Truth Squad: "Are There Really 100 Years Worth of Natural Gas Beneath the U.S.?"

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

January 25, 2012 | 10:02 AM

Saul Loeb-Pool / Getty Images

President Obama Addresses The Nation During State Of The Union AddressPool / Getty Images

In last night’s State of the Union Address, President Obama said America has about a 100 year supply of untapped natural gas. But how is that calculated? Last month Chris Nelder wrote a piece for Slate that breaks it down. Nelder makes the case that there’s a lot more uncertainty about how much of that gas can be extracted and used to power our refridgerators. And questions the source of that 100-year figure.

“The claim of a 100-year supply originated with a report released in April 2011 by the Potential Gas Committee, an organization of petroleum engineers and geoscientists. President and Chairman Larry Gring works with Third Day Energy LLC, a company based in Austin, Texas, that is engaged in acquiring and exploiting oil and gas properties along the Texas Gulf Coast.*Chairman of the Board Darrell Pierce is a vice president of DCP Midstream LLC, a natural-gas production, processing, and marketing company based in Denver. The report’s contributors are from the industry-supported Colorado School of Mines. In short, the Potential Gas Committee report is not an impartial assessment of resources.”

And just this week, the Energy Information Agency released it’s own updated estimates of shale gas reserves. In the “Annual Energy Outlook for 2012,” the EIA reduced their previous estimate of potential recoverable gas reserves in the U.S., primarily because of their overestimates within the Marcellus Shale. The new Marcellus projections have been cut by two-thirds.
The president had a lot to say about energy policy during the speech, including how shale development gives us hope for renewables.

“Our experience with shale gas shows us that the payoffs on these public investments don’t always come right away. Some technologies don’t pan out; some companies fail. But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy. I will not walk away from workers like Bryan. I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here. We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That’s long enough. It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits and create these jobs.”

Click here to read more on Obama’s remarks on offshore drilling, renewable energy, natural gas, oil subsidies, and energy efficiency.