I saw an article in the Evanswville Courier & Press regarding natural gas. The article, entitled, "Natural gas bottlenecks keep heating prices high," discusses how the country has large supplies of natural gas, but the prices have remained high. The problem lies in transporting the natural gas from where the plentiful supplies are, to where the gas is consumed. One of the challenges is insufficient transporation infrastructure. With more and more power plants using natural gas, along with the residential consumers, there is more demand than previously. Some analysts feel that if the volatility of natural gas prices continues, more market share may go to coal and nuclear power. In terms of supply and demand, one of the main difficulties appears to be the changing trends of where the gas comes from and where it is being used. According to the article,
[p]roduction is declining along the Gulf Coast, while rising in segments of the Southwest and the Rockies." Meanwhile, industrial consumption has shifted from the Midwest to the Northeast and Southeast.

As I read this article, I thought about how energy availability is not simply about supply. Instead, much of it depends of the availability of adequate infrastructure to transport it to where it is used. We then need to use more energy to ship the gas to where people need it. This seems to be the same dilemma that the ethanol industry faces. While more and more ethanol is being produced each year, we need an effective mode of transporting it to where it will be used. Are diesel-fueled trucks the answer? I think this negates the benefits of the ethanol being produced. There definitely seems to be a need for transportation infrastructure that will not consume huge amounts of energy. Perhaps more biodiesel or ethanol trucks could ship ethanol. In terms of natural gas, because pipelines are used, it is unclear how to get the gas where it's needed without the bottlenecks. Sufficient pipelines just don't appear to be there right now and it is unclear how to correct that in the short term.