Gas-to-power (GTP) is in its glory days. Once upon a time (not so very long ago), it maintained a steady 19% of all electricity generation in the US. Subservient to 'King Coal', it was used primarily as a supplier of peak demand when air conditioners were turned on in sweltering summer afternoons. No longer; in the last two years GTP's share of the marketplace has surged, and now claims over 24%. Fitch Ratings, a New York-based research firm, estimates that it could reach 30% by 2020.GTP owes much of its ascendancy to the growth in shale gas. Oil companies have long been aware that the dense black rock filling many of the basins around North America could contain over lOObn cf/sq mile of gas, but low permeability made it uneconomic to produce using conventional drilling technology. Advances in horizontal drilling and rock fracturing techniques, however, have opened up immense resources. The Texas Barnett shale supplies around 5bn cf/d, or 12% of US daily production.
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机译：天然气发电（GTP）处于辉煌时期。曾几何时（不久前），它保持了美国全部发电量的稳定19％。隶属于“ King Coal”，主要用于在夏季闷热的下午打开空调时满足高峰需求。不再;在过去的两年中，GTP在市场中的份额猛增，现在声称超过24％。总部位于纽约的研究公司惠誉国际评级公司（Fitch Ratings）估计，到2020年，这一比例可能会达到30％。GTP的大部分优势源于页岩气的增长。石油公司早就意识到，充满北美周围许多盆地的致密黑岩可能含有超过1000亿立方英尺/平方英里的天然气，但是低渗透率使得使用常规钻探技术进行开采不经济。然而，水平钻井和岩石压裂技术的进步已经打开了巨大的资源。德克萨斯州Barnett页岩的产量约为50亿立方英尺/日，占美国日产量的12％。
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