Natural Gas Pros And Cons: Is It A Safe And Viable Energy Source For America? (PHOTOS)

Solution for energy independence? Dangerous and sickening? Bridge to a low carbon economy? Impractical?

The argument rages on natural gas and whether it can be part of the United States' green economy. Perhaps we don't even have a choice in the matter.

Check out the pros and cons of using natural gas to heat our homes, light our stoves, and even power our cars. And then come back for the live debate between an industry representative and environmental luminary on November 17th at 11AM EST so you can decide for yourself.

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Con: It Emits Carbon When Burned

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Natural gas isn’t completely different from oil or coal – it is still a fossil fuel, emitting carbon and nitrogen oxides (NOx) when it is burned and contributing to climate change and smog.

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Natural gas isn’t completely different from oil or coal – it is still a fossil fuel, emitting carbon and nitrogen oxides (NOx) when it is burned and contributing to climate change and smog.

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Comments

[MikeyJaii]

03:03 PM on 12/29/2010

If we could produce and use renewable energy, that would be amazing.

[Alex Croley]

03:41 PM on 11/19/2010

Its fracking that I have the biggest problem with. They should be able to develop the tech to get the Natural Gas out (perhaps in a slower process) without damaging the water tablet.

[PotomacOracle]

09:56 PM on 11/18/2010

T. Boone Pickens is a con artist of the highest, felonious order. He knows that thousands of families have been defrauded by gas company land offers which produce: instant cash in exchange for:
permanent contamination of water tables,
raping of natural habitats,
gouging the earth for tens of thousands of roads,
draining billions of gallons of water to pressurize gas wells (3 mil gal/well),
creating massive amounts of methane hydrate which can be very explosive when destabalized,
leaching billion of cubic feet methane into the atmosphere and CH4 is at least 20 times more
dangerous than CO2,

If this nation would spend half as much to cultivate the perfect bio fuel, HEMP, we could slay two dragons; massive carbon emissions and fossil fuel dependence.

The rest of the world is cultivating industrial hemp but our DEA, which opposes, industrial hemp cultivation, get's more and more appropriated tax dollars from Congress each year. DEA's phony "Dog and Pony show", where they video the round-up of tons of hemp claiming they've kept this drug off the market. However, its really "ditch" hemp not marijuana. If they told the truth their appropriations would be cut.

Hemp at retail 2009 was a $360 million industry. All of it imported to and resold in America.

Go to www.votehemp.com and let the Administration know we need to support our farmers and in the process create a new processing and manufacturing industry in America through cultivation of industrial hemp.

[RealityBaseCamp]

03:22 PM on 12/03/2010

Not kidding. HUGE con man. The minute I saw all those commercials in 08, I smelled a rat. Then, the more I found out, the worse it turned out to be.

YEEE ha! It's Doc T-bone's All Natural Windmill Gas!!

All about foreign oil, which nobody has done anything to decrease since I became aware of the import-dependence problem in the early 70s gas crisis, not even a word about oil in general or especially coal. Natural gas is better than coal and oil for carbon, but it's STILL a carbon based fossil fuel. To these guys, it's just another way to keep getting richer.

[thereisonlyoneparty]

03:18 AM on 12/09/2010

Or the money could go into algae which is more productive than hemp per unit of space and easier to produce (plus can more easily be engineered to produce necessary hydrocarbons).

[PotomacOracle]

09:53 PM on 11/18/2010

T. Boone Pickens is a con artist of the highest, felonious order. He knows that thousands of families have been defrauded by gas company land offers which produce: instant cash in exchange for:
permanent contamination of water tables,
raping of natural habitats,
gouging the earth for tens of thousands of roads,
draining billions of gallons of water to pressurize gas wells (3 mil gal/well),
creating massive amounts of methane hydrate which can be very explosive when destabalized,
leaching billion of cubic feet methane into the atmosphere and CH4 is at least 20 times more
dangerous than CO2,

If this nation would spend half as much to cultivate the perfect bio fuel, HEMP, we could slay two dragons; massive carbon emissions and fossil fuel dependence.

The rest of the world is cultivating industrial hemp but our DEA, which opposes, industrial hemp cultivation, get's more and more appropriated tax dollars from Congress each year. DEA's phony "Dog and Pony show", where they video the round-up of tons of hemp claiming they've kept this drug off the market. However, its really "ditch" hemp not marijuana. If they told the truth their appropriations would be cut.

Hemp at retail 2009 was a $360 million industry. All of it imported to and resold in America.

Go to www.votehemp.com and let the Administration know we need to support our farmers and in the process create a new processing and manufacturing industry in America through cultivation of industrial hemp.

[CheneysACoward]

08:48 AM on 11/17/2010

...and the chemicals used to extract (fracking) were approved in that closed door energy meeting held by our old friend, dick cheney. The only company that has not answered the EPA is Halliburton.
WOW that's quite a surprise.

[ColetteRae]

02:21 PM on 11/17/2010

Surprise, surprise. He's the devil incarnate.

[EggZacktly]

07:39 AM on 11/17/2010

Natural Gas can be made from organic waste at home and after extracting the natural gas the waste can then be fed to worms for the garden. Ever wonder what to do with doggie doo? You can make hydrogen at home as well. Mixing hydrogen at least 30% but no more than 50% with natural gas allows you to safely store (outdoors) your hydrogen which is otherwise quite difficult.

[cccoyote]

01:56 AM on 11/17/2010

The real deciding factor is the greed of the gas companies, think BP, Massey Energy, Exxon to see where this will lead. Think Fracking, taps that ignite with a lighter, health issues, pollution.
It is time to forget fossil fuels.

I remember when they hyped natural gas in an area with the cheapest electric rates in the nation. They got a lot of people to switch as the gas was priced competitively. Then wham, the price quadruples on gas as there is a "shortage". Naturally, there was no shortage, just a con job.

So, now the hype-a-thon has resumed with natural gas being green, a transitional fuel, we can run cars on it, blah, blah, blah.

As for cars using natural gas, you don't just drive up to the house and hook up a hose. The car must be retrofitted, compressed gas tanks installed and add weight, and the gas requires a special pump to compress it. It is not an inexpensive conversion.
As for emissions, natural gas is mostly methane and hardly emission friendly.

"However, CNG vehicles tend to have higher greenhouse gas emissions than hybrids. The CNG version of the Civic, for example, emits nearly 30 percent more greenhouse gases than the Civic Hybrid during a typical year of driving."
http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center-article_114/

They are already starting the lies to promote desire and use. Don't buy into it.

[Mark Duch]

09:26 AM on 11/17/2010

It's a lot better than electricity, which at this point is largely produced by coal, the worst carbon emitter. Natural gas and nuclear are going to be your keys to getting off oil and coal, respectively. Wind and solar are nice, but never going to play more than a couple percentage points of the energy mix.

[Vampire Blues]

09:45 AM on 11/17/2010

just because you could light your faucet on fire on the day the cameras were there, doesn't mean you couldn't also light it on fire thirty years earlier.

there's a lot of shallow gas in Appalachia. it's why the has always tasted bad there.

[dubbleplusgood]

01:59 PM on 11/17/2010

natgas is NON-RENEWABLE (finite) and EXTREMELY POLLUTING - the TWO THINGS WE NEED TO STOP DOING.

renewable energies are the answer.

[ColetteRae]

12:30 AM on 11/17/2010

After watching 60 Minutes last Sunday, I don't know. There's pros and cons, but the cons are frightening.

[dubbleplusgood]

02:03 PM on 11/17/2010

NatGas is a con. I'm sickened and saddened by how many posters here continue to be suckered by the heavily funded propaganda campaigns led by NRE (non-renewable energy) corporations. America has polluted it's water heavily already and wants to finish the job with this insane nonsense.

[RealityBaseCamp]

03:25 PM on 12/03/2010

But they showed windmills! It must be good!

Right?

[silverwolf13]

10:45 PM on 11/16/2010

Natural gas is basically methane, a greenhouse gas much more potent than CO2. James Lovelock, in Gaia's Revenge, estimates that if there is a 1% leakage natural gas will produce as much greenhouse effect as burning coal.

[Vampire Blues]

09:46 AM on 11/17/2010

that's the same type of science global warming deniers use

[Lance-a-little]

02:38 PM on 11/19/2010

@Vampire Blues: Cradle-to-grave comparison of total greenhouse gas emissions is not "the same type of science global warming deniers use." Proponents of unconventional natural gas from shale argue, rightly, that it is cleaner burning than coal, but the commonly cited "50% cleaner" figure is misleading. 1) It does not account for production, a major omission in the case of shale gas, which industrializes whole landscapes and has the emissions to match; and 2) It does not account for fugitive methane emissions. Methane is 20 times more potent a GHG than CO2, so a little escape goes a long way. And methane is widely acknowledged by experts to escape a lot. Dr. Robert Howarth of Cornell U. is about to publish an article arguing that, when these factors are considered, unconventional shale gas is worse from a climate change perspective than coal.

[thereisonlyoneparty]

03:25 AM on 12/09/2010

You realize that methane is released from the earth all the time, right?

Big releases cause some major problems (mass extinctions), but that generally things just go on like normal.

[MattPatrick]

07:49 PM on 11/16/2010

I believe that the best thing that can be done with natural gas is to convert the trucking fleet to natural gas as we are converting the transportation fleet to electric. Get cars off oil. Natural gas is still a fossil fuel but it burns cleaner than oil and we have a lot of it so that much is a step in the right direction.

[Mark Duch]

09:27 AM on 11/17/2010

How dare you display knowledge and reason? You're going to get shouted down here!

[jsarets]

10:06 AM on 11/17/2010

Good thinking, but if we're retooling the trucking fleet for an alternative fuel, dimethyl ether (DME) is the fuel of choice.  DME is a liquefied gas that handles like propane but at a lower pressure.  It's the lightest and cleanest possible fuel for diesel engines with a cetane rating of 55.  Only the fuel tanks, pumps, and injectors have to be modified to burn DME in an existing diesel engine.

DME is readily produced from synthesis gas, as mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen that results from the anaerobic pyrolysis of organic matter and water.  The process is very similar to the industrial production of methanol.  These plants typically use natural gas as the feedstock, but they could be equipped to consume any organic waste.

So natural gas and/or organic waste could be "upgraded" to DME, which is the ideal fuel for the engines in the existing truck fleet.  It's much easier to handle and store than compressed natural gas (CNG) or especially liquefied natural gas (LNG).  

But perhaps more importantly, in order to convert the trucking fleet to CNG, they'd need to replace their compression-ignition diesel engines with spark-ignition (gasoline) engines.  That's a lot of melting down engine blocks and forging new ones.  Not a very smooth transition.

[MattPatrick]

10:42 AM on 11/17/2010

Thanks for the information, I will definitely look into it.

[mioffe]

06:45 PM on 11/16/2010

mothergrace 3 hours ago (3:52 PM) 463 Fans
Become a fan Unfan
"Michael Ioffe

Author Biography

My name is Michael Ioffe. I retired 5 years ago. To entertain myself I started studying global warming, peak oil production, and weathers disasters in USA. I found in my opinion solutions, which could bring huge profit and at the same time reduce influence this entire phenomenon on mankind. I haven’t experience to write, my English is not so perfect, and at the same time I haven’t money to hire professional writer. Maybe I am wrong, but I think that in this case subjects are more important than my poor English and writing abilities. My deep apology to everybody, who will have courage to read my book.

May I ask what your educational background is that you disagree with 97% of the climate scientists?

Also, this is not the place to shill your book."
Dear mothergrace, sorry that I only right now saw your questions.
BS in Physics, 5 years work as teacher of Physics in High School, 25 years as Designer Engineer including 20 in company with 15,000employee, 11 patents, and more than 6 years studying climate change, peak oil production, weather disaster and economy of USA and the world.

Climate change theory in form how it written in most books, reports and posts making huge mistakes about properties of water, convection forces on continents.

[mioffe]

07:00 PM on 11/16/2010

Before writing a book I wrote more than 1000 posts in site of Chevron company and around 1100 post in The Huffington post.
I am not looking for profit.
I am sure that I am right and if you will look on all this situation from my point of view, I am sure you will come to the same conclussion

[BluePhantom2]

10:03 PM on 11/16/2010

Facts don't have a point af view. And bloging is some how a credential?

[OkieMon]

06:24 PM on 11/16/2010

safe drilling? definately an oxymoron......

[Vampire Blues]

09:47 AM on 11/17/2010

how many people do you think get killed installing wind turbines?
or driving?

[OkieMon]

11:31 AM on 11/17/2010

half a million cancer deaths last year with a majority induced by environmental carcinogens like those produced by burning fossil fuels.......

[joroline]

06:21 PM on 11/16/2010

Natural gas beats burning oil or coal, but it still requires burning which releases carbon. Second, its extraction en masse requires hydrofracking which requires ejecting chemicals into the ground. these chemicals got around EPA under Bush. that is changing now. The fact is, in the marcelles shale area of PA, NY and W VA, people are getting sick, water from people’s taps occasionally can be lit on fire and (despite Halliburton’s assurance to us) there is a major threat to the ground and surface water which provides drinking water for both the NY and Philly Metro areas (which in not previously exempt would likely in cases violate the clean drinking water act). The waste generated also overwhelms (largely small and rural) wastewater treatment facilities in the drilling areas (which if not previously exempt would likely in cases violate the clean water act). Given the value of water and the costs of potential damage, risk assessment 101 would say this is a bad idea. Finally, gas typically is piped into homes through aging subsurface infrastructure which (not so long ago in Cali) blew up a neighborhood and does so sporadically across the country.

Clearly, solar, wind, thermal and tidal energies make more long term sense. However, keep in mind that these too will have adverse environmental impacts in their implementation at any meaningful scale. Those fighting wind farms for whatever reason should turn their attention to the hydrofracking debate.

[joroline]

06:29 PM on 11/16/2010

i forgot to mention the "american rivers" (a nonproftit devoted to rivers) recently voted the Delaware as the most threatened river in the country due to hydrofracking for natural gas. google it.

[bogey1]

07:15 PM on 11/16/2010

great, now people will need to drive their natural gas powered cars to buy drinking water

[bogey1]

07:22 PM on 11/16/2010

yeah, solar, wind, thermal and tidal are freely renewable, which means not as much profit for corporations

as for environmental impacts, i guess those ocean/lake front properties will have their million dollar views "impacted" by looking at wind towers

as for solar, large stretches of unused desert will be "impacted" with solar panels

so much to tolerate for cheaper, cleaner, non terrorist supporting energy, but how are those rich oil companies supposed to buy their Lear jets every 6 months?

[devildog21]

05:06 PM on 11/16/2010

There is only one reason we aren't pushing hard for solar panels on every rooftop. Because by doing so we could virtually eliminate the need for energy production and someone ALWAYS has to get rich in this process. Combine electric cars with that and we can turn off the oil spigots completely (or nearly so).

Please don't respond that the technology isn't here yet. We've had the technology since the 70's and it has gotten much better in the decades since.

[krz2]

05:40 PM on 11/16/2010

This is why marijuana can't be legalized

[BluePhantom2]

10:10 PM on 11/16/2010

Yea it all starts to break down with the "Every rooftop" thing. How many roofs times the cost of solar panels plus installation. Who is going to get the bill? Solar is great for new construction but gets real expensive in retrofits.

[jbtex]

09:02 PM on 11/16/2010

I was thinking about this just yesterday....I think you are a bit optomistic. What I was thinking was can I put panels on my roof to power my house. I didn't come up with an answer, but I believe the answer might be a conditional "yes" depending on the season. Could you do the same thing with a skyscraper? Well, there is a lot less roof per cubic feet of space, so I think no would be the answer.
You say there is "only one reason" why we aren't pushing hard - I assume you are talking about the profit motive. If so, I agree that may be why there isn't a whole lot of effort. But that isn't the only reason solar isnt there yet. There is a real problem with payback time for solar systems. Right now I think you will find that nobody will warranty a system for much longer than it takes for it to pay for itself. In short, it still costs too much for most people, eventhough the "fuel" is free. I can't verify that the technology hasn't got much better, but I think you'll find the cost has come down, and it will eventually come down even more, at which point we may be able to depend less on other sources. One other possibility, and I will vote with you, is for the government to sponsor a crash program to accelerate conversion. But you know how that goes.

[devildog21]

11:17 AM on 11/17/2010

Initially, there need to be tax breaks and low or no interest loans available. The more people who start using them, the cheaper they will get. We have a home here in Southern Wisconsin that sends excess energy to the local power company, so the technology is there. Another thing that hasn't happened that needs to happen is mandating solar in new home construction.

Our governments are in bed with the oil, coal and natural gas industries so they have no interest in truly developing renewable energy in any serious way. When the POTUS says he actually believes in the myth that is "clean coal" you can be sure that he is not serious about solar or other sustainable solutions.

[garyg210]

04:02 PM on 11/16/2010

Rather than invest a lot more in natural gas, energy research and development should focus on hydrogen. Limitless supply. Easily liberated. The technological means to turn it into a reasonably safe and clean energy source are already there. They just need to be engineered into the product stream. I suspect that one reason this is not attractive to the powerful energy elite and their government lackeys is because, once developed properly, hydrogen energy will come from myriad distribution points, making energy independence off the grid quite feasible. That will be the end of Big Energy.

[mioffe]

04:10 PM on 11/16/2010

To receive hydrogen from water we must spend a lott of energy, put hydrogen in special box under pressure and use them to move heavy cars with real efficiency less than one percent.

It is wastefull direction and energy elite has nothing to do with reality.
Sorry, garyg210.

[BlackbirdHighway]

06:23 PM on 11/16/2010

Virtually all hydrogen is produced from natural gas, so saying use hydrogen instead of natural gas doesn't make any sense at all. It's like saying stop drilling for crude oil and use gasoline instead.

[Mark Duch]

09:31 AM on 11/17/2010

Exactly. Hydrogen is not a source of energy but a mere transmission method at this point. To use hydrogen is to use natural gas. And to use wind is to use natural gas, for a different reason--wind needs backups--in the form of old natural gas plants. Doh....