Natural Gas is No Panacea

Is natural gas the answer to America’s energy problems? That’s the question posed this week on National Journal’s Energy and Environment blog.

Defenders’ president Rodger Schlickeisen has an answer: No!

Here’s the response Rodger posted on National Journal’s blog today:

Defenders of Wildlife President Rodger Schlickeisen

Let’s set the record straight: Natural gas is neither “clean” nor good for the environment or public health.  Yes, natural gas is better than its fossil fuel cousins, but being best in class doesn’t mean the class is something we should invest in.

As a public policy matter, the government should immediately end all “incentives” and subsidies to all fossil fuels, and certainly shouldn’t consider any new subsidies or tax write-offs.  Period.  We need to rapidly transition to renewable energy and energy efficient technologies if we are going to have a chance of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change and giving taxpayer dollars to the most profitable companies on the planet isn’t going to get us there.

Natural gas, or methane, is itself a potent greenhouse gas, 20 times stronger in its warming potential than carbon dioxide.  According to the Energy Information Agency, the natural gas industry is responsible for 20% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and a full quarter of our methane emissions through leaks and releases of natural gas from wells to pipelines.   Before we drill another cubic foot of natural gas, we should at least plug the holes in the system.

Let’s set the record straight: Natural gas is neither “clean” nor good for the environment or public health.

The production of natural gas is as destructive as oil.  You have to lay new roads, clear land and habitat, scrape well pads, send hundreds of heavy trucks back and forth during construction, lay hundreds of miles of new pipelines.  Then there is the drilling operation itself, sending down toxic slurries of chemicals to fracture the geologic formation, sending up drilling muds along with toxic substances.  Tremendous quantities of water are needed to support drilling, competing with municipal water supplies, as well as water in our rivers and streams for recreation and wildlife.  Then there is the transport and disposal of drilling water, mud and other wastes.

The wild west attitude driving the current gas drilling frenzy in the northeast worried the state of Pennsylvania so much they conducted a sting operation, called FracNET, which during a 3-day enforcement blitz issued 669 citations to trucks hauling wastewater from shale drilling operations.

The reality is there is no panacea to our energy problems.  And obviously it will take time to wean ourselves off of dirty fossil fuels.   Burning natural gas is better than coal and oil, but it is not the solution to our energy needs.  We need policies that move us forward, not lock us into dependence on more fossil fuels.