Financial Planning

Natural gas, also known as gas, is on the rise.  The main reason is it is the best and most reasonable alternative to oil.  There are so many issues that are going against the oil industry right now and gas is poised to take it’s place.

Climate Change

One of the main reasons natural gas is ready to grow is because of the climate change issue.  The entire world is trying to reduce emissions and greenhouse gases considerably in the next decade.  Natural gas is a great alternative to this because it emits about 30% less carbon dioxide emissions, also known as CO2, than oil.  It burns cleaner than coal as well.

Now you may be wondering why solar or wind energy wouldn’t be the common sense alternative.  Both are renewable and produce no emissions, so why wouldn’t we go there?  The simple answer is that the technology for wind and solar power is still a ways away.  There needs to be major retooling and design in the auto industry to create solar powered cars.  The same goes for producing electricity with wind turbines.  You would need a lot more wind farms to replace oil and coal power plants.

National Security

One of the biggest national security issue we have today is our dependence on foreign oil.  We are at the mercy of oil rich countries.  If we piss off the middle east, they can just cut off the flow of oil to us and it would not only cripple our economy, but could also cripple our military.  So we have to be nice to the countries with oil.

The best way to have national security is to have energy security, and natural gas is the best solution for that.  We probably have almost 238 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves sitting underneath us.  In addition, there’s another 1.8 quadrillion cubic feet of gas reserves that is estimated but not yet confirmed.  That is enough energy to last us 2 generations.

Investing in Natural Gas

So how can we take advantage of this as investors?  It’s simple.  You can invest in stocks that are related to the gas industry.  Gas exploration, drilling and refining companies would be good to invest in.  In addition, find companies that sell equipment and services to those companies.  You can also invest in natural gas ETFs if you don’t want to go out and find these companies yourself.  There are a number of ways to profit from this rise in natural gas.