A natural gas-fired power plant in Russia

"Russia is second only to the United States in total natural gas consumption, and it is the only country in the world where natural gas accounts for more than one-half of total primary energy consumption. In 2003, Russia consumed 15.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas." (Source: U.S. Energy Information Agency)

Sitting on 27.5% of the world's natural gas, it isn't surprising that so much of the Russian power grid and heating depends on this formerly cheap fossil fuel. For decades the Soviet Union sought to maximize oil exports to acquire precious hard currency; natural gas was cheap and abundant, and there was no way to export it without building costly pipelines.

Today Russian energy companies want to fetch world market prices for their gas, starting with the former Soviet republics and working their way back home; natural gas is no longer cheap, and there are ways to export it through LNG (liquefied natural gas) tankers to the entire world.

Besides gradually introducing market prices to encourage conservation, what else can major NG producers and distributors do to use less gas at home and make more of the stuff available for export?

As we have reported here at Russia Blog, the short answer is: switch to coal and nuclear power, and exploit new energy efficiency technologies. This trend presents a huge opportunity for Western environmental and energy technology companies to demonstrate how much money their products and construction techniques can save Russian energy producers and consumers. And it just so happens that the Pacific Northwest is home to some of the leading energy technology entrepreneurs and research labs in America.