Is natural gas really a clean fuel?
“Natural gas is marketed as a clean fuel with less impact on global warming than oil or coal, a transitional fuel to replace other fossil fuels until some distant future with renewable energy. Some argue that we have an obligation to develop Marcellus Shale gas, despite environmental concerns. I strongly disagree.
“Natural gas as a clean fuel is a myth.”
- Cornell professor: “Gas and drilling not clean choices”
See also Cornell scientist tarnishes natural gas’s clean image
Unnatural Gas: The Inflated Promise of a Not-So-Clean Fuel
Meanwhile, in competing with Big Coal for the affections of Congress, the newly formed America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA) launched an $80 million advertising and lobbying campaign earlier this year to promote its “clean, abundant, American, reliable, and versatile” product. As climate bills work their way through Congress, ANGA’s efforts appear to be paying off.
Risking our water so we can burn more natural gas will not be the planet’s miracle climate cure. For the United States to achieve necessary reductions in greenhouse emissions – estimated at more than 80 percent – will require not more energy production, even if somewhat cleaner, but deep cuts in energy consumption.
Coal must be phased out as quickly as possible, but more gas won’t accomplish that. While electric utilities’ gas consumption doubled from 1996 to 2007, coal use continued its steady climb.
What if, with shale drilling, we could achieve another doubling of gas-fired electricity generation, but this time eliminate an equivalent amount of coal-fired generation? Even that steep escalation of gas drilling would cut the utility industry’s carbon emissions by only 12 percent and the nation’s total carbon emissions by just 5 percent, based on Energy Department figures.
Financier T. Boone Pickens recommends running our vehicles on natural gas. But substituting natural gas for gasoline in all vehicles would reduce the nation’s total carbon emissions by less than 9 percent. Converting all gasoline-powered vehicles would consume more natural gas than electric utilities, homes and businesses combined. Consequences for the nation’s water would be disastrous.
Natural gas is being hailed by some, including Pickens, as a high-energy “bridge” to a renewable future, and by others as sufficiently climate-friendly to be a “destination” fuel. But as gas’ environmental drawbacks become more evident, it’s looking more like a bridge to nowhere.
Read the entire piece at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/04-5
In a July 27 post, Robert F Kennedy correctly lists some of the reasons we need to move away from burning coal for energy generation. Unfortunately, his conclusion that the solution is to replace coal with natural gas is as erroneous as his convictions about coal are correct.
At http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/king-coal_b_245117.html he concludes:
“Natural gas comes with its own set of environmental caveats. It is a carbon-based fuel and [its] extraction from shale, the most significant new source, if not managed carefully, can cause serious water, land use, and wildlife impacts, especially in the hands of irresponsible producers and lax regulators. But those impacts are dwarfed by the disastrous holocaust of coal and can be mitigated by careful regulation.
“The giant advantage of a quick conversion from coal to gas is the quickest route for jumpstarting our economy and saving our planet.”
In response, SplashdownPA writes:
“It sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?
“All we need are responsible producers and vigilant regulators!“Congress can’t even agree that this is necessary! Money isn’t there for environmental protection agencies to hire the number of inspectors necessary to monitor this lawless industry. And YES! coal mining and burning is dangerously toxic, but when Kennedy talks about enough affordable natural gas to last us into the next century, he’s supporting perpetuation of a carbon-based energy industry that has demonstrated it is unwilling to divert a nickel of its profits to safeguard our absolutely VITAL resources: WATER, AIR and LAND. Their best practices are simply NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Especially not a century’s worth!!!
“Closing coal fired plants would reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 20%.. BUT, what measure of CO2 and even more environmentally harmful methane is released into the atmosphere during extraction of natural gas, including toxic air polluting emissions from transporting the millions of gallons of water to and from well pads, treatment or burial of “produced water”, operating drilling rigs, compressors and other associated gas production equipment and activities, over and above emissions from well flares and finally, power plant emissions from energy generation from natural gas? How does all that stack up against that 20%?
“How too does Kennedy justify the permanent depletion and contamination of drinking water supplies across the country, occurring as a result of mining for gas? Surely he can’t think that indicating the need for responsibility and vigilance is going to suddenly manifest a new attitude on all fronts, by all players in this play?
“What guarantees do we have that a gluttonous industry won’t milk the quick fix dry, leaving us with an irrevocable permanent loss in exchange for temporary energy?
“There are important unanswered, and without drilling reform legislation in place, perhaps unanswerable questions. They loom like loopholes in his argument as we continue to learn how criminally untrustworthy corporate America is willing to be in pursuit of the almighty dollar. We’ve seen too how even regulations aren’t foolproof, and how when one entity acts outside the law it encourages others to follow suit.
“Meanwhile, the gas industry has already been irresponsible for deadly releases of toxins into the atmosphere, deadly releases of toxins into our waters, for killing and/or sickening livestock, wildlife and humans, for the seepage of toxic wastewater into our lands, contaminating land and water, the evaporation into the atmosphere of carcinogens from open sludgepits… in short, there isn’t anything healthy or friendly about the production of natural gas and turning a blind eye to the devastating problems of the lesser of two evils does not make the lesser evil any better.”
Read more at:
http://splashdownpa.blogspot.com/2009/07/king-coal-rf-kennedy-jr-weighs-in-on.html
Tags: air emissions, coal, energy generation, groundwater, Huffington Post, natural gas, RFK
Modified from a post on MarcellusGasInfo:
The following is an outline from James Lovelock’s book, Revenge of Gaia, pages 74-76. Lovelock is a member of Britain’s Royal Society (a scientific body) and originator of the Gaia theory, which postulates that the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere (all life) compose a single system that regulates the Earth’s climate.
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To reduce global warming, governments welcome the chance to burn natural gas instead of coal or oil.The main constituent of natural gas is methane – one molecule is composed of 1 carbon and 4 hydrogen atoms.
For the same amount of energy, methane combustion releases only 1/2 as much carbon dioxide as burning oil or coal.
Unfortunately, some natural gas leaks into the air before it is burned. Society of Chemical Industry’s 2004 report indicates 2%-4% of natural gas is lost to leakage. Most of the leakage is at production sites, but leakage also occurs in pipelines and in our homes.
Methane is 24 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Methane has a shorter residence time in the air: 8% oxidizes each year.
In 12 years, only 37% of escaped methane remains, the rest having oxidized into carbon dioxide and water vapor.
Carbon dioxide has an effective residence time in the air of between 50 and 100 years.
If only 2% (the conservative end of the 2-4% estimate) of natural gas leaks before burning, it causes, over a period of 20 years, a peak global warming equal to coal burning.
If 4% leaks, natural gas causes 3X more warming than coal burning over a 20 year period.
The claim that natural gas halves carbon dioxide emissions is only true if there are no leaks anywhere (and also if the CO2 emissions from the very hydrocarbon-consumptive extraction process is not factored in).
Difficult to find estimates of natural gas leakage. An April, 2004 article in the journal Nature estimates 1.4% leakage from Russian piplines and 1.5% from US pipelines. This report does not include leakage at production sites or when the gas is burned.
Failure to consider the effects of natural gas leakage on global warming is a serious gap in our knowledge. The International Panel on Climate Change(IPPC) should study this phenomenon further.
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