Amid cheers and explosions, Florida Power & Light (FPL) demolished a 1960s-era oil-fired power plant on July 16. The Port Everglades Power Plant in Hollywood, Fla. was the company's third power station to be demolished this year, according to a press release.
FPL plans to replace the Hollywood plant with natural gas-fired plant, according to the Miami Herald.
30 percent of U.S. electricity generation now comes from natural gas, according to 2012 data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Petroleum power plants generate only one percent.
A June 2013 report from the non-profit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions notes that increased use of natural gas in the power sector is one of several factors contributing to decreased U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.
Yet the report also cautions that in the long term, the U.S. "cannot achieve the level of greenhouse gas emissions necessary to avoid the serious impacts of climate change by relying on natural gas alone."
Critics of natural gas development point to fugitive methane emissions during extraction and transportation of the fuel, and studies linking hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to groundwater contamination.
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