16 replies to this topic

[Hayden]

Energy Matters
Switching from Coal to Gas May Not Help the Climate
MIT Technology Review (blog)
Even though burning natural gas produces approximately half the carbon dioxide emissions of burning coal, a new study suggests replacing 50 percent of the coal burnt for electricity with natural gas by 2050 would have little effect on the world's ...
Natural gas won't reduce global warming, study saysCharleston Gazette
Shift To Natural Gas Will Not Help Climate Change - StudySustainableBusiness.com
Gas to heat up climate at first, says new probeBusiness Day
Gas Business Briefing -Consumer Energy Report -Business Green (blog)
all 14 news articles »

View the full article

[Karim Jessa]

This is all getting more confusing every day. I used to consider China as the bad guys because of their heavy use of coal. I used to wonder why they didn't care about what was happening to the environment.

Now, it seems, they are doing the right thing after all. If burning coal isn't that harmful, and considering that China has large supplies of coal, it makes sense for them to be relying on it rather than spending money on developing other forms of energy supply.

The article I read from the link above compares coal with natural gas. I'm wondering if there may be other energy supplies which are better than both coal and natural gas. I'm certainly not thinking of nuclear power, but what about solar and wind power?

In the past few years, winds have been gusting at ever greater strengths. This may be the right time to develop wind power. What do you think?

[artistry]

...That really complicates the whole thing in a nutshell. I really thought that less coal burning, meant less pollution, thus less climate change. What a revelation. Looks like solar energy and wind turbos are going to have to save the day. How disappointing it is to learn this.

[Ecodisaster]

Methane gas (natural gas) is a highly water contaminant that has affected the lives of thousands of humans and animals. The Northern Cheyenne nation in Montana knows first hand.
Coal of course, we all know how bad it is and what happens to those that breath it in.
There are so many things we don't know in this world, and one of them is the future of energy, unfortunately.

So, after all, coal or methane gas won't help with global warming nor to keep a cleaner environment.

[still learning]

When the original post linked article at UCAR was written in September the actual journal article by Wigley wasn't published yet.  Now it's been published and is publicly available at  http://www.springer....hart=1#realtime

Wigley considered the gradual substitution of coal by natural gas at electric powerplants with no restrictions on their use and no CO2 emissions restrictions or taxation.  A "business as usual" scenario for fossil fuels.

Wigley concluded that there wouldn't be a lot of difference.  Decreased CO2 caused warming would be pretty much offset by less cooling by sulfate particles resulting from coal burning and from increased warming from increased methane (natural gas) leakage.

In Wigley's scenario's the global average temperature increase from the present day is about 3 degrees C ( 5.4 F), give or take a few tenths.

What I take from all this is that it's that total fossil fuel use that needs to be reduced.  Substituting one kind for another isn't nearly good enough.

[Loveenergysavings]

My study says, coal would still be available for another century.

[still learning]

Loveenergysavings, on 11 June 2012 - 09:41 PM, said:

My study says, coal would still be available for another century.

"My study'?  You've made a study of what?

If we're lucky, coal will still available for centuries because we'll cut coal burning way back in the next few decades.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

I wonder if the computers that ran those simulations were run on coal or natural gas?

Coal is the worst, but to me, the environment destruction from "getting" natural gas is horrible too. Fracking
pollutes drinking water.

[iebo]

As I understand it, methane is far worse in terms of being a greenhouse gas. Plus you have the ground water contamination and tectonic plate destablization that fracking creates. When the permafrost melts and releases all that methane that is trapped in there, the atmosphere could change to the point that the amount of CO2 won't really matter, as methane will be the biggest problem.

[still learning]

iebo, on 13 June 2012 - 08:10 AM, said:

tectonic plate destablization that fracking creates.

Could you provide some support to that part of your post?
Haven't seen that exaggeration before.

[iebo]

Quote

Columbia University seismic experts have said the injection of hundreds of thousands of barrels of oilfield waste fluids into a fault line probably caused the quake, one of a series of tremors that have rocked the Mahoning Valley.

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http://www.cleveland...sues_on_oi.html

maybe saying the tectonic plates are destabalized wasn't correct. But it certainly  has been connected to earthquakes in areas that don't typically have any.

[still learning]

iebo, on 16 June 2012 - 02:53 PM, said:

certainly  has been connected to earthquakes in areas that don't typically have any.

True.
From reading the article you linked to, looks like Ohio has allowed a waste disposal industry to develop, taking liquid waste from other states and injecting it deep down.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Out of mind until a big enough earthquake is caused anyway.  While most of the quakes have been small, looks like one was a 4.0.  Quite big enough to cause alarm and possibly some damage.  Any bigger and there would be damage.  Time to back off some on the injection of wastes, don't want a 5.0.

Apparently waste injection underground is a sizable business: "Ohio disposal wells make up only one percent of the nearly 150,000 in the nation that dispose of 2 billion gallons of waste a day" (at http://www.msnbc.msn...ed-earthquakes/ )

Maybe this is nitpicky, but note that it's not the fracking itself that's causing the quakes, but "fracking related activity."

[QuatreHiead]

Interesting to know, but it does make a lot of sense in the end as well. I do wonder however, how much of a difference can be made in general at this point. For now there are evidently not many options considered as reasonable for powering all of a single country alone, much less switching the entire world towards using. The depressing part is that a lot of damage has been done already. It would take forever to get towards stabilizing the climate change considering the level of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane already present.


If I recall correctly has it been said somewhere that even with a completed 180 turnaround in energy production today, even our grandchildren wouldn't live to see an impact on our climate fluctuations? Perhaps I am exaggerating...?

[dconklin]

Coal real burns dirty.  I remember my Dad had a coal stove at one point years ago in the garage.  Everything used to get this nasty black coating on it.  But on the other hand, if it is not good for the environment to get the natural gas then I can see that it is not much better.

[still learning]

QuatreHiead, on 28 June 2012 - 09:52 PM, said:

If I recall correctly has it been said somewhere that even with a completed 180 turnaround in energy production today, even our grandchildren wouldn't live to see an impact on our climate fluctuations? Perhaps I am exaggerating...?

Not quite sure what you mean, but my understanding is that there is a lot of "inertia" in the climate system, that there a lot of climate change already "in the pipeline."
See  http://www.grida.no/...english/011.htm

So, yes, if we reduce greenhouse gas emissions today the effect won't be felt for some years.  But reducing greenhouse gas emissions next year instead of today assures another year of climate change later.

[QuatreHiead]

Yes, yes, I'm aware we wouldn't see a change for years. I was wondering if there were calculations that even if we went to an ideal environmentally friendly society today, how long before the level of global climate change returns to more like what we observed 20 years ago or something?

However, make no mistake I'm in no way insinuating that we should not do anything. I want to make that clear. Because clearly the sooner the better for the future, our future generations, our earth.

[still learning]

QuatreHiead, on 30 June 2012 - 10:53 AM, said:

......even if we went to an ideal environmentally friendly society today, how long before the level of global climate change returns to more like what we observed 20 years ago or something?

Backing up climate change?  Don't find that discussed much.  Just working at stabilizing it a degree or two or three © warmer is usually what's mentioned.

From what I gather, somewhere between several decades and never to actually reverse climate change.

First, depends on whether or not a climate/greenhouse gas "tipping point" has been reached.  If it has, then feedback processes will continue raising greenhouse atmospheric gas concentrations even if we quit burning fossil fuels.  If, for instance, there is enough ongoing methane release in the Arctic from thawing permafrost and thawing methane hydrates then the addition of that methane, a strong greenhouse gas, would offset reduction of fossil fuel CO2.  Then more warming, yet more thawing methane, more warming, etc.  Opinions are divided on how close such a tipping point might be.  Some people apparently think we've already gone past, but I don't think the professional climate change scientists are prepared to say so.

Several decades to several centuries is a common answer, I think.

Looking at what IPCC had to say several years ago in http://www.ipcc.ch/p...n/faq-10-3.html in figure 1a it shows expected atmospheric CO2 concentrations under several scenarios.     If human fossil fuel CO2 is eliminated:  "Complete elimination of CO₂ emissions is estimated to lead to a slow decrease in atmospheric CO₂ of about 40 ppm over the 21st century. "

So, let's see, we're at 396 ppm now( http://www.esrl.noaa...md/ccgg/trends/ ), stop fossil fuel CO2 altogether, get CO2 level back down to 356 ppm bt 2100,  356 looks about like a 1995 level  ( http://www.esrl.noaa...rends/#mlo_full ).  Throw in a decade or two of climate system inertia, so get back to 1995 climate by roughly 2112 if we stop fossil fuel CO2 emissions completely this year.

Suddenly stopping fossil fuel use altogether isn't reasonable.  I have seen plans for getting down to 10% of current use by 2050 that I think are feasable.  A feasable plan and an executed plan sure aren't the same though.