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The majority of coal displacement in the US has been natural gas which is cleaner from a lung disease perspective but just as bad for climate change.

alkonaut 9y ago
Actually LNG is 30% less CO2 per unit of energy which isn't revolutionary but it's not a tiny difference either. If a lot of things that currently burn other hydrocarbons (such as ships) would instead burn LNG we could cut emissions quite a bit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquefied_natural_gas#Environmental_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquefied_natural_gas#Environm...
- acidburnNSA 9y ago
  But then you have to account for methane leaks from pipelines and account for the fact that methane has 60x more warming power than co2 and they end up being basically a wash. Consider the error bars in, i.e. https://partofthething.com/thoughts/wp-content/uploads/ipcc-co2-of-fuels.png https://partofthething.com/thoughts/wp-content/uploads/ipcc-... Data from https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_ar5_annex-iii.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_a...
Retric 9y ago
LNG is only ~22% of worldwide electricity generation not not growing that fast, the US energy mix is rather unusual. Also, from a climate perspective the US is less important than many people in the US assume.
- acidburnNSA 9y ago
  Here's world data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bp_world_energy_consumption_2016.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bp_world_energy_consumpti... Natural gas and other fossil fuels are soaring.
  - Retric 9y ago
    First that ends in 2015 and coal is already dropping slightly. Second, Natural gas is used for both heating and electricity generation. It's heating not electricity production that's driving LNG demand. Further, coal is very rarely used for heating so LNG is mostly replacing fuel oil. PS: That also ignores the worlds largest uses of energy. Growing plants from sunlight which completely dominates all other energy sources.
    - acidburnNSA 9y ago
      There's better data in here [1], page 9, with projections. My conclusion is unchanged. Global warming doesn't care what the energy was used for so it's important to consider the entire energy usage portfolio of the world in these discussions. We gots to decarbonize and we are not on track. [1] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/0383(2017).pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/0383(2017).pdf Growing plants from sunlight is indeed a large energy flow. However it's not dominant in our emissions to the atmosphere which are changing the climate. 70% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions are non-plant energy-related. Fact is, we use a lot of non-plant energy too because it's very dense energy and that allows us to do things like drive cars, fly airplanes, and heat homes without destroying the environment. Back when everyone was using renewable plant biomass for heat (i.e. firewood) air quality was getting bad and forests were getting destroyed. It's a very good thing we switched to coal when we did, for the forests' sake, but now we need to totally decarbonize. This means intermittent renewables, hydro, and nuclear. BTW this book [2] has all the info you could ever dream of about world energy usage. [2] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/energy-and-civilization https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/energy-and-civilization
      - Retric 9y ago
        This is a thread about Nuclear power. Which is rarely used directly for home heating, generally it's just resistance heating after being turned into electricity. Anyway... Your link [1] is for the United States which as I said uses an unusual amount of LNG. Though if you look at Coal on page 10 it's down (~22 to ~14 = ~40%) from 2006 petroleum is also down quite a bit (40 to ~35 = ~12% drop) it's only LNG that's up but again it's up significantly less than just coal has dropped let alone coal + petroleum. (pedantic) Plants also dominate our emissions to the atmosphere. They simply also extract carbon from the atmosphere. I think most projections are wildly off base. In the end it's a combination of economics and incentives which will determine changes and while the economics favor renewable incentives are much harder to predict.

alkonaut 9y ago

Actually LNG is 30% less CO2 per unit of energy which isn't revolutionary but it's not a tiny difference either. If a lot of things that currently burn other hydrocarbons (such as ships) would instead burn LNG we could cut emissions quite a bit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquefied_natural_gas#Environmental_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquefied_natural_gas#Environm...

acidburnNSA 9y ago
But then you have to account for methane leaks from pipelines and account for the fact that methane has 60x more warming power than co2 and they end up being basically a wash. Consider the error bars in, i.e. https://partofthething.com/thoughts/wp-content/uploads/ipcc-co2-of-fuels.png https://partofthething.com/thoughts/wp-content/uploads/ipcc-... Data from https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_ar5_annex-iii.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_a...

Retric 9y ago

LNG is only ~22% of worldwide electricity generation not not growing that fast, the US energy mix is rather unusual. Also, from a climate perspective the US is less important than many people in the US assume.

acidburnNSA 9y ago
Here's world data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bp_world_energy_consumption_2016.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bp_world_energy_consumpti... Natural gas and other fossil fuels are soaring.
- Retric 9y ago
  First that ends in 2015 and coal is already dropping slightly. Second, Natural gas is used for both heating and electricity generation. It's heating not electricity production that's driving LNG demand. Further, coal is very rarely used for heating so LNG is mostly replacing fuel oil. PS: That also ignores the worlds largest uses of energy. Growing plants from sunlight which completely dominates all other energy sources.
  - acidburnNSA 9y ago
    There's better data in here [1], page 9, with projections. My conclusion is unchanged. Global warming doesn't care what the energy was used for so it's important to consider the entire energy usage portfolio of the world in these discussions. We gots to decarbonize and we are not on track. [1] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/0383(2017).pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/0383(2017).pdf Growing plants from sunlight is indeed a large energy flow. However it's not dominant in our emissions to the atmosphere which are changing the climate. 70% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions are non-plant energy-related. Fact is, we use a lot of non-plant energy too because it's very dense energy and that allows us to do things like drive cars, fly airplanes, and heat homes without destroying the environment. Back when everyone was using renewable plant biomass for heat (i.e. firewood) air quality was getting bad and forests were getting destroyed. It's a very good thing we switched to coal when we did, for the forests' sake, but now we need to totally decarbonize. This means intermittent renewables, hydro, and nuclear. BTW this book [2] has all the info you could ever dream of about world energy usage. [2] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/energy-and-civilization https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/energy-and-civilization
    - Retric 9y ago
      This is a thread about Nuclear power. Which is rarely used directly for home heating, generally it's just resistance heating after being turned into electricity. Anyway... Your link [1] is for the United States which as I said uses an unusual amount of LNG. Though if you look at Coal on page 10 it's down (~22 to ~14 = ~40%) from 2006 petroleum is also down quite a bit (40 to ~35 = ~12% drop) it's only LNG that's up but again it's up significantly less than just coal has dropped let alone coal + petroleum. (pedantic) Plants also dominate our emissions to the atmosphere. They simply also extract carbon from the atmosphere. I think most projections are wildly off base. In the end it's a combination of economics and incentives which will determine changes and while the economics favor renewable incentives are much harder to predict.