CH4 Not Gore Lowered Carbon Emissions

Yesterday I splurged $1.17 at Go Daddy to register the domain www.ch4notgore.com  for a year.  Dozens of my blogs have dealt with natural gas being the best alternate for power generation in combined cycle stations and that compressed natural gas and liquefied natural gas make real sense as a transportation fuel.  CH4 is methane and methane constitutes approximately 98% of natural gas.

CH4notGore will probably go mass market using a T Shirt with the above photo printed on it.  I intend to sell the T Shirt at the next annual meeting of the American Petroleum Institute to thank them for the fine work they did in bringing us shale natural gas despite Gore's attempts to stop this real green fuel.

Anderson Cooper has the motto "Keeping Them Honest", CH4notGore has the motto "Keeping Ex Elected Officials Honest".  I am sure that with Al, Col, Condi and numerous other opportunists on the Green Bandwagon I will have to print several T Shirts.

The Green Machine is not the only one extolling the virtues of natural gas.

Sudhir one of the regular readers of GreenExplored sent me an email with a link to article titled “Who Needs Kyoto? Cheap Natural Gas Is the Answer.”

The article was written by Joel Kurtzman Executive Director, Center for Accelerating Energy Solutions, Milken Institute.  The Milken Institute holds a global conference each year that is a meeting of the who is who in world movers and shakers. 

I agree with the conclusions of Kurtzmans article “that It is ironic that the a country that declined to ratify the Kyoto protocols is now poised to exceed the standard in levels and perhaps timing.”  Note the grammar error is from a direct quote in the article. 

Unfortunately for those who wish to use data from the article, the article has a couple of factual errors.   The factual errors do not diminish the role of Natural Gas in lowering carbon emissions and Mr. Kurtzman’s thesis that natural gas has been good for the air, good for the economy, and especially good for consumers is absolutely spot on. 

The errors in his article are as follows:

The article states “In 2008, CO2 emissions were about 1,600 million metric tons a year, according to the EIA. Today, they are 1,300 metric tons, a drop of nearly 20 percent.”   US CO2 emissions in 2008 were 5,802 million metric tons and are expected by the EIA to be approximately 5,300 million tons for 2012 which is a drop of 8.7%.

The article states "In 2008, about half of America's electricity was produced by burning coal, with 20 percent produced from natural gas, according to the EIA.  Today, 40 percent of our electricity comes from natural gas with coal's share just 32 percent."   The 2008 data are correct but in 2012 37.5% of electricity in the USA is estimated by the EIA to be generated from coal and 30.4% from natural gas.  See the chart from the EIA below.

The article correctly pointed out that by having access to low cost natural gas the US has effectively lowered its yearly carbon emissions and that our country does not need expensive carbon but should continue to focus on producing shale natural gas for two purposes namely more jobs through economic growth and lower carbon emissions through the wonder of natural gas as a fuel.

Happy Holidays and keep the force of hydrocarbons behind you.

The Green Machine