Barry Commoner wrote The Politics of Energy in 1979. In it, he called for a transition to renewables – with natural gas as the bridge to the future. 30 years later this still sounds pretty good. One difference, of course, is that we’re so much farther along on renewables than perhaps even Dr. Commoner could’ve dreamed.
A recent article in “The Economist” discussed how much more natural gas there is, in the US anyway, than we thought just a few years ago. See The economics of natural gas – Drowning in it. There’s 39% more than assessed in 2006. The article references a new paper from John Podesta and Tim Wirth. This abundance “…creates an unprecedented opportunity to use gas as a bridge fuel to a 21st-century energy economy that relies on efficiency, renewable sources, and low-carbon fossil fuels such as natural gas.”
Sean Casten has written convincingly of how we should be transitioning our electricity generation from coal to natural gas. Here’s a recent article from “Grist” in which he notes the yawning chasm of difference in GHG emissions from gas and coal-fired plants. Robert F. Kennedy Jr, in an op-ed in July in the “FT” titled How to end America’s deadly coal addiction notes “Of the 1,000 gigawatts of generating capacity currently needed to meet national energy demand, 336 are coal-fired. Surprisingly, America has more gas generation capacity – 450 gigawatts – than it does for coal.” What’s the problem? The gas plants are most often dedicated to peak demand, the coal to baseload. What to do? Switch to the gas for baseload, reduce demand, and build out the renewable capacity. (See also my article on the smart grid to see how this enters it.)
For more on natural gas, see the American Natural Gas Assn.
The natural gas boom is not without its difficulties. In Canada, there is some violence springing up as a result of development in pristine wilderness. See this, also from “The Ecoomist.” This certainly evokes the same feelings as the nightmare of the tar sands. The environmental damage, though, is, as yet, nowhere near the same scale.