Dayton "Dirt" Green Blog - November 2010

The debate about energy consumption, cost, carbon taxes, “clean” coal, wind and solar energy is sure to rage on for years to come.

One note of good fortune for most of us that heat our homes and businesses with natural gas is that the supply seems to be great and the cost relatively low as compared to just two years ago.

At the nursery, lower natural gas costs are a blessing as we typically use about 1400 MCF of this fuel to mostly heat our greenhouses for the production of annual flowers to be ready for sale in May.

Before the last surge in natural gas prices, heating the greenhouses was typically about 20% of the total production costs.

Even though gas costs seem to be declining, our goal is to increase production of annual flowers with less gas or at least using no more than our current consumption.

Three ways that we will achieve our goal of less natural gas use is from the 93% greenhouse heaters we installed last spring, heat curtains that close over the greenhouse crop at night blocking heat transmission through the roof, and by growing “cold crops” in a separate greenhouse where the minimum temperature for a quality plant is as much as 20 degrees than many other plants.

Some experts believe that at the current rate of consumption, the United States has a 62 year supply of natural gas with never drilling techniques.

You would think no one would question the lower natural gas cost but think again.

Debate is raging over the practice called fracking in which water and chemicals are injected at high pressure deep into shade rock foundations in New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia & Ohio.

The concern is that such techniques to extract the gigantic locked up reserves could damage ground water supplies.

If wide spread contamination of ground water does occur due to drilling, the jubilation of new found suppliers of gas at a lower cost will be short-lived.

How our water supplies will fare during this drilling boom only time will tell.