The City of Tallahassee's Energy Services Department has an agreement with the Tennessee Energy Acquisition Corporation to purchase natural gas over a 20 year period that began in 2006. According to the City's Annual Report to Bondholders, the City will purchase 4000 MMBtu of natural gas daily for this 20 year period.
Over the years, this City and many others have promoted the use of natural gas as an environmentally efficient and economical approach to slowing global climate change while providing clean energy to its residents. It is cleaner burning than fossil fuel and coal producing "45% less greenhouse gases than coal and 30% less than oil" (from the City's February 2010 report). The original fight against using coal powered plants for electricity was won in Tallahassee by building a reliance on natural gas.
Natural Gas, gas is transported to Tallahassee. The City owns, operates, and manages its own natural gas distribution system in and around the city limits and has agreements for services in Wakulla and Gadsden counties.
About 10 years ago, the United States was facing "peak natural gas", with what looked to be declining reserves and declining production. However, "hydraulic fracturing" developed into what is seen as a cost-effective path to release natural gas that was previously thought unreachable. Hydraulic fracturing involves the pumping of massive amounts of fluid to crack or fracture shale deposits to free up natural gas trapped in shale deposits. 'Frakking' may have pushed "Peak Natural Gas" back decades or even centuries.
Today, over 97% of the natural gas is produced within North America. At what cost?
A cogent analysis of hydraulic fracturing was done by blogger, A. Siegel, at this link. For your Sunday viewing, below are trailers for the movie, Gasland, now showing on HBO, Split Estate as well as an excerpt on 'frakking' from Democrary Now.
"If you need a break from worrying yourself sick about the still-gushing BP oil leak, I can tentatively recommend you watch Josh Fox's artful and disturbing documentary Gasland," see Washington Post movie review here.
Fresh drinking water is the final piece of whether or not the US survives its quest for clean energy.
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