THE VINE AUGUST 6, 2009
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Peter Behr and Christa Marshall of ClimateWire have an important story today about how the natural-gas industry may start flexing its muscle when the Senate gets around to debating the climate bill this fall. That could end up being a huge deal.
In theory, a strong cap on carbon should be a boon to natural gas. As renewables like wind and solar become widespread, utilities may well rely on gas generators for backup power. Plus, one of the simplest ways to cut emissions in the power sector is to use natural gas instead of coal to generate electricity—in many places, the infrastructure already exists, and recent discoveries of massive U.S. shale deposits means there'll be plenty of gas to go around. (Natural gas produces just half the carbon emissions of black coal, so it's not a bad stopgap.) A recent Electric Power Research Institute report predicted that, under a cap-and-trade system, natural gas would dethrone coal and produce half the country's electricity by 2020.
Now, during the House debate, the gas industry stayed on the sidelines, but now that seems to be changing. A bunch of swing-vote senators in the climate debate, from Arlen Specter to Blanche Lincoln, hail from regions with big untapped shale-gas deposits. So the gas industry could really make or break this bill. And, despite the fact that shale drilling—hydrofracturing—is a grubby process and a potential hackle-raiser among environmentalists, certain aspects of the natural-gas industry's wish list sound awfully green:
Many natural-gas advocates believe that a carbon cap will benefit natural gas by default, but the industry also is pushing for things such as fewer carbon offsets in a climate bill. Offsets allow emitters—such as big coal-dependent utilities—to meet carbon caps by paying for projects outside their own factories, like forestation projects overseas. That offsetting allows them to avoid switching to gas as an alternative fuel.
Rod Lowman, president and CEO of the newly formed America's Natural Gas Alliance, said in a recent interview that he was "concerned" about the number of offsets allowed in the Waxman-Markey proposal.
Hey what a coincidence, most environmentalists are leery about all the offsets in Waxman-Markey, too. Now, to be sure, not all priorities line up so well. The gas industry is also peddling the famous T. Boone Pickens plan to have us fill up our cars with natural gas—an idea that doesn't make a ton of sense from a climate-centric perspective. But there's still a fair bit of overlap.
(Flickr photo credit: Brian Grablin)
3 comments
actually taking advantage of vast and relatively inexpensive gas reserves for transportation makes a huge amount of sense at least in the medium term. THe best use of this source is for large fleets of trucks and busses mostly in cities or used for intercity delivery (e.g., UPS trucks). the amount of really dirty air as well as co2 emitted by these sources is enormous. The gas is totally clean and for this purpose doe not need a huge infrastructure adjustment, as would be the case if it were to be used for cars. this approach dovetails nicely with massive expansion of nuclear power to enable the transition to electric auto transport in a climate friendly way and add to our energy security. these could be bipartisan approaches to the climate and energy security issues if democrats give up on their reliance on expensive and unreliable energy in the near to medium term and republicans give up on arctic drilling and opposition to a carbon tax.
- jfeder
August 7, 2009 at 2:56pm
Actually, CNG/LNG are not even that good for "gas-turbines" -- the gas being what turns the blades not, usually, the fuel -- kerosene.
That said, natural gas -- lighter-than-air methane -- is a clean fuel but also a wonderful feedstock. "Wood ether", today called <i>di-methyl ether</i>, is a much denser gas, a clean-burining, not-toxic diesel-fuel, actually. It is easier to store and transport than methane, because it is liquid at normal temperature and not much pressure -- like the butane in lighters.
CNFP (<b>Total</b>) is working to "reform" methane into ether in collaboration with JFE in Japan. This is monumentally important work, since methane can also be extracted from coal and biomass.
Here's the deal: There is a lot of natural gas all over the planet, but it is very hard to transport without pipelines or cryogenic ships -- international security nighmares. In Third World countries, it is largely wasted. But, DME fits in something like "propane" tanks and is a diesel, jet, or cooking/heating fuel.
Ultimately, it can be part of a 100% solar balanced carbon-transport rather than the unbalanced carbon-emission economy we have. That is based on coal,oil, and gas which figure in global warming today and potentially catastrophic climate change soon enough.
So, I am astonished at hair-brained schemes that get a pass because somebody stuck "a windmill on it" or proposes to plug it in to a feudal grid of coal-fired power plants that turn 30% of the electricity generated into waste heat before it reaches the rectifier/inverter for a 200lb battery for one passenger to haul around?
Be aware that most green-tech hype is wrapped around financial schemes designed (a) to perpetuate century-old government-monopoly concessions or (b) to restart the "dot-com" and "tele-com" boom.
Engineering and economics are seldom a consideration. What we are looking at is mostly air-brush renderings and computer-generated walk-thoughs supporting the same-old, same-old pork & Ponzi ethos of Washington and Wall Street.
Trust me, that is what Pickens and Simmons are up to. Remember, Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling? They had Bill Clinton and Al Gore, more recently, George Bush and Bill White, eating out of their hands.
- JRBehrman
August 8, 2009 at 4:58pm
As a follow-up to my earlier post on how the natural-gas industry could heavily influence the Senate
- Anonymous
August 11, 2009 at 5:50pm