David Victor Quoted in Feature Story in Technology Review
Natural Gas Changes the Energy Map
Oct 15, 2009
By David Rotman, Technology Review
Some energy experts say that even if supplies of natural gas remain abundant, it's unclear to what extent power producers will switch to the fuel, and how long it will take if they do.
Many gas advocates display a "practical naïveté" about the conversion of coal-fired power production, says David Victor, director of the International Law and Regulation Laboratory at the University of California, San Diego. "If you look at the quantity of gas needed to replace all the coal plants in the United States, you're talking about increasing gas consumption by something like 50 percent," he says. "It's a huge number."
Such a large increase in production will require extensive shale drilling, some of it in heavily populated locations. And, Victor says, "we don't know what [the shale-gas drilling] looks like on a truly massive scale."
Click here to read the full article. David Victor's comments begin on page 6.
