US State Department Giving Away Natural Gas Technology

E-Mail to Congress:

EIN News says, "U.S. Shale Gas Has Transformed World Markets, U.S. State Department Says. As production of natural gas from shales spreads across the globe, the U.S. State Department's Coordinator for International Energy Affairs, David Goldwyn, said gas will become as cheap as coal and begin providing base-load generation possibilities for millions of people without electricity. (platts.com)".

I noted from the above that David Goldwyn was taking an unusually positive attitude on a development which government and environmentalists would normally tend to denigrate. The environmentalists would start to campaign against the project because of possible drinking water contamination in the rock fracturing for natural gas production. The Federal Government would start to worry about the cost of carbon dioxide contamination in the atmosphere and leakage of natural gas, which they have already classified as a global warming agent.

This led me to investigate further the more complete EIN News story. David Goldwyn suggested that the US could become again a supplier of liquefied natural gas to world markets. What a wonderful opportunity for the US, which has been consistently losing exports, while imports have been rising substantially for many years!

I was about to applaud David Goldwyn, when I came across another very significant point. The State Department apparently has a socialistic global policy of supplying energy to millions of people without electricity. There is little wrong with that on the surface, but the question is whether we sell the product or give it away. It turns out that the State Department program is to "give it away" by an indirect process of aiding foreign countries to produce their own. Two countries, China and India, have signed agreements allowing US Geological Services to evaluate their potential shale plays to determine if their rock formations have recoverable gas. In addition to signing the agreements, the US Geological Service will loan geologists to help in the development of that foreign production.

Does this make sense to you? We live in a competitive world. We also have a certain amount of compassion for the underprivileged, but the real world says that if you don't take care of yourself first, you will have no opportunity to help others.

China and India have for many years been accumulating US dollars through supplying manufactured goods to the US. Isn't it about time that we retrieved some of those US dollars by selling them natural gas, rather than giving them the technology to produce their own?