Government and industry sources have grossly overstated future natural gas supplies in the United States, basing their estimates on unrealistic growth in supplies from shale gas plays, according to a report released Thursday by the San Francisco-based Post Carbon Institute, a nonprofit organization that promotes sustainability.

While the study by Canadian geoscientist J. David Hughes questions the latest natural gas outlook by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the report, “Will Natural Gas Fuel America in the 21st Century?,” says that even if EIA’s projections are correct, there is not enough gas to replace all of the nation’s coal-fired electric generation and to displace oil for transportation.

Hughes attacks the widely held notion that gas can be the “bridge fuel” from a carbon-dominated to an alternative energy-driven society during the next 20 years. And he is particularly skeptical about the assumptions of almost unlimited supplies coming from shale gas, which he says are characterized by “high-cost, rapidly depleting wells” that require large amounts of energy and water.

The Post Carbon Institute provided the funding for Hughes’ study, and the Institute’s Asher Miller and Daniel Lerch provided input and editorial assistance to Hughes.

©Copyright 2011Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.