n615  0034  22 Nov 78
 
BC-Darby 11-22
Attention: Financial editors.
Bky EDWIN DARBY
(c) 1978 Chicago Sun-Times
    CHICAGO - Now that Congress has finally finished work on an
energy bill emphasizing conservation, the Carter administration
is willing to put muscle behind efforts to find new supplies
of oil and natural gas.
    On the natural gas side, there are experts out there who think
it is not extrordinarily difficult to put a finger on
enough new gas to keep home fires, and factory fires,
burning for 20, 50, 100 years and more.
    In fact, Dr. Philip L. Randolph of the Institute of Gas
Technology wouldn't be too surprised if research proves that
there's enough untapped natural gas in the Gulf Coast Basin of
Texas and Louisiana alone to supply U.S. needs at present rates
of consumption for as much as 5,000 years.
    But that's the theory. What needs to be done, Dr.
Randolph says, is to drill some wells and find out for sure.
Find out if the gas is there. And find out if it can be
produced and piped into a home or factory at a reasonable price.
    At the Institute of Gas Technology on the Illinois Institute
of Technology campus here, Dr. Randolph bears up under a
heavy title. He is associate director for unconventiaonal
natural gas research. That means he works at finding natural
gas where it hasn't been found before and at technology
that hasn't been used before. For instance, he's interested in
the gas that may be trapped under the Devonian shale formation in
Ohio, in the coal seams of West Virginia, and the ''tight
sands'' of the Rocky Mountains.
    But what has him really excited today is the possibility of
huge new supplies from something called geopressured aquifers.
    As the word ''aquifer'' might indicate, this is water, water
under pressure, water trapped way down below the surface
under sandstone formations. Over eons of time the sandstone
formation has trapped and held tiny bubbles of natural gas
under pressure. The aquifer is like a huge bottle of a carbonated
soft drink. Take the cap off the bottle and the drink
goes flat. Or, tap into the aquifer, bringing the water to the
surface and relieving the pressure, and the escaping bubbles
of gas can be captured.
    The aquifers are there in abundance in both Texas and
Louisiana, both offshore and on, Dr. Randolph says, and preliminary
exploration has indicated there's more natural gas in the
water-bound formations than anyone thought. Anyone, that is,
except Dr. Randolph and his researchers, who had run computer
simulations on data from core samples and concluded that natural
gas production might well be four times what early government
studies had predicted.
    Now the U.S. Department of Energy is pushing ahead
with the work that must be done, Dr. Randolph says. That's
well drilling to see if the stuff is there and evaulations to see
if the gas can be brought to market at a competitive and
profitable price. With grants from the federal government and
from 10 major natural gas companies, the Institute of Gas
Technology is building a special laboratory to evaluate the work
as it goes along.
    The University of Texas, under a federal grant, has pinpointed
one single location in Texas where it thinks the chances
for a successful test well are greatest. The site is smack in the
middle of a huge Texas tract owned by General Crude Oil Co.
It took the government lawyers six months to work out a drilling
contract with General Crude. The contract would reimburse General
Crude for drilling costs and eventually turn the well over to
the company.
    Another delay in drilling on the site is significant. It took
General Crude an additional six months to get its hands on a
drilling rig. Demand for drilling rigs is so high that the company
had to wait for a new one to come out of a factory. Actual
drilling started in July and the well is now down about 14,000
feet on the way to a targeted 17,000 feet. Dr. Randolph
thinks the proof of the pudding will begin to show along
about yearend. Then we'll be on the road to beginning to know if
the bonanza is there.
    Dr. Randolph thinks Louisiana holds more promise than Texas.
But there's another holdup in Texas. Louisiana State
HIRED BY THISY, Dr. 
) 11-22
 
 
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(End missing.)
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a247  1538  22 Nov 78
AM-Energy,540
By MICHAEL DOAN
Associated Press Writer
    WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States will depend more on coal-fired
electrical plants, nuclear facilities and coal mines as it increases
its energy demands through the end of the century, the Commerce
Department said Wednesday.
    In estimating the energy demands for each state, the department said
it assumed fuel consumption will grow at a slower rate than in the
past.
    But the department said new devices such as windmills, solar energy
equipment and other technology will be needed to meet the nation's
energy demand by the year 2000.
    ''Emerging energy demand is expected to necessitate the construction
of a large number of new coal-fired electric generating plants,'' the
department said in its report.
    ''Similarly, a substantial number of nuclear facilities are likely
to be needed to keep pace with demand,'' it added. For example, the
report said, three new facilities may be required in Rhode Island, 11
in North Carolina, 22 in New York and 32 in California.
    ''New demands will be placed on various eastern states to expand
coal production,'' the report said, and it predicted that coal output
would have to be doubled in the Appalachian states.
    The department assumed that the U.S. population will increase by 22
percent, to 262 million, by the turn of the century. It also assumed
that population shifts will be toward the South and West.
    ''Oil consumption will continue to increase through 1985 but
decrease sharply through the rest of the century,'' said the report.
    ''Similarly,'' it said, ''oil production, except in the case of
Alaska and some non-major oil-producing states, will continue to
decline steadily through the rest of the century.''
    The report said natural gas consumption will decline steadily except
in Texas.
    ''Coal consumption, on the other hand, is expected to increase
steadily through 1985 and rise sharply thereafter through the rest of
the century,'' it said.
    The report predicted that electrical power consumption will increase
rapidly, requiring construction of 544 additional plants.
    ''As one might expect, the amount of water that will be consumed in
energy development and production will increase markedly in those
states where new energy production (including electrical power
generation) takes place,'' the report said.
    The Commerce Department did not conclude which energy approaches
were best, but asked: ''If we do not build the nuclear plants . . . or
mine these large amounts of coal, will we face massive electric power
shortages during the 1990s?''
    In its projections, the department took into account population
growth, energy conservation measures and expected shifts that may be
needed from one form of energy to another.
    The amount of oil needed in Oregon is expected to decline by about
20 percent through 2000, for instance, but the amount of coal needed
will go up dramatically.
    The department based its assessment on these other assumptions:
    - The need for energy will grow 1.2 percent per person through 2000,
while the economy will grow by about 2.2 percent a year.
    - There will be no oil embargo or wars.
    - The country will be more careful in conserving energy.
    
ap-ny-11-22 1842EST
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n091  1632  20 Feb 79
 
AM-ENERGY 1stadd
(BizDay)
NYT WASHINGTON: be saved.
    The report acknowledged that some actions, such as the passage of
the National Energy Act last year, to achieve the desired
productivity in energy but urged that much more be done.
    Specifically, it recommended that oil prices be allowed to rise
gradually to world levels since ''there has been broad agreement that
price may be the most important policy tool capable of improving the
efficiency with which we use energy.''
    The council suggested new building standardards that would require a
high level of technology in energy saving devices. It advocated tax
credits for what is called cogeneration equipment that uses heat for
more than one purpose.
    The report contended that fuel efficiency standards, set for a fleet
average of 27.5 miles per gallon in 1985, are far from reaching a
long term technical limit. It also urged that parking subsidies for
government employees be removed.
    But at a time when the Carter administration is planning to cut back
rail passenger service, the council report touched only lightly on
improving public transportatin. Moreover, it commented only lightly
on the issue of tax cuts and credit, which many economists and
producers of energy consider necessary to stimulate conservation.
    
ny-0220 1933est
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