Natural Gas
Did you know that 900 of the next 1000 US power plants will use natural gas? Domestically produced and readily available to end-users through the existing utility infrastructure, natural gas has also become increasingly popular as an alternative transportation fuel.
The Office of Fossil Energy invests in research and development of technologies in the areas of natural gas supply, delivery reliability, and utilization. Through the Strategic Center for Natural Gas, DOE works with industry to develop technologies to support this fuel. In addition, the Natural Gas and Petroleum Import and Export Office is responsible for regulating natural gas imports and exports under Section 3 of the Natural Gas Act of 1938; maintaining statistics on North American natural gas trade, and overseeing the Office of Fossil Energy's international programs pertaining to natural gas and petroleum.
Serving alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs), natural gas is clean burning and produces significantly fewer harmful emissions than reformulated gasoline. Natural gas can either be stored on board a vehicle in tanks as compressed natural gas (CNG) or cryogenically cooled to a liquid state, liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Further, the Clean Cities program supports public and private partnerships that deploy alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) and build supporting infrastructure.
The Energy Information Administration maintains statistical data relating to the consumption and production of natural gas.
Learn more
- Alternative Fuels Data Center
- Clean Cities Program
- History of Natural Gas
- Hydrogen from Natural Gas
- Natural Gas Fuel Cells
- The Import and Export of Natural Gas
- Vehicle Technologies Program
related offices
related labs
new technology
The Department of Energy and Pinnacle Technologies have successfully demonstrated a new technology that will help optimize the output of natural gas from the often-grudging non-conventional reserves on which the U.S. will have to depend for half its domestic production in the future.