{"id":6895,"date":"2013-08-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insulation.org\/io\/articles\/environmentalists-struggle-with-natural-gas-while-conservatives-battle-clean-energy\/"},"modified":"2013-08-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-08-01T00:00:00","slug":"environmentalists-struggle-with-natural-gas-while-conservatives-battle-clean-energy","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/insulation.org\/io\/articles\/environmentalists-struggle-with-natural-gas-while-conservatives-battle-clean-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"Environmentalists Struggle with Natural Gas While Conservatives Battle Clean Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Environmentalists
\nare facing a conundrum. Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) levels is urgent,
\nalthough the environmental advocates are reluctant to accept natural gas as a
\nviable vehicle, releasing 45% fewer carbon emissions than coal. Despite the
\npossibilities, its imperfections remain a sore point among ecologists.<\/span> <\/p>\n

Eco-activists can be accused of taking an apocalyptic view while partisan
\nconservatives may have inflated the failures associated with President Obama’s
\nclean energy program. And while those critics reject the notion that climate
\nchange is the result of human actions, they do support the acceleration of this
\ncountry’s most abundant natural resource: unconventional shale gas, which has
\nalso helped the United States reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 4% in
\nrecent years.<\/span> <\/p>\n

“Natural gas is an important
\ntransition to a carbon free economy provided we don’t go too many decades,”
\nsays Tom Wigley, a climate scientist with University Corporation for
\nAtmospheric Research, who participated in a conference sponsored by the
\nBreakthrough Institute. “After 30 or 40 years, it won’t matter what we do.” <\/p>\n

In the United States, coal’s
\nshare of the electricity market has fallen from 50% in 2005 to 36% in 2012.
\nOverseas, and especially in developing nations, coal remains the dominant fuel.
\nAccording to the International Energy Agency in Paris, coal use will exceed
\nthat of oil by 2017. Consider: In 2011, China added 55,000 megawatts of
\ncoal-generated power. <\/p>\n

At the same time, the estimates
\nof recoverable natural gas in the United States have grown from 200 trillion
\ncubic feet in 2005 to 350 trillion cubic feet in 2012. Meanwhile, the U.S.
\nEnergy Information Administration (EIA) predicts that technically recoverable
\nshale gas resources outside this country are 7,300 trillion cubic feet. That is
\n10% higher than the study done in 2011.<\/p>\n

“The world is awash in natural
\ngas,” says Robert Bryce, a scholar at the Manhattan Institute and the author of
\nPower Hungry<\/i>. “The U.S. is leading the world. We have the rigs and the
\npipes. We own the minerals beneath our feet. Other nations are a decade or 2
\nbehind.” <\/p>\n

Green Politics<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

Bryce, who also addressed the Breakthrough
\nInstitute’s conference outside of San Francisco, goes on to say that if natural
\ngas is used to fuel vehicles, it could reduce global carbon dioxide levels by
\n20%. The issue here, though, is that the infrastructure is limited. That is,
\nthe lack of pipelines means that the gas must be flared as opposed to captured
\nand transported. He says that Russia is flaring excessive amounts of natural
\ngas, or enough to keep France fat and happy. <\/p>\n

To be sure, the extraction of
\nnatural gas is not without fault. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has been
\nblamed for polluting ground water supplies and for being too water-intensive—a
\nresource that is scarce and that must be disposed. Meantime, environmentalists
\nare also worried about the incidental releases of methane, which is a GHG that
\nis far more potent than carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n

Carl Pope, former Executive
\nDirector of the Sierra Club, spoke at the Breakthrough Conference and said that
\nhis group formed an alliance with the natural gas industry because they had a
\ncommon goal—to prevent the building of 150 coal plants over a decade. But he
\nsaid that the industry is actively trying to avert public scrutiny by failing
\nto disclose the chemicals it uses to frack, or to ply loose the shale gas from
\nthe rocks where it is embedded deep underground. <\/p>\n

Meantime, Pope disagrees with developers and says that the federal
\ngovernment has a role in the oversight of hydraulic fracturing because the
\nprocess affects drinking water supplies and air emissions, which fall under the
\ndomain of the Environmental Protection Agency. He is, furthermore, concerned
\nthat the exporting of natural gas in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG),
\nwould increase ecological damage and harm air quality while driving up prices
\nfor consumers.<\/span> <\/p>\n

“Natural gas can be part of a
\nclimate solution,” says Pope. “It is not so risky that it should be demonized.
\nBut it is not so intrinsically clean” that it should be solely relied upon to
\nsolve the problem of global warming. <\/p>\n

A central theme to emerge from the Breakthrough Institute’s annual
\ndialogue is the call to reform and renovate green politics—to get its advocates
\nto embrace the advancement of new tools that can reduce
\npollution levels tied to power plants. To that end, such thinking would apply not
\njust to drilling technologies, but also to the production of renewable fuels,
\nwhich conservatives must likewise accept. <\/span><\/p>\n

Infighting creates delays that
\nwill defeat progress. Focusing on and then sharing improvements in technology,
\nby contrast, will polish power production and leave future generations with
\ncleaner air and water. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Environmentalists are facing a conundrum. Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) levels is urgent, although the environmental advocates are reluctant to accept natural gas as a viable vehicle, releasing 45% fewer carbon emissions than coal. Despite the possibilities, its imperfections remain a sore point among ecologists. Eco-activists can be accused of taking an apocalyptic view while partisan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":[218],"featured_media":0,"template":"","categories":[],"class_list":["post-6895","articles","type-articles","status-publish","hentry","author-ken-silverstein"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEnvironmentalists Struggle with Natural Gas While Conservatives Battle Clean Energy - Insulation Outlook Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/insulation.org\/io\/articles\/environmentalists-struggle-with-natural-gas-while-conservatives-battle-clean-energy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Environmentalists Struggle with Natural Gas While Conservatives Battle Clean Energy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Environmentalists are facing a conundrum. Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) levels is urgent, although the environmental advocates are reluctant to accept natural gas as a viable vehicle, releasing 45% fewer carbon emissions than coal. Despite the possibilities, its imperfections remain a sore point among ecologists. 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