Not that I'm into doom and gloom, but the fact that natural gas is going to sharply "cliff" downwards -- long before oil ramps down -- has been common knowledge, at least among the peak-energy watchers, for several years now. The real story here isn't that fancy ranges will be obsolete, but more that our current system of industrial agriculture, fed by LNG-derived fertilizers, is literally threatened with collapse. This is what happened in Cuba after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it was only a crash program to reinstate organic farming (anywhere there was open space or good land, in fact - city parks, rooftops) that kept more people from starving to death.

Have you looked into converting to propane. For grills and stovetops it can happen but a furnace might be way more complicated.

That's 8.1 years of proven reserves! Proven reservers represent gas in fields currently in production, we have always had an 8-12 yr supply of proven reserves. We have a 50-100 yrs probable gas reservers at current usage levels.

But conservation is still a very good idea in that its not likely that production will increase over current levels. Over time production will fall and prices will go up. In 50-100 yrs gas prouction will likely very limited and expensive - but we will still have an 8 yr (very small) supply of proven reservers.

I looked into this before installing my furnace last year and found estimates that we have about 200 years worth of natural gas supply. For what thats worth.

I suppose at minimum, we would have a certain amount of supply if we could generate NG in/near our homes from our own sewage. Any artcles on this sort of thing, I seem to recall a Prison in Rawanda that does this.

You have a good memory, Sam. We wrote about the prison in Rwanda last july:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/07/biogas_poopower_1.php

Mike is absolutely right. There are 8 years of proven reserves, but much more available.

Check out Natural Resources Canada's latest
annual review for a complete breakdown. They predict natural gas supplies out to 2020, although by that time some of it will be imported liquid natural gas.

As with oil, the problem with natural gas is not so much completely running out of it but "peaking" in production.

When demand grows faster than supply and when most of the "cheap" natural gas has been depleted, we'll have a great increase in prices (a bit like we've had in the past few years, from 3-4$/unit to 13$/unit).

MGR: Peaking in production means production will never increase beyond what we're producing now. In other words, it's all downhill from here because we're running out. Reaching peak is a bad sign: it means from now on, you're only using up what's left, not discovering any more, or at least not enough to offset wells going dry.

For natural gas though, conventional production may have only 8.1 years of reserves left, but Methane hydrates, if they ever figure out how to utilize them, can easily make up for the need (global warming impact aside): methane hydrates found in the oceans have enough energy to replace all petrolium for the next century, if I remember correctly; it's just that they're hard to harvest and utilize economically.

Berkana, that's a pretty big "if."

I haven't read anything that suggests a 200-year-supply of natural gas - more a 200-year supply of coal that could be "gasified." But once we started using it, with our enormous current energy appetite, we'd reach Peak Coal pretty soon, too, and then we're back where we are now.

The thing about cheap energy is that it requires little energy to obtain. In the first days of oil "gushers" it was like pricking a balloon. Now it's like trying to suck tapioca through a thin straw from the bottom of a nearly-empty 40-gallon drum -- you'll collapse a lung before you get anything.

In the business, they call this energy return on energy investment (EREOI) and when the ratios are poor or bad --such as for things like tar sands oil, not to mention far-out prospects like methane hydrates, that barrel might as well be on Mars. Never mind what the economic incentive is (assuming scarcity makes prices triple, quadruple, etc.), if you're expending a barrel of oil or more to extract another barrel of oil, it's kind of pointless.

In any case, no-one's addressed the point I brought up - in the short term, disruptions in the supply or price of natural gas may cause an unprecedented agricultural crash in North America, because there won't be fertilizers or pesticides to prop up "factory" farming anymore.

I am the offending author of said article. Although proven reserves are at 8.1 years, and possible resources at a further 5.3 years, undiscovered resources amount to 78% of whats left, or about 45 years if they can be found and produced. The key point which has been made is that peak production is the critical point - after that it is down hill even though we will have some gas production decades or centuries from now

I have a natural gas cooker. I am currently in the process of designing an anaerobic digester to bury in my backyard greenhouse. With seven dogs and a horse in the near future. I shouldn't ever have a lack of methane gas for my cooking and possibly my gas demand water heater. No 8 years worry, nor 20, nor 40 or any other number. Biogas digesters are becoming quite popular in the developing world on small-scale farms. I wonder why this isn't also the case in the developed world.

Im 12 years old and wesould not be using natuial gas since the beganig.Now we are running out of it.

i hate this

sky - your wisdom outshines all other comments

the time for discussing how to tap into further natural gas reserves is over (even though methane hydrates are incredibly interesting/promising!)

using fossil fuels en masse is completely irresponsible given the existence of umpteen feasible alternatives, period

if you own a computer you already have 100x the purchasing power of most people on this planet - use it to make your voice heard!

A few leads on sewage to methane:

Cow Power on the youtube (indoor dairy cows, electricity for a town in Vermont, great video).

Biogas in rural china, Paul Henderson, cityfarmer site. Simplest possible scheme. No heating of process, no powerhog uses, just cooking and lights.

Georgia Strait Alliance, search Salter, Sweden, natural gas. Heated process, great returns though, heat and hot water for large new complexes and demo (?) level power for vehicles.

Huge new report on Victoria BC's sewage solution if the methane goal is achieved. Also analysis of the report. at http://www.cserv.gov.bc.ca/ministry/whatsnew/IRM.htm