Natural gas is now cheaper than water, by Stephen Moore

Among the great myths of recent years, one stands out in particular: that the world is undergoing a “great energy transition.” In fact, the world is undergoing a dramatic energy transition. But it is not the one the left wants.

Despite hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars being poured into wind and solar energy, we still get less than 10% of our energy from green sources. Nothing has changed at the top in the last two decades. The more the government spends, the less we get for every tax dollar we give them. That is the very definition of a falling stock.

The REAL energy transition is moving towards natural gas. A few weeks ago, the price of natural gas fell below $2 per MMBTU, the lowest energy price in 20 years and probably the lowest in human history. Just a few years ago, the price in real dollars was four times higher.

As an experiment, I went to the supermarket to find out how much a 16-ounce bottle of Evian water costs today. The price I saw was $2.69 and can go up to $3. This means that natural gas is less expensive than water today.

This natural gas revolution is due to modern drilling technologies – including horizontal drilling and fracking. This technology is improving and will keep the price low for many decades to come. Drilling technology is improving faster than depletion. In other words, America’s natural gas supply is virtually unlimited – a bottomless well.

Natural gas now has all the qualities of a miracle fuel. It is abundant, made in America, burns cleanly (using natural gas REDUCES carbon emissions), is reliable and cheap. The U.S. has natural gas supplies for at least 200 years – and probably more. We are not going to run out of supplies. Chris Wright, CEO of Liberty Energy in Denver and one of the leading experts on drilling technologies, says: “We are finding more and more natural gas as drilling technologies improve.”

Environmentalists should celebrate the natural gas revolution: It is by far the most important reason that carbon emissions in the United States have dropped dramatically and that our air is cleaner today than at any time in the last 100 years. At the same time, we are realizing that windmills and solar panels are far from the “clean energy” we had hoped for. We now have graveyards full of decommissioned wind turbines made of toxic plastic and steel that must be buried in massive landfills or dumped in the ocean. Windmills use 4,000 times more plastic than all the plastic straws in the world.

As we increasingly switch to electric and hybrid vehicles, natural gas is the obvious source of power for the batteries. In other words, natural gas can be used for all of America’s energy needs – including transportation.

Much of the natural gas reserves in the United States lie on federal land. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have halted the leasing permits needed to find the next giant oil and gas deposits. Given that we have around $50 trillion worth of oil, gas and minerals in the mountains of the Western states, Unleash Prosperity estimates that the U.S. government could reap well over $1 trillion in revenue from leases and other taxes by drilling and mining these resources.

So why is the climate change industrial complex against natural gas when it – combined with nuclear – is the long-term solution to all of the world’s energy needs? Instead, they are waging a war AGAINST natural gas.

Apparently because natural gas is TOO cheap and TOO plentiful. Why use natural gas when you can use expensive and totally unreliable wind power? The left is pathologically afraid of gas because they backed the wrong horse and foolishly invested hundreds of billions of dollars of their own and taxpayer money in these unproductive technologies.

The only thing holding back our borderless natural gas future is the government. We need permits for more LNG terminals, leases for drilling and pipelines so we can transport our natural gas resources to every region of the country and export them around the world.

Former President Donald Trump is for all of these things. Harris is publicly against fracking and wants to ban it. Can you think of anything more stupid?

Stephen Moore is a visiting scholar at the Heritage Foundation and a senior economic adviser to Donald Trump. His latest book is “Govzilla: How the Unstoppable Growth of Government Is Devouring Our Economy.”

Photo credit: Martin Adams at Unsplash