The big green and white Waste Management truck lumbered through the pleasant Orlando neighborhood collecting trash from cans that lined the street. Painted proudly in giant letters across its side was, “Think Green, Think Clean” and “We run on clean burning natural gas.” Waste Management should be praised for the company’s concern for the environment by converting part of its big truck fleet from dirty burning diesel fuel to “clean and renewable” natural gas. Right?
Well… not right. Natural gas is not clean. It’s not renewable. It’s a dangerous fossil fuel like coal and oil and a major contributor to global warming and the climate crisis.
Why does Waste Management proudly claim and much of the public believe that natural gas is a “clean” energy source and a “bridge” to a green, renewable economy? Part of the answer lies in the fossil fuel industry’s clever marketing of natural gas. It was renamed, “natural gas,” from what it has always been, 85 to 95 percent methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas. Natural gas is now in abundant supply thanks to the fracking technology that injects, water, chemicals and sand into underground gas sites, creating pressure that forces its release. More than half of the 500 dirty coal fired electric generating plants in the U.S. have been shut down or refitted to burn natural gas. Natural gas is now the biggest source of fuel for electricity generation in the U.S.
In Florida, 61% of electricity is generated by natural gas, 23% from coal and 12% nuclear. Florida ranks 47th in the country in renewable electric generation with only 3% of the total. Florida is the third most populous state after California and Texas and the third state in the amount of electricity consumption.
Those who tout the wonders of natural gas a clean or cleaner burning fuel, point out that burning of natural gas contributes only 448 grams of carbon emissions per kilowatt hour as compared to coal that contributes 960 grams of carbon per kilowatt hour, diesel, 778 grams, and heavy oil, 760 grams.
But methane, CH4, is a super potent greenhouse gas. When climate scientists measure its global warming potential, GWP, it’s an astounding 34 to 87 times more potent than CO2.
What the fossil fuel companies fail to tell us when they claim that natural gas contributes only half the carbon as coal or oil, is that they are measuring only one part of the life cycle of natural gas, the point of combustion. The main component of natural gas, methane, does not have to be burned to be a dangerous greenhouse gas. The contribution of natural gas as potent, heat trapping gas, occurs at several points in its life cycle even before it’s burned. A major problem is that there are significant leaks of methane at oil and gas drilling sites.
According to researcher, Farika Powell, who wrote for the Sightline Institute, “from 2009 to 2014, drilling on federal lands released enough natural gas into the atmosphere to power 5.1 million homes for one year.”
When the industry’s pre-combustion leaks of methane are considered, natural gas is at least equal to coal or oil’s contribution of heat trapping greenhouse gases. Natural gas is not a “bridge” to a clean, renewable economy. It’s a “dead end” to a dangerously high level of carbon in the atmosphere. The cost-efficient technology of renewable energy is here. We must find the political will to begin immediate conversion to renewables and leave natural gas where it belongs, in the ground.
This post was originally published in on September 13th in the Osceaola Star newspaper.
