By Paul Bledsoe
As the climate crisis worsens, the debate over emissions from natural gas is heating up, too. Unfortunately, both gas opponents and gas supporters have been cherry-picking the data, especially regarding the lifecycle emissions of gas, which under almost all circumstances are still lower than coal.
These contretemps are obscuring significant agreement between many gas suppliers, government regulators and climate campaigners about the need to dramatically reduce fugitive emissions of methane from the U.S. and global systems so gas can be as low-emitting as possible.
Switching from coal to natural gas in the U.S. has been responsible for three-fifths of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions reductions from 2005 to 2020. Across the U.S., major electric utilities continue to reduce coal. Duke Energy, for example, which operates in six states, including North Carolina, has retired more than 50 coal power plants and 7,000 megawatts of coal production since 2010.
This story was originally published in The Messenger on August 12, 2023.
