> >gas isn't acceptable > Neither is waiting 15 years until a next generation of nuclear plants are built.... Well, certainly it's shameful how bad we're at d

> >gas isn't acceptable > Neither is waiting 15 years until a next generation of nuclear plants are built.... Well, certainly it's shameful how bad we're at doing large projects in the Western world today. That being said, even if we in the short term won't relearn how to do them on budget and schedule (as Russian, Korean, and Chinese designs appear to be doing) there's plenty we can do while waiting for such long-term projects to finish. Like, massively expanding wind, solar, high voltage grids, pumped hydro, EV's, public transport, heat pumps, energy efficiency measures, demand response and whatnot. > Natural gas is the resource that we have right now, and as it stands, in Bakken Oil Fields, natural gas is being burnt as excess waste. That gas needs to be used, there has to be a demand for it. Because otherwise companies will continue to burn it, as they dont have a place to store it Sure, it's better to burn the gas for power rather than just flaring it off. But, we really should think about how to ASAP scale down and eventually shutdown the fossil industry (barring a magical fairy^H CCS improvements). > Also, I'm not advocating for long term usage of Natural gas, As the article I linked to mentions, at this point we can't really think of gas as some kind of "bridge fuel" either. Gas infrastructure we build now will have an economic lifetime of several decades. So if we ever decide to tackle climate breakdown, those will be stranded at an enormous cost to society. > in due time natural gas plants need to be phased out in favor of batteries I'm skeptical batteries will ever become cheap enough for bulk storage to cover when wind/solar don't produce in an industrialized nation. I do think they will be very successful for ancillary services like frequency control or peak shaving. In general, I think we need to do serious energy systems modeling, and commit to a rapid path of least cost deep decarbonization. See e.g. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.11.013 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.11.013 or the presentation at https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/events/getting-zero-pathways-zero-carbon-electricity-systems https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/events/getting-zero-pathway...