GOING FOR THE GAS: Experts push for the use of natural gas instead of coal to generate power as an inexpensive way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are encouraging U.S. policymakers to consider the nation's growing supply of natural gas as a short-term substitute for aging coal-fired power plants.
In the results of a two-year study, released today, the researchers said electric utilities and other sectors of the American economy will use more gas through 2050. Under a scenario that envisions a federal policy aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2050, researchers found a substantial role for natural gas.
"Because national energy use is substantially reduced, the share represented by gas is projected to rise from about 20 percent of the current national total to around 40 percent in 2040," said the MIT researchers. When used to fire a power plant, gas emits about half of the carbon dioxide emissions as conventional coal plants.
The report asserts the impact of national policies that place an economic cost on greenhouse gas emissions would, first and foremost, be a reduction in energy use across the United States. It would flatten demand in the electricity sector.
The MIT team of researchers was led by Ernest Moniz, a physics professor and director of the MIT Energy Initiative. Moniz's name often floats around Washington when it comes time to choose another energy secretary. A major sponsor of the report is the American Clean Skies Foundation, a Washington think tank created and funded by the natural gas industry.
The report, titled "The Future of Natural Gas," acknowledges that U.S. energy and climate policy is in flux. For the most part, the MIT researchers accept the idea that the advancement of onshore gas drilling technology has set the stage for a gas boom in the United States. As such, the MIT researchers analyze increasing gas consumption under a number of different scenarios.
A cushion, but not a complete answer
Gas is an option for cutting power plant emissions and addressing global warming in the short term. But the researchers warned that the gas cushion shouldn't distract policymakers from addressing the need for nuclear power and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology for coal-fired generation.
"Though gas frequently is touted as a 'bridge' to the future, continuing effort is needed to prepare for that future, lest the gift of greater domestic gas resources turn out to be a bridge with no landing point on the far bank," the report says. "Barriers to the expansion of nuclear power or coal and/or gas generation with CCS must be resolved over the next few decades so they are capable of expanding to replace natural gas in generation."
This emissions policy does relatively little to alter natural gas markets, the report finds. Gas production and demand grows slightly more slowly, cutting gas use and supply by a few trillion cubic feet in 2040 compared with a scenario that doesn't include a climate policy. Gas use and production begins to fall after 2040, driven by higher gas prices due in part to a rising price on carbon dioxide emissions.
"While gas is less carbon intensive than coal or oil, at the reduction level required by 2050, its [carbon] emissions are beginning to represent an emissions problem," the report explains. "However, even under the pressure of the assumed emissions policy, total gas use is projected to increase from 2005 to 2050 even for the low estimate of domestic gas resources."
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30 Comments
Add CommentKirkland did not mention that natural gas extraction (fracking) causes more and more dangerous pollution than coal. Fracking for natural gas, and that is the way they are going to get it out of the ground, causes earthquakes that can jar buildings off their foundations and put radioactive waste water into drinking water. Natural gas drilling even causes peoples water fountains and wells to catch on fire and explode. It is not a good idea to replace one dangerous fossil fuel for an even more dangerous fossil fuel. Come on MIT, I thought you were smarter than that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hope that we come to realise that the impacts from CO2 are minor, but become more fully congnizant of the impacts that the other emmisions from buring coal in particular but oil as well, are addressed. Natural gas will help this and help us to maintain the energy intensive idustrial economy that we need to transit to a future where our energy is provided by space based solar collectors. I rather doubt that windmills and earth bound solar panels will provide the kind of energy we need for our basic minimum requirements, and by 'our' I mean all 6 to 9 billion of us, and be vigorous enough to support space development of the kind needed to leap the gap from earth bound to space faring. The real future is upward and outward where resources are plentiful and clean, and not a future where we loose the ability to colonize space while gazing at our navels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDiversity and a modern grid system are the keys to energy independence. Everything in moderation. If we convert multiple sources of energy (natural gas, wind, solar, geothermal, etc.) for use in a single nation wide digital grid, individual regions can focus on sources of energy which make sense within their communities both environmentally and economically.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmerica must invest in a modern digital grid. Our existing system is embarrassingly archaic and inefficient.
Damn them ALL for what they've done to our coastlines, we have to move forward.
Anyone watch the HBO show "Gasland"... shows some pretty scary damage currently being done in the US obtaining Natural Gas.... pretty much unregulated.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we need the fuel, then we need the fuel, but corporations are too willing to cut corners and lie about it to the great detriment of all if we don't watch them very closely... which is tough when money drives Washington...
I have no problem with natural Gas, but it would be nice if we looked before we leaped for a change...
tharriss - Yep, I watched "Gasland". Expose's have their own interests and must be viewed with some skepticism, but this was pretty convincing. They claim that V.P. Dick Cheney (ex-CEO of, is it Halibrand?) was responsible for getting an environmental exemption for as exploration, and the industry has done an enormous amount of environmental damage to our rural area as a result. I highly recommend watching.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOtherwise, methane is 'home grown' and, as I understand, relatively clean burning, if you don't mind CO2.
I can't condone the irresponsible destruction of rural water tables, presuming "Gasland's" representation is reasonably accurate. Given the increasing population, water may someday be more crucial than energy in the not too distant future...
In the near term (20 years) the 2% or so of natural gas (methane) that leaks has 75 times the GHG effect as CO2 making NG a worse climate pollutant than coal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.greenleft.org.au/node/44113
Since the MIT study was subsidized by Big Oil. its no wonder the leakage factor was accidentally omitted.
The annual $800B we paid Big Oil/Coal for their deadly product, would in 3 years cover the conversion of all of the United States from fossil fuel to mass produced nukes.
Drop them on site at coal and gas plants as a like for like replacement with a one time national environmental/ operating permit under a national power authority like Bonneville or TVA - no attorneys, corrupt politicians or Wall Street pirates required.
NG electricity and heating applications would immediately convert to nuclear electricity. The freed up gas would be available to make CNG, methanol, DME (propane), and synfuel transportion fuels as we transition to nuclear produced synfuels and electric vehicles.
Scientists tell us we are maybe less than ten years away from a civilization ending peak oil and climate crisis. With nuclear power there is a way out.
this is abolutely incorrect. you need to rely more on analysis than theology
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGasland is an advocacy piece and makes significant inferences by juxtaposing unrelated stories. The focus on Colorado has nothing to do with shale gas -- they don't produce shale gas in Colorado.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurther, gas from faucets is a common problem associated with very shallow drilling. There are many recorded instances of gas in faucets from, for example, installing geothermal heat pumps. Again, this incident surely has nothing to do with fracking, which typically takes place 10,000 feet below the surface and thousands of feet below the water table, separated by impermeable rock.
The piece was a hatchet job, designed to inspire the uniformed. Get informed.
Gasland is not even remotely accurate. I would trust MIT over an uninformed advocate like the producer of Gasland. He is trying to make a name for himself by promoting unsubstantiated, indeed, much refuted claims. The James Davis comment is highly incorrect. He does not know what he is talking about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisenergydem - Checking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find that the term fracking is oil & gas driller slang for Hydraulic Fracturing, a method used to fracture rocks surrounding a wellhead to improve oil or gas recovery.
Fracturing surrounding rock allows additional gas, for example, to flow to the wellhead. This is accomplished by pumping large volumes of water through a bore hole. The water used includes trace elements of chemicals. A document posted by an organization calling itself 'America's Natural Gas Alliance states that:
"The mixture is approximately 99.5% water and sand. The remaining 0.5% is highly diluted additives found in common household products and the food we eat."
Unfortunately, the chemical composition of that innocent 0.5% is not disclosed, as it is considered proprietary.
The main environmental concern is contamination of non-renewable water aquifers. I agree that the "Gasland" program presented information intended to persuade the audience against fracking, but I wouldn't rely on information presented by the oil industry or its employees, either...
I wouldn't want a gas well or a nuclear reactor anywhere near my back yard.
Fracking typically occurs thousands of feet below the surface whereas aquifers typically are no deeper than 1000 feet. There are thousands of feet of impermeable rock separating the frack from the water table and water can ruin a frack -- the industry has a strong interest in keeping water out of a frack.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem with Gasland (there are many) is that it conflates surface water issues with fracking. There are indeed surface water issue which should be addressed. The MIT study recommends that transparency of fluids be required and also recommends that regional water planning and water disposal be required.
Gasland. Everybody needs to watch it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAfter seeing that, it made me fear for the future with Carbon Sequestration. God help us all if that takes the same wild west free for all that fraking seems to be in right now. CS and natural gas are still necessities for the time being. But they all need much, much, MUCH more oversight or they could make the Gulf spill look like a spilled pot of bacon grease.
Agreed on the oversight but because of vapid policies -- the oil companies are making so much money they should do the research themselves -- we are left with no expertise in the government. Why anyone ever thought we should cede the public interest to the oil companies -- leaving them with all the expertise -- is beyond me. We need to stop having knee jerk reactions and be a little more thoughtful about our energy policy. And yes, carbon sequestration, while it may have niche applications two decades from now, is not a panacea for continued coal consumption.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo one should watch Gasland by the way. It's intellectual and technical trash.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNatural gas is not a good substitute for power generation. For now, coal is what we have plenty of and coal is what we should use to generate electrical power. Despite supposedly plentiful natural gas supplies, residential heating bills that rely on natural gas for heat have risen astronomically. The suggestion that we rely even more on natural gas supplies to fuel electrical generation will cause natural gas prices to increase even more.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have plenty of coal and what we should do is use "clean coal" technology to exploit this resource and even use natural gas to enhance the scrubbing of power plant emissions to meet our goal of a greener society. Allowing natural gas to be used for power generation will only make us that much more dependent on other countries to fulfill our energy needs.
There is no such thing as clean coal. Our coal fleet is, in general, very old and much of it is very inefficient. It's not just carbon intensive but the criteria pollutants are an ongoing problem, not to mention ash ponds or mountaintop removal. Only half the fleet has scrubbers and less than half of the unites are candidates for CCS which is, itself, 20 years away from widescale diffusion in the market place.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have plenty of domestic gas. We should use it. The volatility in gas prices was temporary, driven in part by wild speculation and the drumbeat of LNG investors who wanted to import gas saying we were running out. It was never true.
I have been hearing that we really need to lower the total amount of CO2 on the atmosphere to 350 ppm or below to avoid the worst of the damage from global warming, and even then we will suffer a lot with more severe weather, floods, droughts, loss of biodiversity and crops, etc. This means we need to take every opportunity to switch to zero emission power: solar, wind, wave, geothermal, advanced zero net emission biofuel , etc. We need to stop using all fossil fuels now, coal is really bad but natural gas isn't good either , it still adds CO2 to the atmosphere when we need to remove it. The cost of failing to reduce totaly CO2 in the atmosphere will be much higher in the long run than the investment we need to make now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is unbelievable stupidity to use NG for Baseload Power Generation, i.e. to replace Coal Power Generation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe #1 priority use of NG is to supply peaking & standby power generation, and to supply the very high winter peak heating energy needed in Northern regions.
The #2 priority use of NG should be to replace imported Oil - which is rarely used for power generation, by converting it to Methanol/DME and using it as a transportation fuel. Methanol being the best substitute for Gasoline (actually superior to and cheaper than Gasoline). It costs 3.1 cents per liter to convert NG into Methanol.
The #3 Priority for NG as feedstock for chemical production, such as fertilizer & explosives.
It is INCREDIBLE, that in one breath, renewable advocates are willing to spend huge amounts of capital, like $400 per kwh, and $2k per kw for energy storage (like batteries or pumped hydro) and in the next breath want to throw away our already cheap NG Chemical Energy storage on baseload power generation - which can much better be done with Nuclear.
NG supplies are highly limited. The USA has to import 14% of it's NG. And the latest EIA forecast is a 13% increase in NG production by 2035. While Total USA energy consumption will increase by 15%. So NG won't even be able to keep up with Energy Consumption Growth, never mind replacing Imports, Never Mind replacing Filthy Coal.
WE MUST USE NUCLEAR & HYDRO EXCLUSIVELY FOR ALL BASELOAD POWER GENERATION. USE OF NG IS A CRIMINAL ACT that will cause NG prices to explode, shortages to become frequent, and real pain for the consumers WHO ACTUALLY NEED the NG, like homeowners in Northern regions, for their Winter Heating Peak Load.
And the film Gasland is an excellent portrayal of the Environmental Hazards of NG, which exceed those of Nuclear Energy by a factor of at least 100X. And yet NG enjoys almost no Environmental Regulation. The power of Big Oil/NG to influence Government Regulatory Agencies is EVIL and INSIDIOUS. The NRC (Nuclear Rejection Commission) was mandated according to the instructions of Big Oil. See:
http://depletedcranium.com/hey-hey-ho-ho-the-nrc-has-got-to-go/
http://depletedcranium.com/why-i-hate-the-nrc/
The MegaBucks NG Lobby goes on the warpath to attack the documentary Gasland. The Truth hurts:
http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2010/06/23/FrackingFilm/
This "study" is disappointedly shallow. While it is true that gas is cleaner burning than coal or oil, this is a very small part of the complete picture. The method of drilling for gas using high volume, slick water hydraulic fracturing must be understood from cradle to grave: it using an incredible number of massive [1500 horse power] diesel engines, to drill, frack, compress and pump the gas. Also there are about 1000 18 wheeler diesel truck trips per frack incident, to carry the water and equipment in and then to truck the waste fluies out. Then there is the problem of constant leaking of methane at every stage; the EPA says that if even 2 % of the methane [72 times worse for global warming than CO 2] leaks, the advantage of the clean burning is gone. When all of this is added to the use of up to 7.8 million gallons of clearn water per frack and the destruction of drinking water sources, streams, rivers and lake from the radioactive, highely saline frack fluid with 100s of chemicals, this is not a bridge to anywhere, but a bridge to no where
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJoe from Song Lake, NY - Well done - very good summary of the hidden, ancillary impacts of methane/NG extraction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat a shock that the American Clean Skies Foundation, a think tank created by the natural gas industry, would promote the use of natural gas! I'm surprised that MIT would tarnish its good name by associating with such rubbish. This "study" also fails to consider the life cycle of obtaining natural gas, which is highly energy consumptive and, which, given numerous leaks of methane in ints production and transmission, is likely even more a contributor to GHG than is coal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only way to use gas ecologically is to pyrolyse it, to seperate the carbon from the hydrogen. The hydrogen can be safely burnt producing water, and the carbon put into landfill sites. See www.eprida.com for information on economical pyrolysis technology.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiseco-steve - A landfill might produce conditions favorable for the gasification of carbon...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think that some common sense is due here, which you all have in abundance. Fact is, we need energy, and plenty of it to fuel our society and our economy, which is energy based. Fact is those who supply us with energy have shown a propensity to excessively charge us for this resource, which actually triggered the recession, or at least preceded this recession with outlandish oil prices. Fact is that we have plenty of coal, enough, if not to actually replace oil, at least to serve as some type of leverage to keep us from being utterly dependent on foreign energy sources, some who wish to kill us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe can clean up coal and gas, what are we paying these guys hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars for. It should be a priority for their jobs, and if they can't find away to clean it up, then fire them and find somebody who can. It's that simple. Surely NG can be tapped to clean up the dirty cycles of burning coal and if I, a budding engineer can think of this, surely someone who is in the field can come up with this or even a better solution.
For power generation, coal is really the only answer. True as of now, though power producing plants can't clean up emissions perfectly, they can certainly clean it up better than the average homeowner, who may be forced to revert to burning coal in order to keep warm, because natural gas prices are already too high, and will be unaffordable to the average homeowner if prices keep rising at the pace and magnitude that they are.
Serria, I suggest you have a coal plant's exhaust piped into your home if you think it's so good with an ash pile in your front yard!! Coal is by far the worst power source including by far the largest source of radioactive, other pollution with each plant putting out more than the whole nuke industry!! Not to mention mining damage, pollution. My guess is you work for coal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor the article, electric prices going up 30% by 2030? Are you idiots!! It went up that much in the last 5 yrs!!
By then electric will well over double, probably triple in cost making home wind, solar, CSP, CHP, biomass , ect with their dropping prices by far the low cost energy source.
While NG is good for peaking, that is what it should be used for with kinetic hydro, advanced nukes like the Hyperion, not the boiling water junk now used, proposed as baseline with wind as it comes and solar PV as peak power with solar CSP and heat storage, NG or biomass co-firing for peak power makes far more sense economically.
You all can get screwed by utilities if you want, I'm making my own power and selling the surplus.
BTW the poster who said storage was so high must be high as lead batts only cost $10/kwhr cap/yr, easily paying their way charging off peak and selling on peak and smoothing out home RE for 24/7 power at under coal costs.
Jer, those boutique fantasies are fine for those who live on the fringe, but for the rest of us who are part of or live in this industrial society at this industrial age need solutions that will work on an industrial scale Period. 300 million people cannot burn coal in their furnaces, without the gross pollution of the 30's, 40's and 50's, which is what it will come to should the electrical utilities be allowed to hog up natural gas While, on the other hand, electrical utilities can and should burn coal and they have the resources and scale to do it cleanly and efficiently. I don't know what planet you are from or have been on pal, but my electrical bills have doubled in less than ten years, while the utilities have learned to reap great profits, off of my natural gas and then sell me the same natural gas in the form of electricity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThose windmills and wave farms are cute and good for a news story or two, but to power this civilization on to the future we need plentiful, cheap energy.
Jtdwyer : Buried carbon is stable for tens of thousands of years. (Just think how scientists know when man mastered fire...the charred embers remain unalterded). Buried carbon is also non-toxic if the temperature of the pyrolysis is carefully controlled...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is great know we can save money and keep us warm at the same time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are wrong because i do have hbo and its good things on there avout natural gas and what it can do to help save our planet instead of polluting it so you are clearly wrong and you must have misunderstood waht they were saying instead of bad things they might have been talking about the good things about natural gas.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthis is awsome i love the way you think this is so true and so energy efficent.
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