Yes and nuclear. Gas is better than coal for air pollution and slightly better (but still very bad) for climate. Nuclear is low carbon and doesnt have air pollution so it is terribly counterproductive to build gas in its place.
There was a sharp dive in coal stock prices around the turn of the year, and unlike oil they have not had a turnaround. Are the coal companies going to zero?
My understanding has always been that the same companies with mineral rights for oil have the rights for natural gas, so their bets are hedged a little with the uptick in CNG for trucking.
Yes and nuclear. Gas is better than coal for air pollution and slightly better (but still very bad) for climate. Nuclear is low carbon and doesnt have air pollution so it is terribly counterproductive to build gas in its place.
Natural gas is not slightly better, it's significantly better than coal for climate. Emissions are about half as much as coal per kWh. Switching from coal to natural gas has probably reduced America's CO2 footprint more than all new renewable generation combined. In the short term and without cheap storage, renewables just cannot scale compared to natural gas.
Yes and nuclear. Gas is better than coal for air pollution and slightly better (but still very bad) for climate. Nuclear is low carbon and doesnt have air pollution so it is terribly counterproductive to build gas in its place.
Why nuclear? Isn't it high-capex but low-opex type of operation?
Yes and nuclear. Gas is better than coal for air pollution and slightly better (but still very bad) for climate. Nuclear is low carbon and doesnt have air pollution so it is terribly counterproductive to build gas in its place.
Why nuclear? Isn't it high-capex but low-opex type of operation?
Nuclear is also low land footprint (energy dense) and low physical waste.
Yes and nuclear. Gas is better than coal for air pollution and slightly better (but still very bad) for climate. Nuclear is low carbon and doesnt have air pollution so it is terribly counterproductive to build gas in its place.
Natural gas is not slightly better, it's significantly better than coal for climate. Emissions are about half as much as coal per kWh. Switching from coal to natural gas has probably reduced America's CO2 footprint more than all new renewable generation combined. In the short term and without cheap storage, renewables just cannot scale compared to natural gas.
Does this take into account the amount of methane released from burn off and leaks?
Why nuclear? Isn't it high-capex but low-opex type of operation?
Nuclear is also low land footprint (energy dense) and low physical waste.
I'm generally in favor of nuclear power, but you can't argue that the (relatively) small amount of waste isn't super nasty. Last I heard we still don't have a good way of dealing with it.
Yes and nuclear. Gas is better than coal for air pollution and slightly better (but still very bad) for climate. Nuclear is low carbon and doesnt have air pollution so it is terribly counterproductive to build gas in its place.
Natural gas is not slightly better, it's significantly better than coal for climate. Emissions are about half as much as coal per kWh. Switching from coal to natural gas has probably reduced America's CO2 footprint more than all new renewable generation combined. In the short term and without cheap storage, renewables just cannot scale compared to natural gas.
Actually renewables can scale very well by covering much more area and thereby averaging out the wind and solar fluctuations across the country. The technology for achieving this is High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) a technology that has also been rapidly getting cheaper along with renewable technologies because its costs are driven by semiconductor technologies getting cheaper every year.
Yes and nuclear. Gas is better than coal for air pollution and slightly better (but still very bad) for climate. Nuclear is low carbon and doesnt have air pollution so it is terribly counterproductive to build gas in its place.
Gas is also laden with hidden costs. In particular, bad things happen when drilling shale and then more bad things building and running pipeline transports such as Dakota, Keystone, and Mariner. These things are all getting rammed through legislatures in a manner that bypasses all of the normal democratic process. For example, Mariner East somehow got declared a public utility which gives Sunoco rights to eminent dom…
What gas doesn't suffer from though is expensiveness (environmentalism sounds great until you realize you're largely advocating economically regressive policies that disproportionately impact the most vulnerable) and scalability. EU countries might be able to run their industrial sectors on renewables but call me when Russia, India, China, Indonesia, Brazil or even the US are able to do it without costs going up.
Nuclear is also low land footprint (energy dense) and low physical waste.
I'm generally in favor of nuclear power, but you can't argue that the (relatively) small amount of waste isn't super nasty. Last I heard we still don't have a good way of dealing with it.
Dealing with waste is a policy challenge that's tied to non proliferation, not so much a technical one.