The discovery of natural gas off the coast of Israel has the potential of supplying cheap, clean energy for a generation.
by:
Israel — The huge reservoirs of natural gas discovered off the coast of Israel now flowing toward shore have the potential to transform the energy-challenged country into a lean, green manufacturing machine — capable of supplying cheap, clean energy to its people, factories and vehicles for a generation.
Long bereft of the petroleum bonanza that created the modern Middle East, Israel suddenly finds itself a major player in the Mediterranean, and perhaps even the European, natural gas market.
The deep-water gas fields, discovered in 2009 and 2010, will soon turn Israel into an energy exporter, putting the Jewish state in the enviable but tricky position of trying to sell billions of dollars in surplus gas to neighbors that range from cool to downright hostile.
The questions are: To whom will it sell? And how?
