*** In the decades ahead, natural gas and oil will compete in the United States with coal, nuclear power, and renewable sources of energy. As the manner in which energy is produced and consumed evolves, it is not unreasonable to expect that, in the long run, the prices per unit of energy from various sources would tend to converge.
A distressed borrower with a negative equity position may have neither the means  BIS Review 42/2008  3  nor the incentive to remain in the home. In this environment, servicers and investors may well find principal reductions that restore some equity for at-risk homeowners to be an effective means of avoiding delinquency and foreclosure.