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Natural gas fracking: big trouble or bridge fuel?
Engineers look at the Cuadrilla shale fracking facility on October 7, 2012 in Preston, Lancashire.
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Michael Levi
Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations
Booming production of North American shale gas – through the controversial drilling practice of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling – is overtaking our energy conversation, overturning our old assumptions.
If you need to understand what has happened to U.S. natural gas production, just look at this chart:
Among other predictions, proponents of the technology are suggesting natural gas can move us away from a high-carbon era of coal-based electricity, and towards a zero-carbon renewable future. In other words, transition from coal to natural gas to renewables. Meaning that coal is beginning and renewables are the end point. Natural gas as bridge fuel.
In our podcast we asked energy and climate senior fellow Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations, who has a new paper out on the topic, to truth squad that idea.
Also in the Petro-State podcast: the week's Energy Numbers. And we play BS Detector with Levi, asking him to expose myths on either side of the natural gas/fracking debate.
And there are some environmental groups out there to have yet to written off natural gas completely.
natural gas is one component of our energy future, and does offer some intriguing possibilities to displace high carbon content fuels. It may even reduce CO2 emissions but it is not a panacea. Nuclear power must also be included in the suite of future energy supplies, as well as the more passive energy sources of wind, solar, and hydrological. Increasing production and use of natural gas will not have any effect on the frequency or ferocity or futility of war.
The main concern for environmentalists worldwide should be to cut the use of coal, especially in
antiquated plants. Here are the top ten coal burners:http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/what-are-the-top-10-coal-burn...
It is possible for the whole world to drastically cut coal burning and benefit the health of all. Coal pollution travels around the world. It is the worst fuel for pollution:http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c02c.html
Producing and using natural gas is the best solution for base power, in conjunction with solar, wind, geothermal etc. There is plenty of natural gas all around the world, and it can be accessed with new and future technology. In the meantime old coal plants must be replaced with modern ones that can be switched to natural gas fuel when it is available.
Natural gas is the future of energy. It is replacing dirty old coal plants, and dangerous expensive nuclear plants. It will fuel cars, trucks, vans, buses, locomotives, aircraft, ships, tractors, air conditioners, engines of all kinds. It costs far less. It will help keep us out of more useless wars, where we shed our blood and money. It is used to make many products. It lowers CO2 emissions. Over 4,100 natural gas story links on my free blog. An annotated and illustrated bibliography of live links, updated daily. The worldwide picture of natural gas. Read in 66 nations.
ronwagnersrants.blogspot.com
