Long-Term, NatGas Is Not The Answer

Switching from coal to natural gas will not save our planet; If as little as 3 percent of natural gas leaks in the course of fracking and delivering it to the power plant through a pipe, then it’s worse than coal.

Bill McKibben, August 8, 2017 (Seattle Times)

“…[The natural-gas industry recently claimed ‘the U.S. leads the world in absolute reductions in carbon emissions, due in large part to the increased availability and affordability of natural gas.’ This is true on the surface…[But methane, which is the scientific name for natural gas, traps heat about 80 times more effectively, molecule for molecule, than CO2…If as little as 3 percent of natural gas leaks in the course of fracking and delivering it to the power plant through a pipe, then it’s worse than coal…And, sadly, it’s now clear that leakage rates are higher than that. In January 2013, aerial surveys of a Utah fracking basin, for instance, found leak rates as high as 9 percent. Data from a Harvard satellite survey showed that between 2002 and 2014, U.S. methane emissions increased more than 30 percent…[Some experts] say that because of the boom in fracking and the conversion to gas, America’s total greenhouse-gas emissions may actually have gone up…” click here for more

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