‘A Natural Choice’
The WashPo comes out with an editorial in support of natural gas:
Existing gas-fired plants are running at only about 25 percent capacity, in part because many are switched on only when demand spikes. The Congressional Research Service reports that doubling the use of existing plants could replace about a third of coal-fired power, getting America a third of the way to its goal for 2020. For reasons of infrastructure, that might be too optimistic a scenario. But BP — which has a stake in natural gas — estimates that retiring the 80 dirtiest coal plants and replacing them with gas-fired power would get America 10 percent of the way to its 2020 emissions target and increase domestic gas consumption by only 5 percent.
I’m not exactly sure how those numbers at the end add up — take away 80 coal plants, replace them with gas-fired plants, and our consumption of gas only goes up 5 percent? Seems a stretch.
Nonetheless, there’s no doubting that the “green energy” agenda cannot be about just shutting down everything that burns a type of fuel to produce electricity. A green-energy policy still requires extraction and generation of something. Natural gas might be a solid bet.
Natural gas facilitates windfarming for firming of course, and we’re still going to have to rely on fossil-fuel generation while we transition. We’d be hypocrites if we said shut down Colstrip overnight, and we have to have a reasoned and practical approach to emphasize renewable energy development, as right now, fossil fuels have us all by the ’short hairs’, but natural gas is a versatile fuel. Investment needs to migrate – with incentives – to renewable energy development, jobs and continued R & D NOW, before we’re so far behind China and India that we can’t catch up.
I remind Americans about ‘Sputnik’, and that was our ‘wake-up call’ to ACTION and Neil Armstrong’s first-step on the Moon.
Fly over the country some time at night. It looks like Las Vegas! What’s needed is a new attitude. Everything does NOT need to be lit up at night. It’s a terrible waste of energy. A conservation ethic would go a long way to solving energy needs. What is so wrong with darkness? Nothing I’d say.
Darkness approval rating is high among thieves, robbers and larcenists.