{"id":32552,"date":"2018-03-20T06:28:20","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T11:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32552"},"modified":"2018-03-20T06:28:56","modified_gmt":"2018-03-20T11:28:56","slug":"natural-gas-is-under-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32552","title":{"rendered":"Natural Gas Is Under Attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

Natural Gas Is Under Attack<\/a><\/h3>\n\"Natural<\/picture>\n
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Natural gas has been billed as the key \u201cbridge fuel\u201d that will help the energy transition, replacing coal while buying time for renewable energy to scale up. However, even as gas is triumphing over coal in the U.S., it is increasingly under attack by policymakers.<\/p>\n

Gas claims a carbon emissions profile that is half that of coal, and in terms of local pollution \u2013 sulfur, mercury and particulates \u2013 natural gas is a tremendous upgrade relative to coal. However, even as CO2 emissions are much lower, there are questions over the climate benefits if lower CO2 is offset by higher methane emissions<\/a> from gas, which typically come from the drilling and extraction of natural gas, and its shipment via pipeline and local distribution lines.<\/p>\n

With the coal industry a dead man walking, environmental groups have turned their sights on natural gas as an enemy of the climate. Recently, the efforts have logged some impressive achievements, forcing gas on the back foot in several states.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s state Public Utilities Commission recently pressed Pacific Gas & Electric to build new renewable energy and energy storage<\/a> to replace three gas-fired power plants. The state\u2019s largest utility also said it has no plans to build new gas-fired generation and other gas projects have been put on ice as the state tightens the screws on the gas industry.<\/p>\n

This stems from the state\u2019s effort at sourcing a greater portion of its electricity from renewable energy. California has mandated that 50 percent of its electricity to come from renewable energy by 2030. California is leading the clean energy shift in many ways, but it still has a ways to go in order to get there \u2013 it only generates about a third of its electricity from clean energy right now. \u201cYou\u2019re not going to get anywhere if you are just adding more and more gas,\u201d Robert B. Weisenmiller, chairman of the California Energy Commission, told the Wall Street Journal<\/a>. \u201cAt some point soon we\u2019ll be permitting the last gas plant in California.\u201d<\/p>\n

The policy backlash against natural gas in green-tinged California may not be surprising, but the hostile reception to gas is popping up in other, less obvious locations. In an incredibly notable development, last week Arizona regulators dismissed the long-term plans from utilities in the state to build gas and ordered them to consider renewable energy. The regulators also issued a surprise 9-month moratorium on new gas plants larger than 150 megawatts.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Natural Gas Is Under Attack Natural gas has been billed as the key \u201cbridge fuel\u201d that will help the energy transition, replacing coal while buying time for renewable energy to scale up. However, even as gas is triumphing over coal in the U.S., it is increasingly under attack by policymakers. Gas claims a carbon emissions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5930,328,554,6010,5332,674],"class_list":["post-32552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-energy-transition","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-natural-gas","tag-nick-cunningham","tag-oilprice-com","tag-renewable-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32553,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32552\/revisions\/32553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}