Alternative

Independent oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens said last week he was heartened by President Obama’s remarks on energy security and predicted the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act (NAT GAS Act) would pass Congress with strong bipartisan support and be signed into law by Obama by year-end.

Independent oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens said Wednesday he was heartened by President Obama’s remarks on energy security and predicted the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act (NAT GAS Act) would pass Congress with strong bipartisan support and be signed into law by Obama by year-end.

U.S. Rep. John Larson (D-CT) Monday said he would reintroduce the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act (NAT GAS Act). Last year the measure failed to make it to a vote in the House of Representatives despite having wide support in the energy industry.

A single bill that would change West Virginia’s regulation of Marcellus Shale drilling survived crossover day in the West Virginia legislature Wednesday, while two others failed to make it out of the state’s House of Delegates.

While the impacts of shale gas and lower overall natural gas prices could eventually alter the status quo, currently gas storage in the West looks adequate, according to sources at Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E), a partner in the region’s newest underground storage facility, Gill Ranch in Northern California (see Daily GPI, Oct. 5, 2010; Sept. 27, 2007).

New Mexico House Speaker Ben Lujan has introduced legislation to boost the use of natural gas as a transportation fuel. HB 198 would give consumers an alternative to soaring gasoline prices and providing some incentives to convert their vehicles to run on compressed or liquefied natural gas. Currently, there are nine natural gas transportation fueling stations in the state, and most of the natural gas vehicles (NGV) are owned by municipalities. Under the proposed law vehicle owners would be credited with 70% of the conversion costs to switch to an NGV after receiving a 40% federal tax credit between now and Jan.1, 2017. A similar bill passed the state’s House last year but died in the Senate Finance Committee. Lujan said the typical NGV costs about $1.76/gallon, compared with more than $3/gallon for gasoline-fueled vehicles.

The Obama administration opened up federal lands to alternative energy development this month in the first of what promises to be a series of similar announcements. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the federal government’s willingness to put aside environmental criticism and allow two large-scale solar projects to be built on Bureau of Land Management (BLM)-controlled lands in Southern California.

With strong incentives from both the public and private sectors, California stakeholders in the alternative transportation fuel space opened a new research center on Tuesday aimed at cutting fuel consumption in the trucking industry by 50% in the next 10 years. Funding from the California Energy Commission (CEC) is supporting the new center.

The proposed route and two alternative routes for Spectra Energy Corp.’s proposed Texas Eastern Transmission (Tetco) natural gas pipeline bisect a “very complicated” 66-acre property in Bayonne, NJ, owned by Texaco Downstream Properties Inc. (TDP) and should be realigned, the Chevron affiliate said in a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission filing.