Sioux Unit 1, with the first in-furnace control technology, achieving NOx emissions below 0.15 pounds per million Btu on a coal-fired cyclone boiler. (Photo: DOE)

Assuming photovoltaic (or solar thermal, where the global installed base is beginning to matter as they approach their first gigawatt) has a yield of 25 percent – which corresponds to about six hours of full-sun-equivalent daily light on the collectors – 10 gigawatts installed equates to 2.5 gigawatt-years of electricity annually. In turn this means solar power produces about 21.9 million megawatt-hours of electricity per year, and at 1.0 ton of CO2 per megawatt-hour of power, this means solar power offsets not quite 22 million tons of CO2 emissions from coal power per year.

What this all means is inspiring insofar as it presents solar as an opportunity that is truly in its infancy, despite some arguably overvalued stocks among photovoltaic companies. The issue isn’t these companies running out of customers. The issue is they will have to continue to double their output year upon year in an environment of continuously improving technologies and relentlessly lower prices – a challenge that can slow any company’s growth. The solar power sector is in its infancy because even if the fully amortized price for solar energy already approaches parity with coal, the entire installed base of solar electricity production worldwide would only fulfill about 0.7% of CO2 emissions for coal-fired electricity just in the USA.

For the entire world, the solar power sector would have to grow by 684 times before it would offset the CO2 emissions attributable to coal, more specifically, to offset 15.0 billion tons of CO2 emissions annually based on 1.0 ton of CO2 per 1.0 megawatt-hour of coal-fired electricity. Given the miniscule accomplishments of solar energy so far in the global power equation, and given that global energy output has to double as soon as possible, if the price keeps coming down solar energy as a sector has the potential to experience 50%+ annual growth for a very long time. How much would it cost today to install enough solar energy to offset 15 billion tons of CO2 emissions?

An all-in installed price of $5.00 per watt is still low by today’s standards, but probably represents the high end of eventual costs as technology and productivity improves in the solar sector. Increasing the 10 gigawatts of installed solar power worldwide by 684 times means installing a 6.8 terawatt distributed array producing 15 million gigawatt-hours of power per year, which at $5.00 per watt would cost 34 trillion dollars. For the perhaps 1.0 billion lucky residents of the fully developed, industrialized world to pay for this via offset fees and taxes and the like over 20 years, zero interest, would amount to $1,700 per person per year. Adding the grid and storage infrastructure should easily raise that price to $2,000 each – something like $7,500 per average household per year. And this sort of accomplishment is a vital pillar of Gore’s pledge. No more coal – twenty years. Shave a few more points on future cost and call it twenty years, twenty trillion, a trillion per year. Using these same assumptions, it would cost America $6.8 trillion to replace 100% of coal fired electricity with solar power, or about $23,000 for every person in the country.

Shaving costs any further on the future price of solar is a dangerous assumption, however. Even at a cost of $34 trillion to replace coal worldwide with solar, our calculations are based on a collection of very optimistic givens; $5.00 per watt installed including storage and distribution upgrades, a 25% yield, and 20 year zero-interest financing; resulting in $114,000 per gigawatt-hour or 11.4 cents per kilowatt-hour for future solar. We are nowhere near this, yet to precipitously phase out coal or to participate in a doubling of global energy production, or both, this is probably what the solar sector is going to have to do.

Oil drips to the ground at the neighborhood filling station-from cars and trucks passing through and from the rows of storage tanks. The spill sits on the cement innocently enough, but takes on a life of its own when rain pummels to the ground. With the force of rain, the oil snakes its way towards the storm drain and slithers towards the coast. There it joins the other pollutants that arrive by leaching into rivers flowing into the ocean. Water pollution is a huge issue: In fact, the annual global petroleum pollution alone, is comparable to the Exxon Valdez spilling 5 times over!

Water pollution comes in many forms including industrial or sewage pollution. But nonpoint source pollution (NPS)-pollution from a variety of sources-is much harder to track. In the U.S, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) explains that “NPS pollution is caused by rainfall or snowmelt moving over and through the ground. As the runoff moves, it picks up and carries away natural and human-made pollutants, finally depositing them into lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters, and even our underground sources of drinking water.”

Vacationers who have come to find their favorite surfing spot inaccessible because of unhealthy toxicity levels in the water leave disappointed, while wells supplying water to cities are often closed due to chemical leaks into the groundwater. ABtech Industries, Inc, a technology firm focusing on solving the issue of water pollutants, has figured out a solution by developing products that absorb the many harmful pollutants that find their way to our water supplies and beaches. AbTech explains that their products are “based on polymer technologies capable of removing hydrocarbons, bacterial pathogens, sediment and other foreign elements from still (ponds, lakes and marinas) or flowing water (curbside drains, pipe outflows, rivers and oceans).”

AbTech’s Smart Sponge®, for example, fully encapsulates oil, soaking it up so effectively that it won’t leak out. A surprising fact is that the absorbed oils and pollutants don’t stay liquid once absorbed. The Sponge transforms the pollutants into a solid form which make the recycling process much simpler. The technology is ideal for use in Marinas, where boaters would discharge clean water from bilge pumps with the use of the sponge and AbTech is proud to say that the “proprietary polymer technology unique in its ability to effectively remove, absorb and retain hydrocarbons from flowing or pooled water and is the only company to combine an anti- microbial agent in a polymer-based filter to destroy bacteria at the street level.” The Smart Sponge can simply be placed at storm drain entrances to filter out the harmful bacteria and oils before they even get a chance to surprise unsuspecting beachgoers.

AbTech goes on explaining that their lab tests prove that the Smart Sponge is able to absorb up to 5 times its own weight, and will remove oil from water regardless of the amount. This means that even the thin sheen of oils floating on top of water can be absorbed without a problem.

Costing almost $1000 a piece, a Smart Sponge is a worthy investment for cleaner and healthier water. A sponge is more appealing than the complicated ultraviolet or chlorine treatments (also expensive options) and is even reusable (up to a point).

It isn’t a surprise that AbTech was named the winner of the water management category at the 2008 GoingGreen event. Even the EPA lists the Smart Sponge Technology as a Best Management Practice and it would be government money put to good use.

Time to suck up the oil that’s spit into our waters.

T. Boone Pickens falls under a variety of descriptions depending on who you talk to: He is known as a corporate marauder to some, and an incredible businessman to others. Born in 1928 and growing up in Oklahoma and Texas, Pickens went on to found Mesa Petroleum which eventually became the largest independent oil and gas producer in the United States. He became famous for predicting the potential value of a company and buying them out to make a profit in the long run. Now, with a net worth of around 3 billion, it is hard to argue against the fact that T Boone Pickens knows an opportunity when he sees one.

Blessed with incredible foresight, it is no surprise that Pickens’ was one of the first philanthropists interested in greener fuel sources. In 1997, he formed the Pickens Fuel Corp, which advertised natural gas as the best fuel for your vehicle because of the lower pollution emitted and the fact that it is a domestic product.

His newest venture involves the PickensPlan, with the fundamental idea that petroleum is no longer a viable resource. It seems that Pickens has done a complete 180 since his earlier oil days. The PickensPlan focuses on switching to environmentally friendly resources with the goal of ultimately eliminating our dependence on foreign oil.

Pickens makes his idea clear: With regards to oil spending “America is in a hole and it’s getting deeper every day, I’ve been an oil man all my life, but this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of. But if we create a new renewable energy network, we can break our addiction to foreign oil. On January 20, 2009, a new President gets sworn in. If we’re organized, we can convince Congress to make major changes towards cleaner, cheaper and domestic energy resources.”

The plan focuses on every aspect of the fuel crisis-including how it affects the U.S economy, environment and national security. The basic drive behind the plan, as with anything, is money. Right now the U.S imports 70% of the much needed oil used its citizens. PickensPlan explains that “at current oil prices, we will send $700 billion dollars out of the country this year alone – that’s four times the annual cost of the Iraq war.” The website goes on to explain that we might as well kiss cheap oil prices goodbye since the supply peaked in 2005 and prices are going nowhere but up. This should be enough of an incentive for most to continue reading.

The U.S has an incredible amount of wind-power at its disposal. In fact, “North Dakota alone has the potential to provide power for more than a quarter of the country,” as written on the website to prove their point. The plan is a feasible one, even if it is incredibly expensive. Global wind power would proved enough power for everyone on the planet 7 times over, and the United States’ great plains area, in the center of the country, has the highest concentration of winds in the world. A one time cost of 1trillion dollars would provide electricity for 20% of the nation through the power of wind farms. These farms would also provide for more job opportunities in rural areas where unemployment rates are known to be high, and provide homes with a clean energy from an abundant resource.

There is no question that Pickens will benefit from this plan, but one has to think whether the rest of the nation will too. More details, estimates and charts are available at PickensPlan.com

Hi, I am currently seeking Polysilicon Technical Specialists for an organisation that are building a Polysilicon manufacturing plant and are looking for expertise in this area. Based in the UK, this role will be instrumental in the formation of the team. Any ideas?

AltaRock, a new company headquartered in Sausalito, California, has become one of the leaders in “enhanced geothermal” technology, a geothermal energy solution that begins where conventional geothermal systems leave off. Instead of relying on select areas where underground “hot spots” are easily tapped and injected with water that returns in the form of steam to drive an electric generator, enhanced geothermal takes advantage of modern drilling technology and, theoretically, can establish a geothermal power system virtually anywhere. By drilling as deep as necessary to find hot rock, and then “hydraulically stimulating” the fissures by pumping cold water down to the bottom of the bore, the volume of the fissure can be enlarged, allowing economic flow rates. In this manner, enhanced geothermal technology allows a developer to create a geothermal resource instead of relying on something already established via natural processes. This technology makes geothermal power something that can be developed at a far greater scale than previously possible.

Earlier this month Altarock signed an agreement with Weyerhaeuser Company allowing them to “explore the potential for developing geothermal projects in California, Oregon, and Washington.” This region is about 667,000 acres, or a bit more than 1,000 square miles. The fact that a company with holdings of this magnitude has embraced AltaRock to explore and develop enhanced geothermal systems is certainly testimony to the potential of their technology.

A recent MIT study estimated EGS “could supply up to 10 percent of U.S. electricity needs within 50 years at prices competitive with fossil fuel-fired generation.” And it appears enhanced geothermal technology is being taken seriously outside the U.S. as well, with a massive development already underway in the Cooper Basin in Southern Australia.

For more information about enhanced geothermal energy check the DOE website’s Enhanced Geothermal Technologies page, or Wikipedia’s reference: Hot Dry Rock Geothermal Energy.

Today the San Diego Union Tribune displayed some common sense by arguing against two ballot initiatives which, on the surface, seem like great ideas. Proposition 7 will increase California’s renewable portfolio standard for electricity to 50% by 2025. Proposition 10 will subsidize natural gas vehicles, in order to encourage use of this abundant domestic resource.

In their editorial, however, entitled “No on Props 7 and 10,” the editors state these “energy measures are ill-conceived fiascos.” They are absolutely right, and in their editorial the writers provide a useful summary of the problems with these two well-intentioned but completely impractical measures.

Regarding Proposition 7:

“Proposition 7′s key flaw is how it imposes absurd, unrealistic new deadlines for a massive shift away from present energy sources by 2025 – changes that would put a radical burden on Californians and Californians alone. It also inexplicably shuts out many smaller alternative-energy suppliers and mandates the use of long-term contracts that would make price competition among suppliers nearly impossible.”

Regarding Proposition 10:

“How does it make sense to float 30-year bonds to pay for [natural gas] vehicles that would last just a few years? How does it make sense to have the $50,000-per-vehicle subsidy available on a first-come, first-served basis sure to be gamed by interstate trucking companies that don’t even have to use the vehicles in California? Proposition 10 supporters have no good answers to these obvious questions.”

There is nothing wrong with encouraging renewable energy development, as proposition 7 attempts. But California is already on track to develop 25% renewable electricity by 2025, and the state legislature may increase that objective to 33%. These are extremely aggressive goals. Why isn’t there a proposition on the ballot requiring utilities to purchase surplus energy from private property owners – perhaps at prevailing rates less a discount to allow the utility some profit margin (to pay taxes and reinvest – in case the socialists among us are wondering) and also to cover transmission and distribution costs? Similarly, there is nothing wrong with developing natural gas and natural gas vehicles. It’s a great idea. But not via 30 year bonds.

Both of these propositions are deeply flawed not only because they propose unrealistic financing mechanisms and impractical (if not impossible) deadlines, but because they allow powerful vested interests to game the system. Price fixing under long term contracts and exclusion of small operators are fatal flaws in Proposition 7. Allowing out-of-state trucking interests to capitalize on a bond financed by Californians is a fatal flaw in Proposition 10.

Ultimately, however, it is a failure of leadership within the environmentalist – and energy indepence – communities that leaves us with only these two very poor options. We need to encourage renewable energy and we need to encourage natural gas vehicles. But not via these two propositions. Vote no on both of them.

Yesterday Andrew Littlefair, President and CEO of Clean Energy Fuels, appeared on Jim Cramer’s cable show “Mad Money,” to talk about the future of natural gas in the United States. But there was nothing mad whatsoever about Littlefair’s message, which is why Cramer welcomes him on his show anytime Littlefair has room in his schedule.

Natural gas burns much cleaner than petroleum fuels, particularly when used for diesel applications. Not only can vehicles run on natural gas – note Autoblog’s report today “Honda sells CNG home fueling device to Clean Energy Fuels” – but as Littlefair pointed out, natural gas can also fuel long haul trucks that currently rely on diesel fuel. So how much natural gas have we got? Can the U.S. become a natural gas fueled nation?

Something happened between 2001, when, for example, California experienced spot shortages of natural gas, and today, where we have T. Boone Pickens touting wind farms and natural gas as the solution to U.S. energy challenges for the next twenty years (ref. PickensPlan.com). Significant new discoveries of natural gas reserves in North America, combined with the commercialization of new ways to efficiently extract natural gas from shale, have led to a dramatic increase in natural gas reserves. As of January 1st, 2006, according to the CIA, U.S. proven natural gas reserves stood at 5.5 trillion cubic meters. This would be enough to replace 100% of the oil consumed in the United States (8.0 trillion BBL per year) for about four years. That was then.

In a report last month posted by the publication Money Morning entitled “New Natural Gas Discoveries are a Boon for the U.S. Energy Sector ,” shale oil reserves both recently discovered or recently deemed to be recoverable using cost-effective new drilling technologies, have – according to the most conservative estimates released by the Dept. of Energy – nearly doubled the proven natural gas reserves. Worst case, we now have enough natural gas to replace 100% of our oil for about 7 years. So where does T. Boone Pickens get the 20 year number? Apparently these estimates from the DOE are still very conservative.

According to a recent study by Navigant Consulting, as reported in Money Morning, there could be as much as 842 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in shale within the USA, seven times the DOE estimate, and yielding enough natural gas to replace 100% of U.S. oil consumption for 24 years. And this estimate doesn’t include dramatic new discoveries in Canada or offshore. Natural gas is already being used, of course, so 100% of production can’t be diverted to replace oil – but nearly 50% of U.S. oil is produced domestically – so suggesting there is enough natural gas to offset 100% of U.S. oil imports for at least 20 years is not far fetched at all.

In general there is far more fossil fuel than is generally acknowledged by environmentalists and policymakers, who tend to display a malthusian bias. EcoWorld’s analysis “Fossil Fuel Reality” explores the potential worldwide recoverable reserves of all three primary fossil fuels, coal, oil, and natural gas, and calculates there is a 300 year supply of fossil fuel, even when based on the rate of global energy consumption doubling. The potential of domestically produced fossil fuel in the U.S., combined with development of alternative energy, makes energy independence for the U.S. an achievable goal. On the other hand, for the USA to achieve energy independence in the next twenty years, before next generation alternative technologies such as enhanced geothermal begin to scale – to name one relatively noncontroversial example – while phasing out fossil fuel instead of developing more fossil fuel, is far more challenging.