Karl Frederick
02-23-2014, 05:10 PM
By The Time Natural Gas Has A Net Climate Benefit You’ll Likely Be Dead And The Climate Ruined (https://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/02/19/3296831/natural-gas-climate-benefit/)
The evidence is mounting that natural gas has no net climate benefit in any timescale that matters to humanity. In the real world, natural gas is not a “bridge” fuel to a carbon-free economy for two key reasons. First, natural gas is mostly methane (https://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/04/13/207884/natural-gas-is-mostly-methane/), (CH4), a super-potent greenhouse gas, which traps 86 times (https://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/02/2708911/fracking-ipcc-methane/#) as much heat as CO2 over a 20-year period. So even small leaks in the natural gas production and delivery system can have a large climate impact — enough to gut the entire benefit of switching from coal-fired power to gas.
Sadly as a comprehensive new Stanford study reconfirms, “America’s natural gas system is leaky.”
continued here: https://cleantechnica.com/2014/02/22/will-late-natural-gas-provides-net-climate-benefit/
The evidence is mounting that natural gas has no net climate benefit in any timescale that matters to humanity. In the real world, natural gas is not a “bridge” fuel to a carbon-free economy for two key reasons. First, natural gas is mostly methane (https://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/04/13/207884/natural-gas-is-mostly-methane/), (CH4), a super-potent greenhouse gas, which traps 86 times (https://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/02/2708911/fracking-ipcc-methane/#) as much heat as CO2 over a 20-year period. So even small leaks in the natural gas production and delivery system can have a large climate impact — enough to gut the entire benefit of switching from coal-fired power to gas.
Sadly as a comprehensive new Stanford study reconfirms, “America’s natural gas system is leaky.”
continued here: https://cleantechnica.com/2014/02/22/will-late-natural-gas-provides-net-climate-benefit/