The near-worldwide abundance of extractable natural gas has seemed like a surprise to many, but there’s a long line of analysis pointing in this direction, much of it originating with the work of the Italian physicist and systems analyst Cesare Marchetti.
I’ve known of his work mainly through my longtime reliance on some of his past colleagues and disciples when seeking energy and technology expertise — notably Jesse Ausubel, Arnulf Grübler and Nebojsa “Naki” Nakicenovic.
For a sample of Marchetti’s thinking that is highly germane in considering the seemingly inevitable expansion of gas production around the globe for decades to come, read here:
Marchetti, C., 1987
The Future of Natural Gas: A Darwinian Analysis,
Technological Forecasting and Social Change , 31 (2):155–172
[ Abstract],[Full text, scan PDF 336 Kb]
also available as preprint
Presentation at the Task Force Meeting “The Methane Age”, organized jointly by IIASA and the Hungarian Committee for Applied Systems Analysis, Sopron, Hungary, 13–16 May 1986
For his view, circa 1989, of a way for this age of methane abundance to play out without a concomitant and destabilizing additional burst of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, read here (I’ve sent a query to see if he’d adjust this scenario at all now, and will report back):
Marchetti, C., 1989
How to Solve the CO2 Problem without Tears,
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy , 14 (8):493–506
[ Abstract],[Full text, scan PDF 484 Kb]
A newer look at the CO2 implications and options in a shift from coal to methane is provided in “Carbon Dioxide Emissions in a Methane Economy,” by the trio above.
Finally, here’s a paper on another front that feels fresh now (see this recent New Yorker piece by Michael Specter) but is hardly so when you review Marchetti’s work:
Marchetti, C., 1977
On Geoengineering and the CO2 Problem,
Climatic Change , 1 :59–68.
also available as preprint
RM-76-1, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria
[Full text, scan PDF 372 Kb]
Dive in and weigh in.