Sep. 21--Looking for a warm spot in a cold economy? Try natural gas this fall and winter. Natural gas supplies are abundant. Natural gas prices are in decline. The effect will be average household savings of $200 to $300 this winter, according to an analysis by Steve Everly (McClatchy-Tribune) that appeared in the Sept. 13 Columbian.

Another major price break will aid the Clark Public Utilities' (CPU) 248-megawatt River Road Generating plant. Built in 1997, and fueled by natural gas, the steam plant generates about one-third of the electricity required in Clark County. The other two-thirds is purchased from the Bonneville Power Administration, which plans a 6.8 percent rate increase, with the first jolt -- 4.6 percent -- effective Oct. 1, and the rest in 2010. With natural gas prices dipping about 25 percent in price from a year ago, it might be enough to offset the BPA increase, said Mick Shutt, corporate communications manager for the local utility. Whether that happens won't be known until December, when Clark Public Utilities completes its budget for 2010.

Another power source, from wind turbines, isn't that reliable. The turbines generate power only about 30 percent of the time, and rarely on the hottest and coldest days of the year.

The good news for natural gas customers could continue to unfold. Prices are at a seven-year low, and could go lower, because the recession has trimmed consumption of natural gas by industrial users. Ample gas is in storage and Canadian suppliers to this region have lowered wholesale prices.

The McClatchy-Tribune article noted that Northwest Natural Gas, based in Portland, has filed a request with the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission to lower residential rates here by 21.5 percent. If approved, the rate change will take effect Nov. 1.

A major technological advancement provides more good news. Canadian natural gas interests are excited about the prospect of horizontal drilling to recover natural gas embedded in shale. On Aug. 22, The Vancouver Sun published an article, "The Big Drill -- B.C.'s natural gas sector is poised for an unprecedented boom." In the news story, Mike Graham, a division president for Calgary-based EnCana, predicted: "Natural gas will displace coal. It will displace oil. There is no reason North America shouldn't be energy self-sufficient if we can displace a lot of the oil with natural gas."

The Vancouver Sun article, written by Scott Simpson, explained that the new drilling procedure that unlocks the gas is far from the conventional hole drilled into the Earth to tap a pool. Shale drilling is complicated. "The gas is locked into the surrounding rock, which must be fractured, or 'fraced' with high pressure injections of a sand-water compound." Wet sand forces its way into the rock, causing fractures that release the trapped gas, which escapes to the surface, "often at a high pressure."

The shale resources in northeastern British Columbia are estimated at between 250 trillion cubic feet and 1,000 trillion cubic feet, reported Canada's Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. We can drill thousands of wells and have decades of drilling ahead, said EnCana's Graham.

America also has a stake in shale drilling, which the New York Times termed "the new magic phrase in the oil and gas industry" in an Aug. 5 article. Could more U.S. power plants switch from coal to lower-carbon gas?

For now, it's good to know natural gas is one resource that won't burn a hole in your budget.

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