CLIMATE HELP: Switching from coal to natural gas to generate electricity may not help combat climate change after all.
Image: courtesy Wikimedia Commons
Though burning natural gas produces much less greenhouse gas emissions than burning coal, a new study indicates switching over coal-fired power plants to natural gas would have a negligible effect on the changing climate.
Tom Wigley, a senior research associate at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, reports that if natural gas were substituted for coal in energy production, climate change trends would not slow down and may, in fact, accelerate. His findings are due to be published in the journal Climatic Change Letters.
"People saying that coal is bad and natural gas is much better are only looking at a small part of the picture," said Wigley, who is also an adjunct professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia.
His research, based on simulation data, incorporated effects from sulfur particles, a byproduct of coal combustion, and methane leaks. Methane is a major component of natural gas and can leak from coal and gas mining operations. The gas is also a substantially more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, said Wigley.
Sulfur emissions, on the other hand, can shield sunlight, which complicates the climate analysis. "It's an interesting sort of Catch-22," said Wigley. "By reducing the amount of coal, we reduce the cooling effect of the aerosols."
In the simulation, half of all coal power plants were shut down and switched to natural gas based on midrange trend estimates from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. Wigley also assumed no energy policy changes from current standards, like renewable energy incentives or carbon taxes.
The results showed that global temperatures would actually go up by less than 1 degree Celsius over the next 40 years, followed by a decline relative to current temperature projections. Wigley said these results indicate that there are many factors at play and that fighting climate change shouldn't focus on any one element.
"Anybody that's in climate science knows that there are a lot of different forcing agents involved in climate," said Wigley. "It's not just a CO2 issue; it's a climate mitigation issue."
Not a silver bullet
Wigley also said that sulfur emissions, especially sulfur dioxide, should not be considered as a strategy for combating global temperature increases, since the short-term harms outweigh any long-term benefits. Sulfur dioxide is a major component of particulate pollution, can cause heart and lung problems, and forms acid rain.
For Wigley, the proper course of action is not yet clear, since he cannot determine if the change in the emissions profile between coal and natural gas is worth the expenditure. "That would require a regional economic analysis for damages from acid rain and carbon dioxide and the benefits of reduced climate change," said Wigley. "It's tough for decisionmakers."
Other researchers were not as ambivalent: Robert Howarth, the David R. Atkinson professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University, published a paper in April in Climatic Change Letters that he described as "pessimistic" about the switch from coal to gas. "I believe this idea has been over-hyped by industry as well as many in government and some in NGOs," said Howarth in an email. "It's time to move on truly green energy technologies -- solar, wind -- and to place a much greater emphasis on energy efficiency."
However, industry groups, like America's Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA), think otherwise. ANGA Vice President of Strategic Communications Dan Whitten said that his group is still studying the report's findings, but noted that natural gas has clear benefits. "It is the established scientific consensus that whether we are talking about carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury or particulate matter, natural gas is a cleaner energy choice that can help improve air quality in communities across our country," said Whitten.
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13 Comments
Add CommentWe should AT LEAST shut down the dirtiest and least efficient coal power plants that were grandfathered out of the Clean Air Act for political reasons. They are the worst offenders as far as mercery, sulfur, soot, ash and other pollutants are concerned. We have plenty of natural gas capacity to pick up the slack right now. Maybe if we took the money we will save from lower healthcare expendatures due to lower pollution and used it to accelerate renewable energy deployment, the switch from coal to gas COULD actually slow down climate change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMan’s contribution of CO2 is negligible. The future is nuclear. The future of nuclear is Thorium. Stop all funding of solar and wind. No need to fund Thorium. Private industry is doing that because of the potential for profit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmusing how the only reasonable choice of fuel available today is being disparaged. I agree, natural gas is a better option. Not that I care at all about the production of reduced production of the toxin CO2. However, completely agree on the other pollutants from Coal. We don't need to create Acid rain and other effects that have actually been proven are a result of the sulfur emissions and the proven health effects from the soot and mercury from coal emissions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe solar and wind comment by the author is I think causing a bias in his over all opinion. They do not work well at large scale. I have solar on my house, its great for about 60% of the time but I am in LA where there is plenty of sun. I still need my natural gas generator or even the power company to take up the slack. What is missing is a good inexpensive battery or other energy store so the solar or my generator could push power into for maximum efficiency.
There is another idea for natural gas. Instead of giant mega plants, put a small generator at every house. That alone would reduce your CO2 emissions and fuel use because you would no longer have the 66% energy loss in transformers, to step up the volts for high power lines and step it back down for consumption. At least this could be done now, no need to wait for a battery to be invented.
Imagine that two ideas to reduce CO2 emissions, they actually work and no carbon tax or insane regulation needed to achieve the goal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMake that more like a 6% power loss in transformers, excuse the typo.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem with natural gas is that it is an imperfect solution. All religions by definition demand perfection from their novices and adherents, so an imperfect solution is no solution at all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese eco-jihadists are not interested in saving lives or raising up the living standards of the average person.
To the eco-jihadists, nothing less than the complete eradication of carbon from the Periodic Table of Elements is acceptable.
I know I know, these fanatics seem to think Carbon, the core element in organic life is somehow a toxin to be eradicated. They want nothing less than 7 billion people living back in the stone age because industry is evil and capitalism is the bible evil runs by. (of course they have never actually measured the effect of 7 billion people cutting down forests for cook fires in their stone age desires but do we really expect them to use facts in their religion?)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStill, there is no reason to burn excess fuels when we don't really need too, which is why I promote residential power generation. It is simply more efficient to move the fuel to the house and generate it there, than it is to move the already generated electricity.
Are you just stupid or what? Everyone should be concerned about their environment; the air they breathe, the water they drink, and the land they live on. Have you looked at the land after natural gas (especially after fracking) or the rocks for nuclear power plants or the extraction of coal and oil after these things have been extracted? Everything is destroyed...every ego system is destroyed. The water is undrinkable and the air is unbreathable, and the land; you cannot live on. Natural gas extraction and use destroys almost as much as coal, oil or nuclear. Were you people dumbed down in college or are you just a product of idiotism? It is not CO2, you idiot, that people is screaming about, it is CO1 - carbon monoxide that comes from car exhaust and coal, oil and natural gas burning power plants. We know, you dumb idiot, that the planet will take care of CO2. It is the CO1 that is causing global warming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe do not need to use fossil fuel of any kind anymore to generate electricity or power our automobiles. We have made great advancements in solar, wind, geothermal, hydro and wave. One mega geothermal power plant with twenty turbines and generate enough electricity to power 170,000,000 homes and businesses and it only produces 1% pollution. The solar farm in Arizona produces as much power as one $50 billion dollar nuclear power plant. Solar, geothermal, wave and hydro is never ending and it will supply free power for us for the next 50 trillion years. So get off your wild horse of death, destruction, poverty and war and get onto the horse of clean renewable energy that will supply us all the electricity we will ever need.
I understad that there is MORE radiation as the result of the release of radon and other nucleotides from burning cold than there is from a properly running nuclear power plant and none from burning natural gas. I cannot speak for the negligible savings vis a vis carbon output or its affect on climate change but I admit to being suspicious of it being negligible. Surely the production of electricity using thorium as commented on in the letters is a very good alternative and is strategically sensible, less costly and not at all technologically difficult nor are the waste products anywhere as bad as what is producede in standard nuclear power plants. There must be a variegated approach to replacing coal plants to be sure. Considering the fact that global warming is affecting more southern nations than mine in a very bad way, it is incumbent on countries such as yours to attack this issue head on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBurn more coal and scrub less sulfer dioxide out of the flue gas. Problem solved!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Not that I care at all about the production of reduced production[sic] of the toxin CO2"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCO2 isn't toxic until it gets above 3000 ppm or whatever the concentration was in Apollo 13 that they needed to avoid. Unless you're trying to be funny, you're wrong here.
"The solar and wind comment by the author is I think causing a bias in his over all[sic] opinion. They do not work well at large scale."
WRONG AGAIN! This time, I think you're for real. See below for ultimate debunkage:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,783314,00.html
Having a natural gas backup generator at your house would be interesting. If you could use most of the hot water coming off of it, your system efficiency might break 55% or so. It would be easier to install a Bloombox from Bloom Energy (if they ever start selling them), but the smallest model cost $500K. If you have room on your roof, it would be way cheaper to expand your solar array and get a newer inverter than it would be to install this capital-intensive equipment. Natural gas generators and solid-oxide fuel cells scale very poorly when brought down to power and/or energy levels relevant to a single family home. Solar is a little more expensive per watt on small instillations, but it performs much better at this smaller scale than ANY other technology. Besides, having the grid to back you up isn't a bad thing. It's probably hard to find a property that ISN'T connected to the grid in LA County. And regardless, SCE or LADWP or whatever is constantly buying a larger percentage of their power from clean, renewable sources anyway.
Of course the climate will continue to change whether or not we convert to natural gas or anything else. Climate change is ordinary, natural and inevitable. Sometimes it gets hot and sometimes it gets cold. Get over this. Go find something else to obsess about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe need to be getting off of fossil fuels as fast as possible, unfortunately we do not yet have an economic replacement. Though we could develop one relatively quickly with the molten salt reactor fueled by thorium. Nuclear detractors need to take a very hard look at this efficient and safe alternative to conventional nuclear, and see if they can imagine a better solution to the multi-headed beast of Global Warming, Peak Oil, and global water shortages. We need copious amounts of cheap energy soon to safely avert the worst consequences of this super disaster.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.energyfromthorium.com/
http://reserveenergy.blogspot.com/