Oregon Public Broadcasting

One of the most pressing questions in today’s power market is how Oregon can be weaned off polluting fossil fuels, and onto the developing renewable sources.

As part of our on-going series on energy, The Switch, April Baer reports that dilemma is part of what’s driving the hottest commodity on Oregon’s energy market, natural gas.

I’m with Astoria with someone who’s lived there for twelve years -- Laurie Caplan, on a day so cold and rainy, it’s almost snowing.

Laurie Caplan: “Can you see those islands out there? I believe that’s where they used to do fish seining with horses out there.”

Laurie Caplan is standing at the base of the Astoria Column, looking out at a proposed site for a liquefied natural gas terminal.

Laurie Caplan:  “If you look at the bridge over there, and go to the right. I believe where that first little bit of land is sticking out. I believe that would be King Road.”

Back in her snug house -- gas heated, by the way -- Caplan explains that she never expected to become an amateur energy market watcher. But she’s learning.

Laurie Caplan   “There’s two different kinds of gas lines, um, and I’m learning so much more stuff I didn’t ever know I’d want to know!”

For example, Caplan’s learned that there’s a great deal of interest in gas not just for heating houses like hers, but for electricity.

Starting in the late 70s, natural gas became one of the cheapest fossil fuels around--as cheap, and sometimes cheaper than coal. That’s what initially sparked energy companies’ interest in using it for power production.

Deregulation sweetened the deal, creating a wild and wooly open market. Then came a technological breakthrough.

Russell Gold covers energy markets for the Wall Street Journal.

Russell Gold:  “The bottom line is that we are seeing a lot more natural gas here in the United States than anyone thought was possible just a few years ago. Prior to the current recession there was just a lot of money floating around, and that money found its way to these natural gas companies. They tried out new ways to get gas out of really tight rocks, and they were incredibly successful.”

The price of natural gas has gone up in recent years, but its efficiency relative to coal has kept it relevant as a source of electricity. When it’s burnt, it releases about half the CO2 as coal. That said, gas is still a non-renewable fossil fuel.

Just outside Vancouver, Washington, Mick Shutt is showing me around a Clark Public Utilities gas-fired power plant.

Mick Shutt   “It’s not a real complicated piece of machinery. It essentially has a jet engine in it. It’s a slightly modified but same kind of engine you’d see on a jet airplane.”

Plants like this have a lot of benefits for utilities. Many people see natural gas as the best energy source to be the bridge between coal and renewable power.

As Shutt explains, they mesh well with renewable energy systems. If your solar and wind farm runs into bad weather and slows down or stops, you can always fall back on the steady stream of baseload power from a gas burning plant.

Mick Shutt  “They are easy to turn on and off. They’re pretty quick to build. Generally speaking—not quite as quick as wind. Wind projects you can put up pretty darn quick!”

You can put natural gas plants in places you couldn’t put a coal-burner. For one thing, they’re smaller—the size of a city block, instead of the size of a small town. And they cost less to build.

When you flip the switch, where does your power come from? And what will power Northwest homes and businesses in the future? We're asking these questions and more for our special series The Switch.

But to get low-cost natural gas from places like Indonesia, Russia and the Persian Gulf to West Coast power plants, you need terminals--like the ones proposed at the mouth of the Columbia. And while many in Clatsop County welcome the economic opportunity, others like Laurie Caplan are concerned about the environmental effect.

As the LNG battle on the coast suggest , the cost of natural gas is not as simple as paying to get it out of the ground. Global prices have been on a roller coaster ride over the past few years.

Robert McCullough   “Natural gas pricing, though low at the moment, doesn’t stay low very long!

Robert McCullough of Portland-based McCullough Research, is an energy consultant with clients all over North America.

Robert McCullough   “On a long-term basis, per unit of energy, we’re paying about 3.5 times as much for natural gas as coal. Obviously this constitutes a bit of a policy problem.”

McCullough says he understands why so many utilities are dashing toward gas right now. And he allows it may work as a supplement to renewable power sources.   But in the end, he predicts the same global market volatility that pushed natural gas to the top of the heap may also prevent it from becoming the dominant source for the Northwest.