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What Are the Top Natural Gas Advantages? With a variety of energy sources available for consumption and use, knowing the benefits of each is important in being a smart energy consumer. Here are four facts to help guide you through the advantages natural gas use has over other energy sources such as coal or oil. Natural gas is affordable. In most areas, natural gas can cost drastically less than electricity to heat your home and the water you use. It can also be half as expensive as coal or oil for the same tasks. By heating your home with natural gas instead of non-gas sources, you could potentially save more than $5,700 on average over 15 years after making the switch. Natural gas is also a deregulated utility, meaning that consumers have more control and choice over the price they pay for gas. On top of those savings, appliances that use natural gas often have much lower operating costs than non-gas appliances, so making the switch to natural gas can save you even more. Natural gas is better for the environment than other fossil fuels. While natural gas is not as clean as solar or wind energy, it is the cleanest fossil fuel energy source available. According to the Florida Natural Gas Association, 3,000 pounds of carbon dioxide are kept out of the atmosphere for each home that uses a tankless water heater in place of a heater powered by another source. Natural gas also produces nearly a third less carbon dioxide than coal and almost half less than oil when burned. Natural gas also emits little to no sulfur, meaning it is eco-friendlier and runs more efficiently than other fuels. Natural gas is more dependable. When heavy storms hits and your power goes out, depending on water heaters, lights and HVAC systems that run on electricity means that you’re stuck with the bare minimum until the power comes back on. With natural gas, that’s not the case. A benefit of using natural gas-powered water heaters and other important appliances is that the energy is delivered through an underground pipeline—meaning your energy source is safe from the effects of heavy storms and extreme weather conditions. And because your water is heated without electricity, you don’t have to lose this comfort in an emergency. Natural gas is a domestic source. Part of trying to reduce dependency on foreign oil means finding sources of alternative forms of energy here in America—and according to the FNGA, over 97% of the natural gas used domestically is produced here, in North America. On top of being more economical and more abundant, increasing the amount of energy we make in our own country means opening more jobs for Americans to work in natural gas production. FNGA reports that 35,000 jobs are created for every 1% of increased production for natural gas. Learn More About Your Natural Gas To take advantage of natural gas and the benefits that can result from turning your home into a natural gas-friendly place, you can explore the plan and pricing options for natural gas in your area. By considering natural gas for your home, you can reap the personal rewards of this coal and oil alternative and help contribute to the benefits for the global community.

As environmental concerns drive power companies away from using coal, natural gas has emerged as the nation’s No. 1 power source. Plentiful and relatively inexpensive as a result of the nation’s fracking boom, it has been portrayed as a bridge to an era in which alternative energy would take primacy. But technology and economics have carved a different, shorter pathway that has bypassed the broad need for some fossil-fuel plants. And that has put proponents of natural gas on the defensive. Some utility companies have scrapped plans for new natural-gas plants in favor of wind and solar sources that have become cheaper and easier to install. Existing gas plants are being shut because their economics are no longer attractive. And regulators are increasingly challenging the plans of companies determined to move forward with new natural-gas plants. “It’s a very different world that we’re arriving at very quickly,” said Robert McCullough, an energy consultant in Portland, Ore. “That wind farm can literally be put on a train and brought online within a year. It is moving so fast that even critics of the old path like myself have been taken by surprise.” The shifting dynamics are being seen in the Western states in particular — driven not only by economics, but by regulation and climate as well. The Arizona Corporation Commission, which regulates the state’s investor-owned utilities, recently refused to endorse plans by three power companies that included more natural-gas facilities. Commissioners directed them to make greater use of energy storage and plants that produce zero emissions. “It’s very erratic what we’re now doing with power,” said Andrew M. Tobin, an Arizona commissioner who led efforts to block new gas plants. “I am so nervous that we will end up building a lot of capital plant that doesn’t stand the test of time.” Some feel the push to get beyond natural gas may be too much, too soon. Officials at Arizona Public Service, the largest utility in the state, said they needed to include new natural-gas development as part of an overall mix, partly because of the state’s round-the-clock air-conditioning demands. “Our needs are different than other utilities,” said Greg Bernosky, the utility’s director of state regulation and compliance. “We need resources that can have a long duration when our load is high, well after the sun has set. Natural gas resources provide that flexibility.” Nationwide, other utility executives, power producers and federal regulators have also argued that a healthy power grid requires consistent power, even when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind ceases to blow. The more solar and wind power that is added to the electric grid, they say, the greater the need for reliable backup sources like natural gas. “Gas has got to be part of that equation,” Robert F. Powelson, a commissioner on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, recently told an energy conference. “The gas system has gotten extremely reliable.” And he argued that even recent advances in storage did not justify an overreliance on alternative energy, however inexpensive. “Storage is great,” said Mr. Powelson, a nominee of President Trump and a former chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. “But that is not a reliable long-term solution to the energy markets.” Natural gas isn’t likely to be unseated as the country’s primary source of electricity generation anytime soon. In fact, utility companies plan to add more natural-gas plants than any other source, including all alternative energy sources, like solar, wind and hydropower, combined. But the calculus is rapidly shifting as the prices of wind and solar power continue to fall. According to the Department of Energy, power generated by natural gas declined 7.7 percent in 2017. And the latest report by Lazard, the financial advisory and management firm, found that the cost of power from utility-scale solar farms was now on a par with natural-gas generation — and that wind farms were less expensive still.

Lazard calculated the unsubsidized cost of wind power at 3 cents a kilowatt-hour, while natural gas and solar energy were a little more than 4 cents. The typical American household pays 12.5 cents a kilowatt-hour for electricity, according to the United States Energy Information Administration. (The cost beyond generation reflects transmission, taxes, and other utility expenses and profits.) Moreover, the market equation in the West is driven largely by California, the sixth-largest economy in the world, which has mandated that 50 percent of its power be generated from renewable sources by 2030. With a regional energy market run by the state’s electricity grid overseer, the California Independent System Operator, fossil-fuel plants have had increasing difficulty selling their power into a market with low-cost solar and wind power. At the same time, state legislatures and regulators are increasingly demanding that utilities rethink how they manage their systems to reduce carbon emissions. Some power producers have bristled at the mandates, even scaling back their operations in certain markets because, they said, it became too difficult to compete without losing money. NRG Energy, for example, announced this month that it would close three natural-gas plants in California because of the regulatory push for clean energy. After NRG’s announcement, Calpine, a power company based in Houston, said it would suspend plans to build a natural-gas plant in California.

When major oil producers last met in Vienna, they said they would curb rising prices by ramping up production. Why, then, are oil prices still going up? Officials from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and other major oil producers like Russia pledged last month to increase total output by around 1 percent of the global oil supply. President Trump has pressed the issue further, repeatedly calling for lower oil prices. Yet prices have remained stubbornly high. The price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, has risen more than 20 percent so far this year, to around $78 a barrel. Here are some of the factors pushing prices higher. Risky Producers Saudi Arabia is under pressure to quickly increase its production of oil, but those increases may not be enough to offset declines in three countries grappling with crises: Iran, Libya and Venezuela. The Trump administration has softened demands that countries like China and India end all imports of oil from Iran. But Mr. Trump has nevertheless sought to line up support against Tehran as the United States prepares to reimpose sanctions on its energy sector. At present, Iran exports around two million barrels of oil a day, equivalent to about 2 percent of global supply. But the United States wants to drastically curb Tehran’s ability to sell its natural resources, eating into any additional supply from Saudi Arabia, Russia or elsewhere. “The administration is posturing, to a certain extent, with this hard-line position,” said Andrew Keller, a former state department sanctions expert who is now a partner at the law firm Hogan Lovells. Still, analysts have been increasing their estimates of how far Iranian crude exports are likely to fall, from a few hundred thousand barrels a day to around a million. A loss in the upper end of that range would wipe out much of the added supply that oil producers had promised in Vienna. That looming outage is far from the only potential disruption weighing on the oil markets. Venezuela, once a major producer, has nearly halved output, to less than 1.4 million barrels a day, as its economy has cratered and international sanctions have been imposed on the country. Further declines seem almost certain. Fighting among various armed factions in Libya, meanwhile, has meant that the North African country will not be able to supply around 850,000 barrels a day, most of its output. “It is almost turning into a geopolitical perfect storm for the oil markets,” said Helima Croft, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, an investment bank. It will be tough for Saudi Arabia, she added, “to bridge the gap caused by Venezuela, Iran and now Libya.” Supply and Demand Oil is not in short supply — for now. Long-running production cuts by OPEC and Russia have drained once-brimming storage tanks to more normal levels. That means that any threats to output have a bigger effect on oil prices. With the world economy growing and demand for energy on the rise, “prices can skyrocket well past $100 a barrel,” unless supplies are quickly found to meet any potential outages, analysts at the oil and gas consultancy FGE wrote in a note to clients. Saudi Arabia is already preparing to replace the falling supplies from Iran and elsewhere — Saudi exports increased substantially in June, while storage levels also rose, according to analysts at Kayrros, a Paris-based firm that monitors oil industry activity using satellite data. Russia is increasing its own exports. But there is skepticism as to how much either country can do, and for how long. Riyadh claims to have two million barrels a day of spare production capacity, but analysts say the kingdom can realistically add only about one million barrels to its daily output without additional drilling. Most forecasters agree that a substantial global buffer now exists, but that it could be stretched in the future. Wood Mackenzie, an energy consultancy, estimates global spare capacity to be 2.5 million barrels a day of additional production, most of it in OPEC. Threats to production in Iran, Libya and Venezuela eat into that potential, and Nigeria’s supplies are also vulnerable to strikes by workers and other issues. The oil market’s increased dependency on crude exports from the United States poses its own risks, because Gulf Coast ports can be shut down by hurricanes in the summer and the fall. Politicized Markets On top of all these factors, oil markets are also becoming increasingly politicized, potentially adding to volatility. Mr. Trump has, for example, been unusually vocal for an American president in trying to push gasoline prices down by asking King Salman of Saudi Arabia to increase production. But analysts say Iran’s reaction to renewed United States sanctions could affect the market’s dynamics even more. If the country’s oil exports sink below one million barrels a day, the situation could “get really dangerous,” said Homayoun Falakshahi, an Iran energy analyst at Wood Mackenzie. Iranian officials have been vocal about the dangers. In a telephone interview from Tehran, Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, a high-ranking Iranian oil official, warned that prices could rise to $100 a barrel, or even $140 a barrel, unless tensions were cooled down. “You better keep the market away from politics,” he said. Follow Stanley Reed on Twitter: @stanleyreed12.

As the new heir apparent to the throne of Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammed bin Salman will play an even more influential role in world oil markets at a time when big crude-producing nations are struggling to prop up prices. Prince Mohammed, who was named crown prince on Wednesday, has upended the traditional Saudi energy model in the nearly two and a half years since his father ascended the throne. Whereas the royal family had previously been content to leave the running of the oil industry to seasoned technocrats, the prince has sought to exert influence over the country’s huge energy resources. With the kingdom’s economy suffering from weakened oil markets, Saudi Arabia, with the prince’s backing, has been a leading force behind the effort by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to bolster prices by limiting production. It is a complicated task with prices continuing to fall, as American shale oil producers and Libya add to the glut of supplies. Domestically, Prince Mohammed has sought to consolidate control over the energy sector. He has brought in Wall Street bankers to organize an initial public offering of the national oil company, Saudi Aramco, which is likely to value the enterprise at hundreds of billions of dollars. And he has replaced the country’s longtime oil minister, replacing him with a more pliant hand who has become crucial to fulfilling the prince’s plans. ADVERTISEMENT Supporters say the 31-year-old prince will bring youthful energy and a fresh eye to the kingdom’s most valuable export, using it to help modernize and diversify the economy. Detractors, however, charge that he is inexperienced and prone to meddling, undermining experienced officials and making sudden public pronouncements. “The problem is he is unpredictable, and it is not clear who he is relying on for advice,” said Paul Stevens, a Middle East energy analyst at Chatham House, a research organization based in London. You have 1 free article remaining. Subscribe to The Times Here’s how Prince Mohammed’s rise may affect oil prices, global energy production and the sale of shares in Saudi Aramco: The prospect of falling prices Oil prices are around $45 a barrel, continued their slide after the news of Prince Mohammed’s promotion. That is down 20 percent since mid-April, and well off the levels in 2014 above $100 a barrel. The main reason for the decline in prices, though, is that OPEC’s much-trumpeted production cuts seem to be having little impact on the persistent glut of oil for sale. The higher prices resulting from OPEC cuts have prompted increased production from shale oil producers in the United States and by other rivals, undercutting the cartel’s actions. Flip-flopping Saudi energy prices Prince Mohammed appears to have gone back and forth on oil strategy. He initially declared that prices did not matter. But when they fell to uncomfortable levels early last year, he backed production cuts by OPEC and other producers, like Russia, as a way to prop up prices. The Saudis and OPEC may now be headed for another crunch, and there do not seem to be any good options. Analysts say the most likely path is for the Saudis to persist with, or even deepen, production cuts to bolster prices and improve the environment for the Saudi Aramco I.P.O. “We should be prepared for Saudi Arabia to do whatever it takes to keep the prices above” $50 a barrel, FGE, an energy consultancy, wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday. “If the I.P.O. is to go ahead, prices cannot go below” $50 a barrel, it added. OPEC’s debate The question is how long the Saudis can stick with a policy of reduced production if it does not result in higher prices. In 2014, Saudi Arabia’s former oil minister Ali al-Naimi concluded that there was little point in OPEC restraining production because any cuts would just be replaced by producers of shale oil. When prices fell below $30 a barrel early last year, Mr. Naimi and other officials began pursuing temporary production restraints to prop up prices. So far, those cuts are credited with bolstering prices and supporting the revenues of producer countries. But falling prices could push Prince Mohammed to once again consider whether output constraints serve Saudi interests. An I.P.O. dependent on oil prices Prince Mohammed’s elevation gives him added authority to push ahead with his pet project, overriding the objections of traditionalists who argue that only the state should own natural resources like oil. The Saudi Aramco offering is a big part of the prince’s overall blueprint for overhauling the economy and reducing its dependence on oil, a plan known as Vision 2030. Oil prices, though, may play a major role in the success of his ambitious undertaking: Buoyant prices would help raise more money through the I.P.O., and help attract investment to Saudi Arabia.

State-run newspapers in Vietnam and China reported in recent days that senior military officials from the two countries would hold a fence-mending gathering along a border where their militaries fought a brief but bloody war in 1979. But Tuesday, the scheduled start of the gathering, came and went without any of the coverage in the state news media that readers in the two countries had expected. The Chinese Defense Ministry later said in a terse statement that it had canceled the event “for reasons related to working arrangements.” Analysts, citing government sources, said that the Chinese delegation had unexpectedly cut short a trip to Vietnam after tempers flared during a closed-door discussion on disputed territories in the South China Sea. The cancellation is highly unusual for the two Communist neighbors, and it comes as Beijing continues to build artificial islands in the South China Sea, where the Chinese seek to expand their military influence at a time of uncertainty over President Trump’s policies in the region. “This was not what the Vietnamese expected from a polite guest,” said Alexander L. Vuving, a Vietnam specialist at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii. “You can say both sides miscalculated,” he added. But another interpretation is that both countries are “very committed to showing the other their own resolve” on matters of territorial sovereignty. The dispute happened during a visit to Hanoi this week by Gen. Fan Changlong of China. It was unclear what precisely roiled his meeting with Vietnamese officials, much less whether the general’s actions had been planned. Analysts said he appeared to have been angry over Vietnam’s recent efforts to promote strategic cooperation with the United States and Japan. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc recently visited those two countries in quick succession, and the Vietnamese and Japanese coast guards conducted joint drills in the South China Sea last week focused on preventing illegal fishing. Another reason, analysts said, could be Vietnam’s apparent refusal to abandon oil and gas exploration in areas of the South China Sea that both it and Beijing claim. Mr. Vuving said a specific source of the dispute may have been the so-called Blue Whale project, a gas-drilling venture in the South China Sea by Vietnam’s state oil company, PetroVietnam, and Exxon Mobil. The companies signed an agreement during a January trip to Hanoi by John Kerry, the secretary of the state at the time. The drilling site, which is expected to produce gas for power generation by 2023, is close to the disputed Paracel Islands and near the “nine dash line” that shows expansive territorial claims on Chinese maps. Mr. Vuving said that China probably resents that Vietnam has formed a partnership with an American oil company, particularly one whose previous chief executive, Rex W. Tillerson, is Mr. Trump’s secretary of state. The project appears to set a “very damaging precedent for China’s strategy in the South China Sea,” Mr. Vuving said. The Chinese and Vietnamese Foreign Ministries did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday, and an Exxon Mobil spokeswoman in Singapore could not be reached for comment. Other analysts said that the source of tension may have been Vietnam’s recent decision to resume oil exploration in another disputed part of the South China Sea. Carl Thayer, a longtime analyst of the Vietnamese military and emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales, said that if General Fan had indeed asked Vietnam to cease oil exploration in that area, Vietnam would have considered the request “inflammatory”; it would have implied Chinese territorial control in the Exclusive Economic Zone off the Vietnamese coast. “Vietnam’s leaders would have refused this request and responded by reasserting Vietnam’s sovereignty,” Mr. Thayer said in an email to reporters and diplomats. There were unconfirmed reports on Wednesday that China had recently deployed 40 vessels and several military transport aircraft to the area. Vietnam accused Chinese ships of cutting the cables of one of its seismic survey vessels there in 2011. Though China is Vietnam’s largest trading partner and a longtime ideological ally, the neighbors have long been at odds over competing claims to rocks, islands and offshore oil and gas blocks in the South China Sea, which Vietnam calls the East Sea. Tensions came to a head in 2014, when a state-run Chinese company towed an oil rig near the Paracel Islands and within about 120 nautical miles of Vietnam. No one was killed at sea, but a maritime standoff led to anti-China riots near foreign-invested factories in central and southern Vietnam, bringing relations between the countries to their lowest point in years. A few days before General Fan’s Hanoi visit, Mr. Vuving said, China moved the same oil rig to a position in the South China Sea that is near the midway point between the Chinese and Vietnamese coasts, apparently seeking to pressure Vietnam to cease oil and gas exploration in disputed waters. Data from myship.com, a website affiliated with the Chinese Transport Ministry, showed that the rig has been about 70 nautical miles south of China and 120 nautical miles northeast of Vietnam over the past week. The first fence-mending gathering, called the Vietnam-China Border Defense Friendship Exchange Program, took place in 2014 and was intended to promote bilateral trust. The meeting this week was expected to include a drill on fighting cross-border crime. Xu Liping, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing who specializes in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, said that the countries were expected to disagree over territorial claims in the South China Sea. But they have established frameworks to defuse disagreements through government channels as well as through the two countries’ Communist parties, he added. In the end, the two countries “will come out and resolve this problem since both want stability,” Mr. Xu said.