Natural Gas and Electric Market Coordination a Top Priority for NAESB, Regulators, and the Industry in 2024

Abstract

Given the current energy outlook in the United States, it is hard to believe that less than 50 years ago concerns over diminishing domestic supplies of oil and natural gas and the country's energy security led the U.S. Congress to enact the Powerplant and Industrial Fuel Use Act (Fuel Use Act), placing restrictions on the construction of baseload power plants utilizing natural gas as a primary fuel source for generation. Today, the US produces more crude oil than any other country, ever, leads the world in natural gas production by a very wide margin, and has overtaken Qatar and Australia as the largest exporter of liquified natural gas. And according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) there is enough technically recoverable natural gas available domestically to continue production at this rate for nearly another century.¹