Natural Gas Revisited (Again) – Part Two

I wrote the other day about some of the manifest benefits of natural gas in our economies.  There are also, without question, many negatives.  Let me count the ways here.  I also, however, want to note that there are ways to capitalize on gas in our transition to fully decarbonized energy economies.  I’ll do that in a third post. Continue reading


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Natural Gas Revisited (Again)

I haven’t taken an extended look at the many ins and outs of natural gas for a good long while.  It’s a bloody big topic.  But let me preface this by first quoting Amory Lovins, the maestro of the “soft energy path.”  I heard him speak at an event over ten years ago.  What he said then still reverberates in my psyche:  “The ‘renewables revolution’ has been won.  Sorry if you missed it.”  There is no doubt, at this late date, that solar and wind and the array of other modern renewables, along with energy efficiency, sustainable mobility, and other clean tech are well and truly burgeoning.  The numbers don’t lie. Continue reading


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Finally, A Small But Significant Victory, Courtesy of the Senate

Yes – and it was about bloody time – the Senate finally held up at least a small part of its bargain with the American people: to protect the public health and the environment.

First, a little context: What you see on the left is the flaring of natural gas from oil rigs, in this case in Iraq.  It is a problem all over the world though. Flaring is but one part of the problem of how “fugitive” natural gas greatly exacerbates the climate crisis.   There is an awful lot of anthropogenically produced methane in the world that escapes into the atmosphere every year: about 7.13 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2013 according to the excellent Climate Access Indicators Tool (CAIT) of the World Resources Institute.  That was about 15% of the total of all the greenhouse gases produced that year, including those from land use changes like deforestation. Continue reading


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Five Energy Revolutions

brochure_icon_cgepI sat in on a pretty compelling talk last week by Carlos Pascual, Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs for the State Department.  He leads State’s Bureau of Energy Resources.

He had quite a bit to say about the Geopolitics of the Global Energy Revolution.  Ambassador Pascual, a greatly experienced and articulate man, led us on a tour of some of the most salient issues in global energy.  He highlighted what he thought were “five revolutions” that are underway in supply transformation, emerging market demand, “liquid gas,” clean power, and energy access. Continue reading


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Natural Gas (Revisited)

I’ve had a busy end of the summer with a great vacation out West, plus getting squared away back home, getting ready for my NYU teaching assignment and performing various tasks relative to the forthcoming book.  I’ve been meaning to write about natural gas, having saved some interesting items to highlight and discuss from earlier in the summer.  I’ll do that soon, particularly as I have an engagement in a couple of weeks to speak about fracking and natural gas on a panel sponsored by the UN Association.

In the meantime, I want to simply revisit a post I did at my FPA blog back in March:  To Frack or Not to Frack?  Continue reading


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