As the top man at the Williams Companies, Inc. Alan Armstrong still believes strongly in the future of natural gas.
But he also thinks there is a strong need nationally to build more pipelines to handle the coming growth of dependency on hydrogen.
It’s what the President and Chief Executive Officer told the Williams Companies Energy Infrastructure Council Investor Conference call earlier this week.
Armstrong said the crisis in Europe and the war between Russia and Ukraine highlighted how the U.S. is not keeping up with the growth in demand for energy. The Williams CEO said it’s clear Europe got overdependent and shutdown coal and nuclear ahead of having adequate renewables power and storage.
“And I think that’s starting to make its way into the U.S. perspective about what armed world might look like if we don’t take care of the demand in energy and we get over dependent on one source or another,” said Armstrong.
He said it’s also highlighted a crisis that the U.S. is headed to.
“And I think that’s positive for the U.S. in terms of it kind of gave us a road map about what we were up against if we didn’t start dealing with the shortages that we have. And obviously, countries around the world right now are saying, don’t tell me what I’m going to burn. I’m going to make sure that we have energy security first and that is really going to put pressure on coal as a resource.”
During his conversation, he repeated the company’s contention that natural gas is going to have a huge future for two reasons—low cost and low emissions.
” If we can’t keep the prices low and can’t get the infrastructure in place to be able to access, we are going to damage some of the markets and some of that,” added Armstrong.
But there’s a side issue and that’s infrastructure. Armstrong is of the belief the natural gas pipeline infrastructure will have a short life to it.
“Well, if you think that, that short life is going to be because we’re going to start using hydrogen, then we better be building a whole lot more pipelines because it takes a lot more pipeline capacity to move hydrogen than it does gas.”
How much more? Armstrong explained hydrogen is about 383 Btu versus 1,000 Btu for natural gas.
“If that is your plan, then you’re going to have to have more pipeline capacity into those markets and because the gas capacity is not going to be adequate. So anyway, so we’re thinking through what I call political solutions for the future that make us right where we’re right that that’s still going to be a feasible or that folks are correct that say it’s going to be a hydrogen future.”
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