This is pretty astonishing, but not a surprise. I’ve been looking at the natural gas situation in the US right now–it now looks like there’s going to be a much larger available supply (largely from new drilling technologies), and that gas is going to remain cheap–not just on a relative basis, but on an absolute basis. The cost of generating a reasonable return for the drillers keeps dropping. Which means that natural gas should be the fuel of choice for a transition fuel, obviously–you can put combined-cycle generation plants pretty much anywhere. And yet the coal lobby is still able to exert enough pressure to have the cap and trade legislation still pretty favorable to the industry, largely at the expens of gas producers. Amazing.

It’s astonishing how much this can impact the debate. I’ve been reviewing the energy industry recently, and the US is now looking at cheap natural gas for a number of years, largely as a result of horizontal drilling technologies in shale areas. I mean, not just cheap in relative terms–cheap in absolute terms. There’s been a significant drop in the cost at which drillers can generate a reasonable return. And still the coal lobby is able to get a version of the cap and trade bill that they want–or at least, one that’s not as punitive to coal and favorable to gas as would be expected purely on carbon and supply criteria.

I can’t say if it’s true, but I’ve heard bridges already have this sort of effect (like on the Hood Canal).

it’ll be at least another 10 years until deep water floating wind turbine technologies are advanced enough to deploy widely

Still a tremendously encouraging development. I saw it on TV: kind of mind-boggling.