Jacobson opined in 2012 that natural gas is not a recommended option for providing new sources of electric power for the world or U.S. for two reasons:
- First, it results in much more air pollution, climate degradation, and land devastation than do [nuclear], wind, water, or solar (WWS) technologies, thus it represent an opportunity cost, and
- Second, even though it improves air quality versus coal, it causes faster global warming than coal, so neither coal nor gas is beneficial to society, and neither is recommended. Because WWS technologies can be combined to match the preponderance of power demand reliably, there is no need for natural gas to supply peaking power in the future and no need for new natural gas during the transition. These results follow from scientific analyses.
Natural gas is not recommended versus WWS technologies for several reasons. The mining, transport, and use of even conventional natural gas for electric power results in at least 60-80 times more carbon-equivalent emissions and air pollution mortality per unit electric power generated than does wind energy over a 100-year time frame. Over the 10- 30 year time frame, natural gas is an even greater warming agent relative to all WWS technologies and a danger to the Arctic sea ice due to its methane leakage and black carbon-flaring emissions, as discussed shortly. Natural mining and use also produce carbon monoxide, ammonia, nitrogen oxides, and organic gases. Natural gas mining degrades land, roads, and highways and produces water pollution.
Based on criteria described in Jacobson (2009), natural gas is not a recommended energy source for a clean and sustainable future in comparison with WWS resources. Since WWS resources are sufficiently available to power the world for all purposes multiple times over (Jacobson and Delucchi) and can be combined to meet electric power demand for nearly all hours of a year (Hart and Jacobson, 2011), and since several methods exist to allow WWS to meet
the remaining demand (Delucchi and Jacobson, 2011), natural gas is not necessary for a sustainable future. On the other hand, WWS resources can power the world for all purposes while eliminating global warming and 2.5-3 million annual air pollution deaths.
The main argument for increasing the use of natural gas has been that it is a “bridge fuel” between coal and renewable energy because of the belief that natural gas causes less global warming per unit electric power generated than coal. Although natural gas emits less carbon dioxide per unit electric power than coal; natural gas emits more methane and less sulfur dioxide per unit energy. Both factors enhance its overall global warming relative to coal, particularly when the relevant time scale and up-to-date global warming potentials are used.
Read on ....
[But even in the rest of the article Jacobson fails to mention nuclear power; a major oversight !!!]
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