How Obama's climate change plan promotes natural gas

President Obama's broad climate change plan highlighted renewable energy, but the biggest near-term potential for reducing emissions is in the switch from coal to natural gas, Holland writes. Obama's plan for new EPA regulations will firmly entrench natural gas over coal as the fuel of choice for electricity generation.

|
Evan Vucci/AP
President Barack Obama gestures during a speech on climate change Tuesday at Georgetown University in Washington.

An article I wrote was published yesterday, Why a Global Shale Gas Boom is Key to Combating Climate Change. Because I had actually written the article a week ago, I didn’t know that it would come out at the same time as the release of the President’s big speech on climate change. As I demonstrated in the post, the U.S. has been the most successful country over the last decade in reducing its emissions; most of that is due to fuel switching from coal to natural gas. Natural gas generates more than 50% less greenhouse gas emissions than coal, not even including the many harmful particulate pollutants coal emits. To achieve similar benefits around the world, we need to replicate America’s shale gas revolution around the world.

While most of the news about the speech will be about how Obama is planning to accelerate renewable energy, I believe the biggest area of near-term action on reducing emissions will come from some underreported sections that will encourage the replacement of coal with natural gas for energy generation, both in the U.S. and globally.

Emissions Reduction Laundry List

The President’s plan is actually not one thing; it is a laundry list of federal actions, many of which are already being done. It is broken into three parts: (1) mitigating emissions in the US, (2) adapting to inevitable climate change, and (3) using diplomacy to lead international emissions reductions. Each of these has areas that will help accelerate fuel switching. 

First, the big news from the speech, and a potential “game changer” in how the U.S. generates its electricity is new EPA regulations. These come in two parts: regulation of emissions from existing power pants and regulation of emissions from new ones. The first has been proposed, but delayed over and over, the second has bee speculated, but never proposed. Both are actually required by law (the Clean Air Act) under a 2007 Supreme Court ruling. The President’s speech only directs that EPA start the rulemaking process, but the markets are showing that they believe these will go through – as coal stocks are taking a beating. EPA regulations will firmly entrench natural gas as the fuel of choice for electricity generation.

Second, the section on adapting to climate change will not, by its nature, do much to encourage fuel switching, but there is one section that discusses a Department of Energy review of how climate change will impact energy generation. Thermal power plants, like coal or nuclear power, require a huge amount of water for steam generation and cooling. Most of that water is returned to the environment, but it has to exist in the first place. In times of drought, which most climate projections anticipate the American West is likely to face more of, coal plants will become very difficult to operate in the summer – when demand is highest. Natural gas power plants do not face this problem.

Exporting Natural Gas

Finally, as I identified in my article, the most important thing that we can do to reduce global carbon emissions is to make sure the shale gas revolution is exported around the world. In the Administration’s plan, they explicitly state a policy to promote “fuel switching from coal and oil to natural gas and renewables” abroad. They cite a State Department program called the Unconventional Gas Technical Engagement Program that helps link American gas producers with potential customers in countries around the world who have large shale gas reserves.

This, combined with other policies amounts to a major initiative to export US shale gas technology and expertise. The other major initiative on gas is a push to encourage the development of “a global market for natural gas.” That is a clear code for the approval of LNG exports. Market forces will eventually encourage a switch from coal to natural gas around the world as gas becomes a true global commodity – and new technology brings new shale gas to market. The US government can help push this forward.

In the end, I don’t think the President’s speech amounts to a single major new proposal. On the other hand, it is a series of worthy actions that will slowly reduce American carbon emissions. Natural gas will play a big part in that switch – and this Administration knows how important it will be.

Source: Obama’s Climate Plan Points to Increasing Importance of Natural Gas

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to How Obama's climate change plan promotes natural gas
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2013/0626/How-Obama-s-climate-change-plan-promotes-natural-gas
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe