Frack for the Environment

July 03, 2012

by Kenneth Green

Energy blogger John Hanger explains why people who care about greenhouse gas emissions (and other coal-power emissions) need to support the shale gas revolution:

Shale gas has displaced huge amounts of existing coal generation and caused the cancellation of more than 100 new coal plants in the one and only place in the world where it has boomed--the USA! 

In the USA, natural gas is more competitive than coal, because the price of natural gas has plummeted from $13 to $2 for a thousand cubic feet, as a result of the shale gas boom that now accounts for 37% of gas production

Everywhere else in the world shale gas is not yet being produced for a variety of reasons, including environmental opposition in some cases.  And from China to Western Europe, where shale gas is yet to boom, coal consumption grows.

Hanger also dumps a bit of cold water on the environmentalist claims that the future is in renewables:

While renewable energy is growing around the world and in the USA too, renewable energy is not filling the vacuum opened, when natural gas is not an option. Only gas and renewables together can currently displace large amounts of more carbon intensive coal and oil.

Read the whole thing here.