It’s pretty depressing to learn that natural gas is actually doing more to cause climate change than burning coal.
The problem, the studies suggest, is that planet-warming methane, the chief component of natural gas, is escaping into the atmosphere in far larger quantities than previously thought, with as much as 7.9 percent of it puffing out from shale gas wells, intentionally vented or flared, or seeping from loose pipe fittings along gas distribution lines. This offsets natural gas’s most important advantage as an energy source: it burns cleaner than other fossil fuels and releases lower carbon dioxide emissions.
We can’t get a break with our energy consumption. First the spill in the Gulf, then the nuclear reactor in Japan, and now this news that methane leakage is obliterating the clean-burning advantage of natural gas. It’s not a hopeful future that I’m seeing.