More steel and less paper would make for a stronger U.S. economy, and the energy industry is poised to contribute to an industrial renaissance that would bring such change about for the benefit of all, Alcoa Inc.’s David Ciarlone told a GasMart 2010 audience in Chicago earlier this month.

He called for less emphasis on financial services, i.e., “paper,” and other industries that do not produce physical products and a resurgence in manufacturing, which can provide jobs that would lift the “flat-lined” incomes of the middle class.

“…[I]f we are to realize the promise of this opportunity, we need to pay attention and we need to expand our focus,” said Ciarlone, who is Alcoa’s manager of Global Energy Services. “We need to act with common sense, and our watchword needs to be ‘sustainability.'”

To that end the emerging renewable and conventional energy industries can help. For instance, Ciarlone said, wind turbines and natural gas pipelines require steel; solar panels and lightweight vehicles need aluminum; and “we will need to reinvent everything from batteries to bearings.

“All of these are energy-intensive enterprises that will require energy supplies that are affordable, stable and predictable.”

The fuel for the industrial renaissance can and should be natural gas, Ciarlone said, particularly the abundant supplies available from homegrown gas shale plays such as the Marcellus, Haynesville, Fayetteville and Barnett, to name a few.

“Depending upon the estimates you believe, the newly developed technologies to find and produce shale gas promise a source of domestic supply that could easily satisfy at least 100 years of our present demand,” Ciarlone said.

He called for common-sense regulation of pipelines as well as exploration and production activities. “We certainly need the gas and jobs they generate, and the states clearly need the revenues,” he said. “But if we hope to sustain access to these resources over their projected 100-year supply life, we need to earn and maintain the confidence of the public. We cannot afford to spill our fracing fluids or ravage the countryside.”

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