TO THE EDITORS:

Recent geological surveys indicate that the second largest natural gas resources in the world (Iran being first) are located in parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. This vast field, locked up in the Marcellus Shale formations, covers 49 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties west of Lancaster.

The country uses about 23 trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year. Preliminary estimates indicate almost 500 trillion cubic feet to be available in the Marcellus project. With recent advances in horizontal drilling, this could mean a new source of energy, situated in the Northeast region, which is the country's largest consumer of natural gas.

Changing coal-fired power plants to cleaner-burning natural gas would go a long way toward meeting the administration's cleanup goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

We are not going to achieve this goal alone with renewables, i.e., solar/wind/etc. But this new source of energy could be a bridge to the future - which, I believe, is a mix of nuclear and renewables.

Pennsylvania should do well, if the politicians don't screw it up.
Ed Geisler
Lancaster