[mmasters]

How many years of natural gas does the US have if we switched from gasoline to natural gas?

[kublikhan]

Robert Rapier did the math on this a few years back. It depends which numbers you use for US natural gas reserves. If you use "probable, possible and speculative reserves", that is enough for 53 years of current natural gas + gasoline use. If you strip out the speculative reserves and only go with proven plus probable reserves, this falls to 20 years. And this excludes other uses of oil like diesel, jet fuel, plastic, bunker fuel, etc.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote(' Robert Rapier', 'A')ssuming for the sake of argument that the 2,074 trillion standard cubic feet cited in the study is accurate, that the "probable, possible and speculative reserves" eventually equate to actual reserves, and that the gas is economically recoverable, that is enough gas for 53 years of combined current natural gas consumption and gasoline consumption. If you assume that only the proven plus probable reserves are eventually recovered, the amount drops to about 1/3rd of the 2,074 trillion scf estimate, still enough to satisfy current natural gas consumption and replace all gasoline consumption for almost 20 years.

[ROCKMAN]

mm - According to the EIA: Proved reserves of U.S. total natural gas decreased 64.5 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) to 324.3 Tcf in 2015. And the EIA estimates we consumed about 27 tcf in 2016.

No with respect to your question: I have no f*cking idea...and nether does anyone else regardless of what they say.LOL. First you have to balance depletion vs future consumption vs exports vs imports vs new discoverties vs the changes in the price of NG. And then when you get that relationship down you need to estimate the demand for NG sourced gasoline vs the price for the conversion vs the competition from EV's that may be run on NG sourced electricity.

We will all be anxious to see what your model looks like. Thanks in advance.

[coffeeguyzz]

Mm
If Rockman's response points out just a few of the many variables involved, that should indicate the challenges involved in trying to come up with an answer.
Here's just a few more bits to throw into the mix ...

The USGS recently increased the Technically Recoverable Resource (TRR) estimate of the Barnett from 26 Trillion cubic feet (TCF) to 53 Tcf.
Likewise, in the Mancos shale in the Piceance, TRR went from under 2 Tcf to 66 Tcf. (With payzone over 4,000' thick in high clay content environment, operators think frac'ing advances will boost that estimate).
The shallow Upper Devonian formations in the Appalachian Basin had 100 Tcf recoverable projected by Wrightstone Energy in a recent study.
The production numbers used by Wrightstone are currently being vastly exceeded by recent UD wells turned online.
The recent, comprehensive study headed by West Virginia University projects about 800 Tcf recoverable from the Utica, a figure comparable to the Marcellus.

There are thousands of Coal Bed Methane wells operating in the US.
Although individual output is relatively modest, the cost per well is in the $200k per range.

Most renewable energy advocates seem unaware that methane can be - and is - created and captured by refuse facilities, aka landfills.

There's the ongoing effort to capture methane emanating from cow farts.

All in all ... probably not gonna run out of natgas next year.

[Subjectivist]

I think it greatly depends on what you mean. Cincinnati, Ohio has on its north side a compressed natural gas filling station that is popular for bus fleets, trash trucks and municipke vehicles and open to the public who have cars and trucks set up to use the methane directly. The other option is using Fischer/Tropsch to make the methane into steaight chain gasoline or diesel or jet fuel. Doing that losses energy in the conversion so the totals will be a lot different.

[Plantagenet]

in 2012 Obama said the US had a 100 year supply of NG.

Since its now 2017 we've got 95 years of NG supply left.

Cheers!

[yellowcanoe]

Since despite the development of Shale gas the US is still a net importer of natural gas perhaps the title of this thread should be "Gasoline to NG, how many years does the US have of imported Canadian NG?".

[ROCKMAN]

yellow dog - Hey, that's my line you're stealing. LOL. Actually last Nov we very slightly slipped over the line:

"Platts reported that its proprietary data showed U.S. natgas exports exceeding imports in early November. With the country’s gas balance netting an outflow of 1 billion cubic feet per day. That’s the first time ever that American producers have shipped out more gas than the country takes in. And that historic event illustrates a number of critical changes happening right now in the U.S. energy scene."

OTOH the EIA says we're still a net importer by about 50 BCF/month.

But understand that the 30 BCF/month rate is a decrease from over 350+ BCF/month of NG imports not too long as ago. Plus the trend has plateaued and we may slide back and forth from net importer to net exporter for a while.

But back to the question: how many years of NG production will our current proved reserves provide? Another easy answer: no one can make an estimate because we have no waynof knowing how much NG the US will consume and export decades that the road. IOW that "100 years" is completely unsupportable bullsh*t.