By making this topic I am hoping to better understand where natural gas stands as an alternative fuel source. I've been noticing more and more media on natural gas lately as if it's one of the better solutions. I don't really know anything about it, but I guess this is because there's an abundance of it here in the U.S. Sure it would help with our reliance on fuel from other courntries, but the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw a comercial for nateral gas was "I'snt that a limited fossile fuel? When our once abundant oil starts running low, we would switch to abundant natural gas, which will one day start running low?" Now I understand that finding a worth while fuel that's not limited is no easy task, but wouldn't it be a better idea to learn from our mistakes? But like I said, I don't really know too much about it. I'm mostly looking for some insight on the matter.

Something tells me you saw the Pickens Plan ad. If so, you should watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70HFEHB6dag

No, not renewable, so no matter the benefits, we'd be in the same situation a few years from now.

To be fair I think it would be longer than just a few years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane#Alternative_sources

It's pretty damn renewable...

Not they way we're working at it right now. The resources of major exporting countries are running low and they have to keep looking for new places to find it.

The only thing about Natural Gas I've seen on the news lately is the Ukraine-Russia gas war, but I don't know how that relates to it being a good alternative energy source... link to another place?

Actually, natural gas isn't really renewable. We get it from geological deposites. It's only because the main component of natural gas is methane (which is renewable) that it can be considered renewable. Unfortunately, obtaining methane to make natural gas isn't a practical solution. We would have to collect it from compost piles and the rear ends of cattle.

Why natural gas when methane itself is combustable?

Natural gas basically is methane. They just take out the other hydrocarbons and compress it.

Lets follow your logic here.
Methane is recyclable.
Natural gas is not.
Methane is basically natural gas.
You sir just contradicted yourself.

Natural gas is basically methane, but it's not methane that we get from renewable sources. It's methane from geological deposits which are limited. Renewable methane and the geological deposits can't be considered the same thing because we only use the geological deposits for natural gas, and although we can get it the other way, it's impractical to do so. So yes natural gas is basically methane, but the the particular methane is not renewable.

Pickens recently launched a 60 million dollar campaign to promote the use of wind power and natural gas.
http://www.pickensplan.com/theplan/

Pickens basically wants to replace the use of natural gas in the midwest with wind turbines and divert that natural gas to use as an automotive fuel.


Natural gas is being considered a likely alternative because we currently produce around 85% of what we're currently using. The rest is piped down from Canada. It's prodicted that there's enough natural gas in the U.S. to meet over 75 years of production.

OMFG are you serious?! I don't know if I'm more astounded that you believe his garbage, or that you didn't bother to read one post down from the first!

I never said I believed it, I was just saying what his plan was. I watched the video.

The additional information on why natural gas is being considered as a good alternative is not from his campaign but from the National Petroleum Council.

Natural gas is much more commonly produced in the US than gasoline, just thought I'd point that out.

I'm actually working on a project to produce renewable methane. One carbon dioxide molecule goes into the reaction and only one comes out with the combustion of methane.

Get yourself some beans and I'll grab the pipes.

......Because Gasoline is a byproduct from Diesel and that's a byproduct from Oil.

Natural gas isn't renewable. It's a stop gap solution at best, one that won't solve the problem indefinitely. Should it replace oil? It can't. Should it complement a number of other technologies to help replace oil? Yes. It doesn't have to be all or nothing here folks. Eventually, sure, it'd be nice to phase out even natural gas in favor of completely clean energies, but it's hard to argue that natural gas isn't a step in the right direction from oil.

Natural gas would not be a good source of energy in the long-run, namely for its effect on global warming. The CO2 and Methane are greenhouse gasses. Although it will temporarily lighten the load off of oil it is not something that should be exploited and researched as much as renewable energies.