Faced with rising competition under deregulation, U.S. power producers are stepping up efforts to build cheap, clean, and efficient plants, and natural gas, by a wide margin, is the fuel of choice. "Gas has everything going for it. Environmentally, it's very benign and efficient, and most importantly, it's cheap. I expect gas consumption for power generation to increase rapidly," said Dr. Henry Linden, professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. The trend is already evident. According to the Department of Energy, electric utilities burned 3.26 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas last year, up 10 percent from 1997, despite a 3 percent overall drop in U.S. gas consumption to 21.3 tcf.