The Basin and Greybull Oil and Gas Field, Bighorn County, Wyoming

These countries will require aggressive imports of foreign gas to meet their needs. Like oil, gas fields are finite, so our transition to natural gas is something of a bridging solution to our long-term energy problems. But, as the cleanest-burning fossil fuel, with lowest greenhouse gas emissions and greatest room for efficiency improvements, it is by far the most environmentally appealing of the three. There are substantial world reserves remaining, a long history of exploitation, and additional markets for fertilizers and perhaps hydrogen feedstocks. In the coming decades natural gas will be an elite commodity, highly prized wherever it is found. There seems little doubt that natural gas, like oil, is a raw resource we shall pursue to the last corners of the Earth. Coal, in contrast, is plentiful and found all over the world. Proved reserves of natural gas have R/P life-index lifetimes of only around sixty years, but for coal they are at least twice as long, often up to two hundred years.173 The largest reserves are in the United States (238.3 trillion tons, or 28.9% of world reserves), Russia (19.0%), China (13.9%), and India (7.1%), but coal is mined all over the planet ...»