Switch from coal to natural gas no boon to climate

[ScienceRocks]

Switch from coal to natural gas no boon to climate
Reuters, Sept. 9, 2011
(Reuters) - Relying more on natural gas than on coal would not significantly slow down the effects of climate change, even though direct carbon dioxide emissions would be less, a new study has found.
Burning coal emits far more climate-warming carbon dioxide than natural gas does, but it also releases lots of sulfates and other particles that block incoming sunlight and help cool the Earth, according to a study to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Climate Change Letters in October.
Using more natural gas for fuel could also produce leaks of methane, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas more than 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, study author Tom Wigley said in a statement.
"Relying more on natural gas would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, but it would do little to help solve the climate problem," said Wigley, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Adelaide in Australia.
"It would be many decades before it would slow down global warming at all, and even then it would just be making a difference around the edges," he said.
A global, partial shift from coal to natural gas would speed up global warming slightly through at least 2050, even with no methane leaks from natural gas operations. If there were substantial methane leaks, the acceleration of climate change would continue through as late as 2140, according to Wigley's computer simulations.
"BRIDGE FUEL"
After that, the switch to more natural gas would start to slow the increase in average global temperature, but only by a few tenths of a degree, he said.
The number of rigs drilling for natural gas in the United States fell by three this week to 892, the third straight weekly decline, according to oil service firm Baker Hughes.
This includes rigs used to exploit natural gas contained in the vast Marcellus shale formation in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast through hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. Critics blame the process for polluting underground water supplies; the industry disputes this.
The Center for American Progress has characterized natural gas as a "bridge fuel" that could ease the shift to greener energy in the United States.
With less than half the carbon dioxide emissions of coal, the center said a transition to natural gas trucks and buses could cut oil use by at least 1.2 million barrels per day by 2035 if U.S. legislation were passed to encourage the shift.
Oilman T. Boone Pickens has also joined the push to fuel more vehicles with natural gas.
But Joe Romm, who blogs at Climateprogress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress, says this latest study should be sobering.
"If your goal is to avert serious catastrophic global warming, then natural gas is not a bridge fuel," Romm said.
"What this study shows ... is the way people think about natural gas is just wrong, and that from a climate perspective, you have to get off of all fossil fuels as quickly as possible."

Switch from coal to natural gas no boon to climate | Reuters


No corn based fuel
No oil
No gas
No coal


Nuclear? If it works within the market maybe some wind and solar wouldn't be totally bad, but that produces a green house gas that is thousands of times more powerful in the making of such.

Hydroelectric? Kills the fish, but clean.

Wave produced elctricy...Kills fishies.

 

[waltky]

Is 'Fracking' Causing OK Earthquakes, Or Something Else?...

Earthquakes in Oklahoma? Is 'fracking' to blame, or something else?
November 8, 2011 : Recent earthquakes in Oklahoma – the largest a magnitude 5.6 – are part of a 'swarm' of temblors to rattle the state since 2009, say geophysicists. Research suggests that the quakes are too big to chalk up to fracking to extract oil and gas.

Earthquakes in Oklahoma? Rodgers and Hammerstein didn't see that one coming. Indeed, this week's temblors in the Sooner State highlight the challenge scientists face as they try to improve earthquake-hazard assessments in the central and eastern United States, particularly across the lower half of the country. In regions known for relatively frequent, large quakes, such as the west coasts of North and South America or deep in the heart of Turkey, sources of stress on faults are well known. And the faults themselves are increasingly well-studied, allowing scientists to estimate repeat rates for major temblors along these shifting cracks in Earth's crust.

In the middle of the continental US, however, research over the past decade suggests that trying to estimate future quake activity may be more like a high-stakes game of "Whac-A-Mole." One fault system might generate a cluster of quakes over a period of a few years, then it delivers diminishing set of aftershocks for centuries while stress migrates to a new fault system, explains Seth Stein, a geophysicist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. The past of any one fault system may not be a prologue to its future. Trying to divine that future may represent "an exercise in closing the barn door after the horse has gone," he says. Oklahoma sits squarely in the portion of the country that appears most susceptible to this wandering seismic activity, some studies suggest.

That's likely to be of little comfort to people rattled by this week's quakes. The first shock struck central Oklahoma early Saturday morning, with a magnitude of 4.7. This turned out to be a fore shock in advance of a magnitude 5.6 quake that struck the same fault Sunday night. The area has experienced a series of aftershocks, including another magnitude 4.7 quake Monday night. A magnitude 3.6 aftershock hit early Tuesday afternoon. Throughout 2009 and 2010, the state has experienced unusually high earthquake activity, although the activity may be typical for the state when viewed over long periods of time, according to the state geological-survey office in Leonard. No one has a good handle on why the activity has increased. This week's quakes may well be part of this "swarm," Dr. Stein says.

Some residents are asking whether oil and gas extraction in the state may have triggered the quakes, particularly via the practice of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." This involves pumping fluids into the ground to force more oil or gas out. Fluids can in effect lubricate faults, reducing the friction that may be holding back an earthquake. Several studies in the US and overseas have found evidence that fracking and other techniques for injecting fluids into oil and gas formations have triggered small quakes, with varying degrees of certainty. In August, for instance, researchers with Oklahoma's geological survey looked into complaints that fracking had triggered a series of small earthquakes ranging in magnitude from 1 to 2.8 south of Elmore City.

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[editec]

The absolute hands down BEST NEW ENERGY sources are efficiencies in the way we use power today.

ALL energy generation and use causes problems. Nuclear does, hydrocarbon sources do, even solar and wind comes with environmental problems.

What new energy source doesn't add to this burden?

Efficiencies in the way we use power.

 

[konradv]

ALL energy generation and use causes problems. Nuclear does, hydrocarbon sources do, even solar and wind comes with environmental problems.

What new energy source doesn't add to this burden?

FUSION. Energy generated with no CO2 and minimal radiation. Of course, that's years down the road. We need to increase the research budget because, with near limitless cheap fuel and few pollutants, the energy derived should help us grow out of our current fiscal mess.

 

[bripat9643]

FUSION. Energy generated with no CO2 and minimal radiation. Of course, that's years down the road. We need to increase the research budget because, with near limitless cheap fuel and few pollutants, the energy derived should help us grow out of our current fiscal mess.

If and when it's perfected, turds like you will find a reason to be against it.

 

[bripat9643]

The absolute hands down BEST NEW ENERGY sources are efficiencies in the way we use power today.

ALL energy generation and use causes problems. Nuclear does, hydrocarbon sources do, even solar and wind comes with environmental problems.

What new energy source doesn't add to this burden?

Efficiencies in the way we use power.

There's an upper limit to that, and we're already pushing it with most energy sources.

 

[ScienceRocks]

The absolute hands down BEST NEW ENERGY sources are efficiencies in the way we use power today.

ALL energy generation and use causes problems. Nuclear does, hydrocarbon sources do, even solar and wind comes with environmental problems.

What new energy source doesn't add to this burden?

Efficiencies in the way we use power.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/energ...nversation-with-george-miley.html#post4392015

Fusion!!! No problems at all and clean as all hell, while being economical. Right, left and center all happy.

Right-economical and in fact will likely grow our economy and change the economy all together. For the good.
Left-clean and renewable...No co2 and they won't have to worry about the republicans dumping shit into the river anymore.
Center-won't have to care about what the right or left is doing.

 

[ScienceRocks]

FUSION. Energy generated with no CO2 and minimal radiation. Of course, that's years down the road. We need to increase the research budget because, with near limitless cheap fuel and few pollutants, the energy derived should help us grow out of our current fiscal mess.

If and when it's perfected, turds like you will find a reason to be against it.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/energ...nversation-with-george-miley.html#post4392015

Professor George Miley says he's getting energy out of it. It is now becoming a reality.