Jim,

Your musing in today’s NI caused me to think…..

Recall in the late 1990s and early 2000s when everyone was saying that there was going to be a natural gas shortage to the point that gas prices went into the Stratosphere and several LNG importing facilities were built. Now here we are in 2013 and the general feeling is that we have the largest natural gas reserves in the world under our feet such that prices seem to have stabilized in the $4 range and some of the mothballed LNG importing facilities are being considered for conversion to export facilities.

Now folks are talking about so much natural gas that we should convert over-the-road trucks and other fleet vehicles to natural gas when only a few years ago, some were talking about the US running out of natural gas in the foreseeable future.

What happened in just a few years?  In my opinion, all of this shift has been due to much improved discovery techniques but mostly due to the implementation of well fracking techniques.

Pulp & Paper industry leaders/managers/scientists need to find a similar shift in our industry.   I wonder what it (or they) will be?  What will it take to uncover it (them)?

If the P&P Industry equivalent of ‘fracking’ can be found, our future will be exciting and rewarding.  If not,………

Edward A. Turner

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