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Big impact for gas, yes, but limited. That will rid us of about 15% of emissions. Going renewable with nuclear could go to 50%. Gas also has a problem of leakin
by AstralStorm 4y ago
Big impact for gas, yes, but limited. That will rid us of about 15% of emissions. Going renewable with nuclear could go to 50%.
Gas also has a problem of leaking, and methane is a potent GHG, so it's not just emissions due to burning it.
The remaining pieces are manufacturing and transportation. Former can be hard to make clean. Latter is the question of how quickly we can develop power grids for EV or hydrogen infrastructure and rebuild rail where it is insufficient.
Also clean up mass shipping.
New small block nuclear power plants are likely better than gas at filling in intermittent wind load (which is usually month spread) and can be toggled as needed.
- Retric 4y agoA green grid supplying EV’s and home heating is enough to dramatically extend the window of time to deal with the other sources. I am not saying it’s the only issue, just that everything else is largely meaningless in comparison. Methane gas leaks are front loaded they don’t have long term impact as long as we quickly stop using it. In the short term it’s a problem but long term methane is effectively identical to CO2 because 1 atom of CH4 produces water and 1 atom of CO2.
- credit_guy 4y ago> Gas also has a problem of leaking, and methane is a potent GHG, so it's not just emissions due to burning it. If we only use 10% of the current gas, we'll only have 10% of the current methane emissions. Once solar and wind ramp up you will not need more than 10% of the current nat gas plants. There are days when the sun is not shining and the wind not blowing, but they are not that frequent.