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Now, the same companies that had such high hopes for imports are proposing to salvage those white elephants by spending billions more to convert them into terminals to export some of the nation's extra gas to Asia and Europe, where gas is roughly triple the American price.

Just like last time, some of the costly ventures could turn out to be poor investments.

Countries around the world are importing drilling expertise and equipment in hopes of cracking open their own gas reserves through the same techniques of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling that unleashed shale gas production in the United States. Demand for American gas — which would be shipped in a condensed form called liquefied natural gas, or L.N.G. — could easily taper off by the time the new export terminals really get going, some energy specialists say.

"It will be easier to export the technology for extracting shale gas than exporting actual gas," said Jay Hakes, former administrator of the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration. "I know the pitch about our price differentials will justify the high costs of L.N.G. We will see. Gas by pipeline is a good deal. L.N.G.?  Not so clear." 

Even the terminal operators acknowledge that probably only a lucky few companies will export gas because it can cost $7 billion or more to build a terminal, and then only after a rigorous federal regulatory permitting process. The exploratory process to find a suitable site for a new terminal alone can take a year and cost $100 million, operators say, and financing can be secured only once long-term purchase agreements — 20 years or more — are reached with foreign buyers.

"It's a monumental effort to put a deal together like this, and you need well-heeled partners," said Mark A. Snell, president of Sempra Energy, which is based in San Diego and is applying for permits to turn around a Hackberry, La., import terminal for export. "There are only a handful of people who can do this kind of thing."

At least 15 proposed terminal projects have filed regulatory applications to export gas, and if all were approved, they could export more than 25 billion cubic feet a day, equivalent to more than a third of domestically consumed natural gas.

Environmental advocates say that kind of surge in demand would produce a frenzy of shale drilling dependent on hydraulic fracturing of hard rocks, an industrial method they say endangers local water supplies and pollutes the air. Dow Chemical, a big user of natural gas, and some other manufacturers express concerns that an export boom could threaten to raise natural gas prices for factories and consumers and, ultimately, kill jobs.

Opponents are already lobbying the Obama administration to reject most of the planned terminals, and protests have already occurred. Sempra, Exxon Mobil, Cheniere Energy and others have already built import terminals on the Gulf of Mexico. With docking facilities and giant gas tanks already built on land they had acquired and received permits for, they have a huge advantage over companies that have not yet built terminals. Cheniere, the only company to secure an export license, already has entered long-term purchase agreements for its L.N.G., and several other companies are only a few steps behind.

Dominion Power, which operates a nearly idle import terminal near Cove Point on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, is also expected to proceed with a conversion to exports, since it is strategically located near the mid-Atlantic gas fields of the Marcellus Shale.

"You have got to be able to change, adapt as changes take place in the world," said Michael E. Gardner, manager of the Cove Point plant.

The companies with import terminals now wanting to export won a victory in December when an Energy Department report said exports of L.N.G. could produce $30 billion a year in export earnings without driving up domestic gas prices significantly.

Many energy specialists expect the Obama administration to approve several export license applications in the next couple of years, and exports could begin as soon as 2015.

The plans for a gas export boom are based on the theory that cheap American gas will remain cheap for decades while Asian and European gas supplies remain tight and expensive. Global demand for natural gas is expected to expand for decades as nations seek a replacement for coal, nuclear energy and increasingly expensive oil, energy specialists say.

If the American terminals could be built tomorrow, they would have a perfect market opportunity. The production glut in the United States has reduced natural gas prices in this country by more than two-thirds since 2008.

Gas prices in most other places around the world are much higher because they are linked to oil, which has remained comparatively expensive. Gas prices in the United States are around $3.30 per thousand cubic feet, compared with $10 to $11 in Europe and over $15 in Asia.

But analysts say that the price spread could quickly shrink as a host of factors converge. Gas prices in the United States will face upward pressure as exports rise, electric utilities switch to gas-fired plants from coal, and companies use more natural gas in manufacturing and for fleet vehicles.

"With rising U.S. gas prices, U.S. L.N.G. could be priced out of the market," said Noel Tomnay, head of global gas research at the consultancy Wood Mackenzie. "Even without L.N.G. exports, the price of gas will go up."

The indexing of Asian and European gas to oil prices is beginning to erode. At the same time, huge natural gas pipelines are being built around Asia to supply China, while new gas finds around Australia, East Africa and the eastern Mediterranean are likely to flood the markets with more L.N.G. Russia, a major global gas producer, is also moving aggressively to protect its markets.

And the cost of shipping and processing liquefied gas will cut into American suppliers' competitiveness.

Nikos Tsafos, a gas analyst at PFC Energy, said if the current gas price of slightly less than $3.30 per thousand cubic feet rose to $6, "by the time it gets to Asia, it's double that price and that means there is no arbitrage." The biggest threat, over the long term, is the spread of the American shale boom overseas. The United States has a big lead; shale drilling has been slow to get started in Europe, South Africa and South America because of environmental concerns, water shortages and political obstacles.

But China, which potentially has more shale resources than the United States, is poised for development. And Poland, Britain and Argentina are moving forward with more shale drilling.

Resistance from environmental groups like the Sierra Club could help stop some export projects, especially outside the Gulf of Mexico region, which has long been comfortable with the oil and gas industry. And manufacturers like Dow Chemical are campaigning against unfettered exports to keep their costs down.

Over all, these factors will make it challenging for export projects to raise enough financing. L.N.G. terminal developers note that more than 20 import terminals proposed a decade ago were never built because of local opposition or lack of government permits and financing.

"Can all these projects get financed? That's a good question," said Marvin Odum, president of Shell Oil Company, which is looking at various possible L.N.G. terminal sites to invest in. "The outcome of this is not likely to be unlimited L.N.G. exports."

Charif Souki, Cheniere's chief executive, predicted that by 2018, the country would manage to export only one billion to two billion cubic feet of gas a day, or roughly 2 percent of current domestic consumption. In 10 years, after two to four projects have received permits and have been built, he said he expected exports to grow to three billion to five billion cubic feet a day. The total global production of L.N.G. is about 40 billion cubic feet a day, and growing rapidly.

George Biltz, Dow Chemical's vice president for energy and climate change, said that exports that come near Mr. Souki's projections would ease Dow's concerns. "That is a range that I think will maintain a competitive advantage for the United States," he said.

A few counterfeit artists still engrave metal plates and search for soft paper that approximates the government's proprietary blend. Others soak money in a chemical soup, rubbing off ink to create $100 bills out of fives.

But in more than two-thirds of all cases, criminals manipulate scanners, printers and toner ink to create money where once there was none.

Heath J. Kellogg, 36, whom the United States attorney's office here described as a self-taught graphic artist, is in the latter category.

Until federal agents arrested him in an Atlanta suburb in November, he was what people in his criminal circle called "the printer" — a man suspected of pumping more than $1.1 million in fake $50 bills into the Southern economy.

As counterfeiting cases go, Mr. Kellogg's is not a record-breaker. (Neither was one last year in which a 26-year-old Atlanta man used solvents and a printer to turn $5 bills into $100 bills, making $1.2 million in fake money.)

Still, a counterfeiting ring in which one man prints more than $1 million in fake money is no small deal. And catching Mr. Kellogg required a few lucky breaks for law enforcers, months of old-fashioned detective work and an ill-fated decision not to bail someone out.

"His bills were pretty good," said Malcolm D. Wiley, an agent in the Atlanta Secret Service field office, who added that it was unusual to see fake 50s. A 20 is the most commonly counterfeited bill, followed by the $100 bill.

In addition to computer equipment and bits of partly burned money found at Mr. Kellogg's home, agents found a newly purchased offset press in Mr. Kellogg's storage unit, according to documents in the case.

"They had a lot of confidence and thought they could do even better," Mr. Wiley said of Mr. Kellogg and the five other people who have been charged with conspiracy to counterfeit currency.

If you handle money regularly, it is likely that you have passed at least one fake bill, according to the Secret Service, which was created in 1865 to stop rampant counterfeiting.

Advances in technology have allowed more people to make somewhat passable fakes, Mr. Wiley said. Those in the business range from high school students to gang members with prison records.

Nationally, the Secret Service seized nearly $81 million in fake money and arrested 2,424 people in the fiscal year that ended in October. Bills come in from other countries — Peru is a particularly big contributor — or from local criminals who shift to counterfeiting as an alternative to the drug trade.

Eventually, after it has been discovered by bank tellers, automated teller machine scanning equipment or astute citizens who have taken the time to learn how to identify fake bills, much of the counterfeit money makes its way to the Secret Service.

Georgia, with its busy airport and postal distribution center, is better known for stolen Social Security and tax refund checks than for counterfeiting, but the state ranks third in that crime category. In 2011 a federal task force was formed to attack the problem. One of its biggest victories came last month when a postal supervisor pleaded guilty to stealing United States Treasury checks worth more than $3 million.

But the case of Mr. Kellogg was one of the South's bigger ones, and cracking it took months.

The first break came in May 2011, when an Atlanta-area bank sent the Secret Service several counterfeit bills that could be identified by missing numbers and other flaws.

Then, said Alana R. Black, the assistant United States attorney who is prosecuting the case, matching bills showed up in the summer of 2012 when the police in Conyers, Ga., arrested someone trying to pass 10 of Mr. Kellogg's fake $50 bills at a local business.

The person, who had a history of forgery convictions, became a confidential informant, telling investigators that $250 in legitimate money would buy $1,000 in fake bills.

The informant was also angry that Stacy P. Smith, 37, who was one of the six men who would later be charged in the counterfeiting conspiracy, did not provide bail as he had done after similar arrests. Names, cellphone numbers and physical descriptions of the suspected players in the ring poured forth.

In North Carolina and around the nation, more of the same fake bills showed up. Forensic analysis tied those bills to the Atlanta case.

American officials have long complained that the Afghans release prisoners too soon, raising the risk that many will return to the battlefield. Afghan officials counter that they are not legally allowed to detain people suspected of being insurgents without enough evidence to prosecute them, even if the Americans say they are too dangerous to release.

The releases stem from an agreement the Americans made to eventually transfer control of the Parwan Detention Facility, located at Bagram Air Base, to the Afghan government last March. Of the thousands of prisoners captured by American forces who have come under Afghan control, close to 1,000 have been released over the last year.

But Friday was a rare instance when the government made a public spectacle of releasing a large number together. A large group of local television journalists lined up to film the ceremony, where the prisoners, dressed in new brown, yellow and blue shalwars, embraced family members most had not seen in more than a year.

"The Afghan government is not trying to open the gates of its prisons and release all prisoners," said Gen. Ghulam Farooq, the superintendent of the Bagram Prison, which holds about 3,000 prisoners. "Those who are found guilty will be punished, but those who are innocent should be released."

But, he added, "we don't know how many are guilty and how many are innocent," a reference to the limited evidence that, Afghan officials contend, makes holding the prisoners impossible under Afghan law.

Despite the government's upbeat ceremony, the transfer of the prison has become a considerable source of tension as the Americans prepare to withdraw and Afghans take on increasing control over security in the country. The United States halted the transfer of a handful of detainees in September, arguing that the Afghan government had not held up its end of the deal. Two months later, Mr. Karzai ordered Afghan forces to take control of the American-built prison, although that has still not happened entirely.

On Friday, General Farooq dismissed the notion that the release of the detainees was contentious, saying it was part of the plan all along.

"The Afghan government and the Americans agreed that Americans would hand all prisoners to the Afghan government and that we would make a decision about keeping and releasing them based on the enforced laws of Afghanistan," General Farooq said. "It is a 100 percent Afghan process, and the Americans don't have any problem with it. They are not involved in it at all."

American officials have disputed the Afghan interpretation of the agreement to hand over the prison, arguing that the American military authorities have veto power over who is released. To date, Americans have not transferred all of the Afghan prisoners they are holding to government control. In addition, newly captured Afghan prisoners are being kept in American custody, a procedure the Afghans have disputed.

In the last year, 570 detainees have been released following acquittal in Afghan courts. Another 485 are in the process of being released, or have been released already, after a bilateral board of Afghans and Americans determined that there was not enough evidence to prosecute them. On Saturday, the government expects to release another 131 prisoners.

Some Western officials believe that the move by the Afghan government is designed to encourage reconciliation with insurgents to help put an end to the war. And by timing the move on the day before Mr. Karzai leaves for Washington to visit President Obama, it also highlights his independence as a leader.

"The main reason behind the release of these prisoners is to show the good intentions of the Afghan government," General Farooq said. "We hope that their release will strengthen peace and stability in the country."

Judging by the response of family and friends of the prisoners, the government's move was well calculated.

"The release of these prisoners will definitely have a positive impact on people's relationship with the government," said Haji Sangeen, 48, a truck driver from Paktia who came to collect 12 of the detainees who hailed from his village. "It will bring the distance between the government and people to a minimum."

The released prisoners, for their part, were pleased with the result, if not their detention.

Mohammed Naib, 15, from Logar Province, said he was arrested during a night raid at his school when he was just 13.

"How would you feel if someone put you in jail for two years without even telling why they have arrested you," he asked. " I am happy that they have decided to release us, but my rights have been disregarded. Even if they give me the entire world they won't be able to restore my dignity."

After the ceremony concluded, the prisoners and their relatives went to a pink mosque nearby for lunch. They gathered in groups, chatting with one another and laughing, an air of jubilance filling the room. Some of the relatives started calling family members of the prisoners and handing the phones over to them to talk.

Abdullah, 32, also from Logar, said that he was arrested with his two brothers during a night raid about 20 months ago.

"They arrested me because I was the imam of our mosque, and they accused me of harboring insurgents," he said. "But they couldn't prove it."

Like most other released detainees, Abdullah, who uses a single name, denied ever having aided the Taliban.

"I am not going to join the Taliban because I do not see a reason for that," he said. "I will try to live a normal life, but I will not support the government or American efforts because I do not see a reason for that either."