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Comment by sword_smith | Hacker News Reader

People worried about rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere should note that gas is not just out competing nuclear power but also coal which emits twice the amount of CO2 per energy unit produced. All in all it is probably a net positive wrt. decreasing CO2 emissions.

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The massive natural gas boom has increased US methane emissions. Given methane’s vastly increased greenhouse potency (albeit for a shorter time) it may be possible that the big switch we are seeing to gas isn’t actually an improvement. I’d like to see something that takes these methane emissions of the fracking, extraction, shipping, storing into account when comparing natural gas to coal.

This is not accurate. US methane emissions have fallen, even as natural gas production has increased. From 1990 to 2017, total emissions of methane decreased by 15.8 percent. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019-04/documents... See page 2-2.

There are a lot of articles around about how the natural gas boom is releasing methane. So unless that’s all untrue then it’s fair to say it’s increased our emissions. We would have had lower methane emissions if we hadn’t started the shale gas boom and big switch from coal.

So in evaluating coal vs natural gas in the US we commonly see the number quoted that it released 50% less CO2 at the pipe. But we never see the amount of methane included that otherwise wouldn’t be released. I would like to see something that compares the total effect of all greenhouse gases from coal vs natural gas not just the CO2 number. Gas may still be better. But it just obviously wouldn’t be the 50% that everyone loves to quote.

I agree it is a positive for gas to supplant coal (at least simplistically, from a pure plant emissions perspective). It's the lesser of those two evils. But we've still got to cease use of gas for electricity at some point.

However, it's not a net positive for carbon emissions if it replaces nuclear, which is what's described in the article.

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