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Is natural gas a “bridge” to a hotter future?
http://carnegiescience.edu/news/natural_gas_%E2%80%9Cbridge%E2%80%9D_hotter_future_0[font face=Serif][font size=5]Is natural gas a “bridge” to a hotter future?[/font]
Monday, December 8, 2014
[font size=3]Washington, D.C.— Natural gas power plants produce substantial amounts of gases that lead to global warming. Replacing old coal-fired power plants with new natural gas plants could cause climate damage to increase over the next decades, unless their methane leakage rates are very low and the new power plants are very efficient.
These are the principal findings of new research from Carnegie’s Ken Caldeira and Xiaochun Zhang, and Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures that compares the temperature increases caused by different kinds of coal and natural gas power plants. Their work is published in Environmental Research Letters.
There is an ongoing debate among people concerned with power plants and the future of energy policy and greenhouse gas emissions. Does it makes sense to replace old coal-fired power plants with new natural gas power plants today, as a bridge to a longer-term transition toward near zero-emission energy generation technologies such as solar, wind, or nuclear power? A key issue in considering the decision has been the potential climate effects of natural gas versus coal. Studies have yielded different results by focusing on power plants with different characteristics and using different definitions of what it means to be “better” for climate.
…
Regardless, the team emphasized that meeting upcoming greenhouse gas emission targets will require deeper emissions cuts than just building natural gas plants with low methane leakage. If natural gas is to be a part of a future near-zero emission energy economy, methods for capturing and storing carbon from gas-fired power plants will likely be necessary.[/font][/font]
Monday, December 8, 2014
[font size=3]Washington, D.C.— Natural gas power plants produce substantial amounts of gases that lead to global warming. Replacing old coal-fired power plants with new natural gas plants could cause climate damage to increase over the next decades, unless their methane leakage rates are very low and the new power plants are very efficient.
These are the principal findings of new research from Carnegie’s Ken Caldeira and Xiaochun Zhang, and Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures that compares the temperature increases caused by different kinds of coal and natural gas power plants. Their work is published in Environmental Research Letters.
There is an ongoing debate among people concerned with power plants and the future of energy policy and greenhouse gas emissions. Does it makes sense to replace old coal-fired power plants with new natural gas power plants today, as a bridge to a longer-term transition toward near zero-emission energy generation technologies such as solar, wind, or nuclear power? A key issue in considering the decision has been the potential climate effects of natural gas versus coal. Studies have yielded different results by focusing on power plants with different characteristics and using different definitions of what it means to be “better” for climate.
…
Regardless, the team emphasized that meeting upcoming greenhouse gas emission targets will require deeper emissions cuts than just building natural gas plants with low methane leakage. If natural gas is to be a part of a future near-zero emission energy economy, methods for capturing and storing carbon from gas-fired power plants will likely be necessary.[/font][/font]
