?Increased use of natural gas as transportation fuel could resolve some take-away-capacity issues. More natural gas would be consumed where it is produced. Some gas flow may even be redirected.

In current forecasts for new natural gas supply, the prolific U.S. shale plays, particularly in the ArkLaTex region, have the potential to lock out a large amount of Gulf Coast and Gulf of Mexico gas production.

In this month’s cover story, “Building Gas Demand,” Porter Bennett, founder and president of Evergreen, Colorado-based energy-analysis firm Bentek Energy LLC, says it is plausible, based on current supply forecasts, that the Nymex price for natural gas may one day no longer be based on delivery at Henry Hub in South Louisiana.

If not there, then where? “We debate that about once a month at the office,” he says.

In developing this month’s cover story, an abundance of facts about natural gas and other energy sources were surfaced. In it, the metaphor of “an elephant in the room” is used to describe tremendous gas production and reserves, and gas in storage.

There is another elephant in the U.S. energy-policy debate: the undeniable benefits of greater reliance on natural gas as a leading source of fuel, and no matter what each American would like to see Washington achieve via energy policy.
• Natural gas has greater energy content when comparing an Mcf of gas versus a gallon of gasoline. An average-car fill-up—approximately 16 gallons of fuel—would cost about $8.40 at today’s natural gas price.
• Its carbon footprint is lower than that of coal and crude oil. It produces 90% fewer particulates and half as much greenhouse gas.
• It is necessary as a backup power-generation fuel source if the U.S. is to power more homes and businesses with solar and wind. Natural gas-fueled power plants can sit ready, but gear up if solar and wind don’t carry their load.
• It is available in great quantity domestically, suggesting reduced dependence on foreign oil, thus fewer U.S. dollars sent abroad and less interest in keeping up relations with hostile exporters and their enemies.

Generally, there isn’t a lower-carbon-footprint fuel that is available domestically—or abroad—in sufficient quantity and as inexpensively.

The elephant in this month’s cover story generated some grins and commentary while the story was under way. “I think the elephant represents (this),” says one contributor. “I think the elephant represents (that),” says another.

The idea evolved into theories for a hypothetical elephant-based multimedia message campaign. The elephant could be blue and carry wind and solar on its back. It could appear in a television commercial in which it is sitting quietly, but unnoticed, outside a breakfast window in a modest neighborhood in which homeowners are wondering how to solve energy prices and reduce pollution.

There is an obvious problem with an elephant as an icon for promoting natural gas, though: it has a huge footprint, and that’s not true about natural gas.

Natural gas does need branding, though, says Aubrey McClendon, chairman and chief executive of Chesapeake Energy Corp., the nation’s No. 2 gas producer and the most active driller. The milk industry has made milk cool, with its “Got Milk?” campaign.

Florida has done it with orange juice. Pork purveyors did it with “The other white meat.”

Chesapeake and 24 other producers, which represent 40% of current U.S. gas production, have formed the American Natural Gas Alliance in the past year and pledged $100 million a year to consumer, legislator and policy-maker education.

Producers have been focused in the past on surfacing supply, cracking the code in the U.S. shale-gas plays and trying to keep up with demand, McClendon says. “We didn’t really know how to produce more, so there was really no reason to increase the market for it.”

Now, there is all this supply. “We have to change the culture of how our industry approaches the promotion of its product,” he says.

At press time, natural gas on Nymex for June delivery was about $4.20—a price at which few U.S. gas plays are economic at current E&P costs.