Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story.
Mickey Steward, coordinator for the CoalBed Methane Coordination Coalition:
“The fastest way to kill the coalbed methane industry is for gas prices to drop below a dollar. The surest way to get significant attention paid to even the slightest (industry) concerns is for gas to go over $10. Either extreme is not likely to happen. We’re likely to see fairly rapid development because the methane is easy to extract. We’ll start to see more citizen complaints. It is happening.
“Everybody’s going to have to cave in a little. The people who want no change are going to have to cave in, because that’s the way our laws are. The people who want as little control as possible are going to have to cave in, too. If we all do that, and that’s all set in the framework of strategic management, if we all can talk to each other with some common language * if we can do all that, methane is a great thing.
“Could we have this development with almost no collateral effect? I think so. Could we have this development with a great deal of collateral effect? I think so. It goes back to, how much money are we going to make?”
Copyright © 2001 HCN and Hal Clifford
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Mickey Steward, coordinator for the Coal Bed Methane Coordination Coalition.
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