Gulf oil & gas disaster, lobbyists, Obama & huge threat of natural gas (methane) to Humanity & Biosphere
21 January 2011, 14:31, by Bill Heins
If you check the New York Times article cited as [8] above, you find that the the proper factor is not 72, but rather 25. That cuts the warming attributed to leaked natural gas by nearly 2/3, even before you apply Dr. Polya’s correction.
More important is how to view the escaped gas. We should view it as an opportunity rather than a threat.
Everyone agrees that as a fuel, natural gas is cleaner than others. If we sieze the opportunity to capture the escaping gas and use it for something, everybody wins: less warming, better fuel, less need to exploit other resources. If we instead say gas is bad, and try to eliminate its use, we have to make up the difference with something else.
The companies that are losing the gas have a strong incentive to capture it and sell it (which was the point of the NY Times article). This is a problem that holds its own solution.
If you check the New York Times article cited as [8] above, you find that the the proper factor is not 72, but rather 25. That cuts the warming attributed to leaked natural gas by nearly 2/3, even before you apply Dr. Polya’s correction.
More important is how to view the escaped gas. We should view it as an opportunity rather than a threat.
Everyone agrees that as a fuel, natural gas is cleaner than others. If we sieze the opportunity to capture the escaping gas and use it for something, everybody wins: less warming, better fuel, less need to exploit other resources. If we instead say gas is bad, and try to eliminate its use, we have to make up the difference with something else.
The companies that are losing the gas have a strong incentive to capture it and sell it (which was the point of the NY Times article). This is a problem that holds its own solution.