The United States also has a unique abundance of small independent oil and gas companies with a tradition of risk-taking. China does not have such a ‘wildcatter’ culture, nor does it have the same mechanisms for developing and sharing geological data. Even a simple shortage of drilling rigs could slow things down.
Source: Nature/EIA
Many expect that shale gas would at first be used in China as a feedstock for the chemical and fertilizer industries, reducing the use of gasified coal. In theory, that could lower the nation’s annual carbon dioxide emissions by as much 100 million to 150 million tons, or roughly 1–1.5% of the nation’s cumulative carbon emissions, Friedmann estimates.
Some of the climate benefits would be lost, however, if the wells leak methane — a potent greenhouse gas — and a shale-gas rush would raise the usual concerns about air and water quality. Water is scarce in the gas-rich Tarim basin (see ‘Promising grounds’), whereas the Sichuan basin is heavily populated.
Groups such as the Clean Air Task Force, in Boston, Massachusetts, are encouraging companies and officials to adopt drilling practices that will minimize environmental impacts. Jonathan Banks, the force’s climate-policy coordinator, says that the goal is to help China avoid mistakes made in the United States.
“China is going to be able to leapfrog over some of the stages that the United States went through,” Banks says. “We are pushing to make sure that it is leapfrogging the environmental impacts as well.”
This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on February 20, 2013.
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3 Comments
Add CommentIt seems China is promoting natural gas extracted from shale as a "green" solution. But there is nothing "green" about shale gas. The process of extracting gas from shale is devastating to the environment, and has contaminated many drinking water aquifers making them forever unusable. Natural gas can be a "green" solution if produced responsibly, for example from landfill gas. But not extracting from shale - please China, don't repeat the same mistake the U.S. has made.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNope real science peer reviewed and published in reputable journal shows us that while NG plant produces less deadly particulate emissions than coal it still spews copious amounts of radioactive radon gas and because of distributrition leakage produces more GHG's than coal per kwh. Still kill lotsa folk just less than coal - Nice!!!!.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNatural gas kills tens of thousands of folks annually while nuke power has never killed a soul.
Nuke power now far cheaper than gas for public power at 4 cents a kwh and is steadily dropping in cost while gas prices will soon triple to 12 cents kwh as prices begin to match cost of production.
if utilities were required to fix and guarantee a gas price for the 60 year life of their proposed "cheap" gas plant with no access to regulatory relief if that forecast were wrong, not a single gas plant would be built in the US. Further since wind and solar depend on that gas plant for backup not a wind or solar project would ever be built.
Fossil fuel plants depend on the regulatory quirk which allows investors to demand rate relief when fuel costs increase.
ronwagn is a lobbyist for Big NG. He cut and pastes these same posts on every website, newsite, blog he can find. And he never responds to critique or is willing to debate his outrageous and ridiculous claims.
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