Aging pipeline infrastructure will need to be replaced and/or expanded to support the nation’s transition to greater reliance on natural gas, particularly in electric generation, FERC Commissioner John Norris said last Tuesday.

A lot of the country’s existing pipe infrastructure “is eligible for membership in AARP [American Association of Retired Persons],” he told energy executives, trade association officials and regulators at the Natural Gas Roundtable in Washington, DC. He said the success of the country’s move to natural gas will depend on when the infrastructure is modernized. The demand will be for the construction of major pipelines, not just laterals, Norris noted.

Since joining the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Norris said he has spent some of his time visiting the nation’s energy facilities. “The general public has no clue about the extent of the size and the cost of our energy infrastructure.”

Norris said he met with eight CEOs of major energy companies last August, and seven of them indicated that they saw natural gas as the wave of the future.

In Washington, “no matter where I look in the energy debate with regards to electricity or with regards to carbon policy it seems like it all comes back around to gas,” he said. “Gas finds itself [at] the center of that conversation…You are central to our nation’s energy future,” he told the roundtable attendees.

Norris said he believes that the future of energy will largely be driven by economics and technology, such as hydraulic fracturing, that “has given us access to a whole new supply” of gas — shale natural gas.

Norris said liquefied natural gas (LNG) will continue to be an “important resource for our country,” even though some import facilities are seeking FERC authorization to export LNG due to the onslaught of shale gas.

Shale producers should take seriously the questions and issues being raised by environmentalists and others with concerns about fracking, and be “open and transparent” about the composition of their fracking fluids, he said.

“My concern is not necessarily with fracking. My concern is that industry get it right” and that it answer the “appropriate questions” being raised about the fracking procedure used to develop shale, Norris noted.

“I have more concerns about handling it right than there actually is serious environmental problems” related to fracking, Norris said. He urged industry to “take serious the folks who are raising [the] questions so that…all the bets that are being placed on natural gas continue to go forward.”

Norris signaled his support for disclosure of the chemicals that producers use in their fracking. He said he doesn’t believe the catch-all term term “special sauce” — referring to proprietary fracking fluids — has served the industry well..

The nation’s energy future will be driven by economics and technology, such as “cutting edge” fracking technology, Norris said. This is “marvelous for our country going forward. I don’t think our answer is just to go deeper and wider.”

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