The Washington Post – one of the most influential newspapers in the United States and on Capitol Hill – had an editorial on Sunday titled: “A Natural Choice” which extols the benefits of using natural gas instead of coal for generating electricity. The editorial looks at natural gas from the environmental point-of-view. It begins:
“In America’s climate debate, one of the most promising developments of recent months has been the growing recognition in Washington that natural gas may play a key role in curbing carbon emissions.”
The editorial points to the recent analyses of the vast amount of natural gas contained in the shale fields in North America and says,
With climate-change legislation still stalled in Congress, nudging gas forward is something that the government can do quickly and relatively cheaply to meet its medium-term emissions goals if current trends persist.
Echoing a new story line in Washington, the Washington Post editors make the case for increasing the amount of electricity which is produced by natural gas – and shutting down older, less efficient, and more polluting coal-fired plants.
[E]xisting 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 [emissions] goal for 2020.
There is now so much natural gas available in North America that using it for “base load” electricity generation instead of reserving it for “peaking” when demand for power is highest, now makes economic and environmental sense.
To read the entire editorial in the Washington Post, Click HERE.
— The Pickens Team