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Based on https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/ https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/ So in 2011 we had: Coal at 19.66 quadrillion

Based on https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/ https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/ So in 2011 we had: Coal at 19.66 quadrillion BTU Natural Gas at 24.95 quadrillion BTU Petroleum at 34.63 quadrillion BTU Nuclear at 8.27 quadrillion BTU Renewables at 9.20 quadrillion BTU In 2019 we had: Coal at 11.31 quadrillion BTU (-8) Natural Gas at 32.10 quadrillion BTU (+7) Petroleum at 36.72 quadrillion BTU (+2) Nuclear at 8.46 quadrillion BTU (+0.2) Renewables at 11.45 quadrillion BTU (+2) Basically we replaced the use of Coal with natural gas, and used Renewables to add on new capacity. Indeed not exactly a rosy picture of lowering our emissions. And what’s not captured here is that we dropped our fuel use drastically during the 2007-2009 financial crisis and only just recovered from that drop. But our Real PCE (Personal Consumption Expenditures) went up 30% in that same time frame. While it’s not a 1-1 correlation or anything, increased consumption without increased electricity use probably means we’ve just off-shored a lot of our usage to less developed countries in the last 13 years anyway.

Retric 6y ago
Natural gas is a net benefit as it releases significantly less carbon per kWh than coal. Coal is almost entirely C + 02 = C02 but with natural gas you also get energy from 4H + 02 = water. Even better it’s far more flexible easily accommodating a renewable heavy grid. Natural gas is also in vastly shorter supply than coal, naturally forcing a transition away from it fairly soon.
- credit_guy 6y ago
  To add to this: if you burn one mol (16g) of CH4 you get one mol of CO2 (44g) and water and 900 KJ of energy. If you burn one mol (12g) of C you get the same mol of CO2 (44g) and only 400 KJ of energy. Overall you get more than twice the same thermal energy for the same amount of emitted CO2. What's more, the most efficient power plant can only convert 42% of the thermal energy into electricity, while the most efficient gas power plant can convert 62%.
- opo 6y ago
  In terms of climate change, natural gas is comparable to using coal. The CO2 emissions from a natural gas plant are much lower than a coal plant, but it isn't clear that if you account for methane releases during production/transporting/storage that it is better for climate change than coal. >...Back in August, a NOAA-led study measured a stunning 6% to 12% methane leakage over one of the country’s largest gas fields — which would gut the climate benefits of switching from coal to gas. We’ve known for a long time that methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (CO2), which is released when any hydrocarbon, like natural gas, is burned. But the IPCC’s latest report, released Monday (big PDF here), reports that methane is 34 times stronger a heat-trapping gas than CO2 over a 100-year time scale, so its global-warming potential (GWP) is 34. That is a nearly 40% increase from the IPCC’s previous estimate of 25. ...The IPCC reports that, over a 20-year time frame, methane has a global warming potential of 86 compared to CO2, up from its previous estimate of 72. Given that we are approaching real, irreversible tipping points in the climate system, climate studies should, at the very least, include analyses that use this 20-year time horizon. Finally, it bears repeating that natural gas from even the best fracked wells is still a climate-destroying fossil fuel. If we are to avoid catastrophic warming, our natural gas consumption has to peak sometime in the next 10 to 15 years, according to studies by both the Center for American Progress and the Union of Concerned Scientists. https://thinkprogress.org/more-bad-news-for-fracking-ipcc-warns-methane-traps-much-more-heat-than-we-thought-9c2badf392df/ https://thinkprogress.org/more-bad-news-for-fracking-ipcc-wa... As we use more and more natural gas, we can expect more and more methane disasters like the leak from Aliso Canyon in CA which was the largest methane leak in US history. This released over 100,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere and required 11,000 residents to be evacuated. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35659947 http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35659947 >...Natural gas is also in vastly shorter supply than coal, naturally forcing a transition away from it fairly soon. Not really. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates in the Annual Energy Outlook 2020 that as of January 1, 2018, there were about 2,828.8 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of technically recoverable resources (TRR) of dry natural gas in the United States. Assuming the same annual rate of U.S. dry natural gas production in 2018 of about 30.6 Tcf, the United States has enough dry natural gas to last about 92 years. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=58&t=8 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=58&t=8 And if extracting natural gas becomes too expensive, countries can just make synthetic natural gas from coal like China does.

Retric 6y ago

Natural gas is a net benefit as it releases significantly less carbon per kWh than coal. Coal is almost entirely C + 02 = C02 but with natural gas you also get energy from 4H + 02 = water. Even better it’s far more flexible easily accommodating a renewable heavy grid. Natural gas is also in vastly shorter supply than coal, naturally forcing a transition away from it fairly soon.

credit_guy 6y ago
To add to this: if you burn one mol (16g) of CH4 you get one mol of CO2 (44g) and water and 900 KJ of energy. If you burn one mol (12g) of C you get the same mol of CO2 (44g) and only 400 KJ of energy. Overall you get more than twice the same thermal energy for the same amount of emitted CO2. What's more, the most efficient power plant can only convert 42% of the thermal energy into electricity, while the most efficient gas power plant can convert 62%.
opo 6y ago
In terms of climate change, natural gas is comparable to using coal. The CO2 emissions from a natural gas plant are much lower than a coal plant, but it isn't clear that if you account for methane releases during production/transporting/storage that it is better for climate change than coal. >...Back in August, a NOAA-led study measured a stunning 6% to 12% methane leakage over one of the country’s largest gas fields — which would gut the climate benefits of switching from coal to gas. We’ve known for a long time that methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (CO2), which is released when any hydrocarbon, like natural gas, is burned. But the IPCC’s latest report, released Monday (big PDF here), reports that methane is 34 times stronger a heat-trapping gas than CO2 over a 100-year time scale, so its global-warming potential (GWP) is 34. That is a nearly 40% increase from the IPCC’s previous estimate of 25. ...The IPCC reports that, over a 20-year time frame, methane has a global warming potential of 86 compared to CO2, up from its previous estimate of 72. Given that we are approaching real, irreversible tipping points in the climate system, climate studies should, at the very least, include analyses that use this 20-year time horizon. Finally, it bears repeating that natural gas from even the best fracked wells is still a climate-destroying fossil fuel. If we are to avoid catastrophic warming, our natural gas consumption has to peak sometime in the next 10 to 15 years, according to studies by both the Center for American Progress and the Union of Concerned Scientists. https://thinkprogress.org/more-bad-news-for-fracking-ipcc-warns-methane-traps-much-more-heat-than-we-thought-9c2badf392df/ https://thinkprogress.org/more-bad-news-for-fracking-ipcc-wa... As we use more and more natural gas, we can expect more and more methane disasters like the leak from Aliso Canyon in CA which was the largest methane leak in US history. This released over 100,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere and required 11,000 residents to be evacuated. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35659947 http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35659947 >...Natural gas is also in vastly shorter supply than coal, naturally forcing a transition away from it fairly soon. Not really. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates in the Annual Energy Outlook 2020 that as of January 1, 2018, there were about 2,828.8 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of technically recoverable resources (TRR) of dry natural gas in the United States. Assuming the same annual rate of U.S. dry natural gas production in 2018 of about 30.6 Tcf, the United States has enough dry natural gas to last about 92 years. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=58&t=8 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=58&t=8 And if extracting natural gas becomes too expensive, countries can just make synthetic natural gas from coal like China does.