The challenge of our time is to meet the needs of more than 1 billion people around the world who don’t have access to power, according to Ron Jibson, president and CEO at Questar Corp. in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Jibson said during the first Rocky Mountain Energy & Infrastructure Summit in Jackson Hole, Wyo., recently that policymakers are realizing that natural gas can be a bridge fuel, as well as a foundation fuel. Jibson has been in the business for more than 20 years in various capacities at Questar, which focuses on gas in its three primary lines of business: interstate gas transportation, retail gas distribution and gas production.

“Today, there are 7 billion people on earth, and that number is expected to increase to 9 billion by 2050. About 2 billion of those people have never flipped on a light switch,” he told a crowd of about 150 people at the Center for the Arts in Jackson, Wyo. “We’re still seeing an increase in energy demand in the U.S. of about 1.7% per year, but over the next 20 years, demand in China, India and the Middle East will increase 15 times faster than that, at a minimum.”

The abundance of natural gas in the U.S. has changed the paradigm, Jibson said, turning upside down the idea popularized in the 1970s that the U.S. would run out of gas.

“Obviously, that is not the case,” he said, adding that what has really changed is with the abundance of natural gas, the industry has the ability to look beyond just space heating and water heating with gas and consider other uses, such as transportation and power generation.

And it will be pipelines that make all of that possible, said Dan Santa, president of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA).

“In order for producers to capture the value of natural gas that is extracted—in order for consumers and the economy to have the benefit of that natural gas, you need a pipeline network that links the two together,” Santa said at the conference.

Santa said that pipeline capacity has had a tremendous impact on the ability to realize the benefits of the shale revolution.

“It’s also the ability and the proven track record to add this capacity that gives us confidence that we’re going to be able to meet the challenge of the shale revolution in terms of the ability to get this gas to market,” he added.

Santa said the trade group’s research has forecasted that for the next 20 years, the industry will need some $640 billion in capital investment on energy infrastructure alone. That will include 542,500 miles of pipelines and 432,482 jobs each year, he said.

Natural gas infrastructure investment will require about $330 billion in capital investment, he said, or about $17 billion each year.

“Pipes are built when shippers are willing to make the commitment to sign a long contract for service that provides a foundation for both in terms of the commercial model and regulations justifying the need for the pipe to be built,” Santa said. “It’s a segment of the industry that has shown the ability to attract the capital in this very capital-intensive infrastructure.”

Still, he said, pipelines face challenges, from the not-in-my-backyard contingent to other special interest groups.

“The success of natural gas, while it’s had a lot of benefits, has upset a lot of apple carts. On the conventional side, think about what it’s done to coal, what it’s done to nuclear generation; on the other side, what has it done to renewables and efficiency,” he explained. “And gas has gone quickly from being the red-headed stepchild of the energy portfolio to being the 800-pound gorilla.”

Loren Scott, a former economics professor at Louisiana State University and founder of the consulting firm, Loren C. Scott & Associates, noted that times had indeed changed for the oil and gas industry. Hitting new production highs since 2008, the U.S. has managed to cut up to $100 billion on importing hydrocarbons, he said.

“In 2005, there were only about five states that had meaningful amount of oil or natural gas being produced. So anytime a really dumb energy policy came out of Washington D.C., which is a redundant phrase, the other 45 states didn’t care. It was just five states really fighting the battle out there,” he recounted. “Today, we have at least 20 states where a meaningful amount of oil and natural gas is being produced, so now when some dumb policy is proposed in Washington, D.C., we have a whole lot more allies [to challenge the legislation] than we ever had before.”

Scott explained the production surge has impacted the way the nation may operate around the world, too.

“Before the shale gale took place, when we wanted to impose sanctions on Iran, we could do it but it was tough … we needed their dadgum oil,” he said. “We don’t need their oil now.”

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