Natural Gas and Wind Energy

Today was the Natural Gas Weekly update and this contained, again, no really startling news. The gas in underground storage was a little above average, blamed on some unseasonably warm temperatures and the drop in demand due to the recession. The EIA also released its annual reserves report for 2007, including crude oil, natural gas and other liquids in storage. It also released the Short-Term Energy Outlook. Both shale gas and coal bed methane now make up a significant part of the inventory.

The current NG prices vary around the country:
(Source EIA)
Although the Agency does not yet put out a weekly report on renewable energy, it does provide a wind map of the country that I have already used (the second of the two following). They are based on ranking available wind power in one of 7 categories:
(Source EIA)

If there is no color then the wind has no value. Normally it has to be over 3 to be useful. In one map they look at Federal Land and its potential (the grey is Federal land, the blue and pink are areas with suitable wind within 20 miles of a power line but rated relative to whether they are (blue) or are not (pink) on Federal land.).

While a more generalized wind map, from the NREL, would give: