From the University of Manchester
US CO2 emissions from domestic energy have declined by 8.6% since a peak in 2005, the equivalent of 1.4% per year.
However, the researchers warn that more than half of the recent emissions reductions in the power sector may be displaced overseas by the trade in coal.
Dr John Broderick, lead author on the report from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, comments: “Research papers and newspaper column inches have focussed on the relative emissions from coal and gas.
“However, it is the total quantity of CO2 from the energy system that matters to the climate. Despite lower-carbon rhetoric, shale gas is still a carbon intensive energy source. We must seriously consider whether a so-called “golden age” would be little more than a gilded cage, locking us into a high-carbon future.”
Professor Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre notes: “Since 2008 when the shale gas supply became significant, there has been a large increase in US coal exports. This increases global emissions as the UK, Europe and Asia are burning the coal instead. Earlier Tyndall analysis suggests that the role for gas in a low carbon transition is extremely limited, with shale gas potentially diverting substantial funds away from genuinely low and zero carbon alternatives”
This Co-operative commissioned report “Has US Shale Gas Reduced CO2 Emissions?” is the third on shale gas from the Tyndall Centre – and builds on several years of research and submissions to the UK and European Parliaments as well as the International Energy Agency.
Chris Shearlock, Sustainable Development Manager at The Co-operative, said: “The proponents of shale gas have always claimed that it is a lower carbon alternative to coal. However, this is only true if the coal it displaces remains in the ground and isn’t just burnt elsewhere. Without a cap on global carbon emissions, shale gas is burnt in addition to other fossil fuels, increasing total emissions.”
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Dr Broderick, as lead author, might have also considered where the surplus US coal output is being exported to, and at what prices, and what effect its availability and cheapness is having on traditional suppliers to particular markets.
From Manchester, UK, he doesn’t have to look very far beyond the end of his nose to find a marked rise in US imports since late 2010 and coal prices down 30% since January this year.
UK coal-fired generators have benefited from the co-incidence of low coal/high gas prices and have been contributing twice the supply from gas-fired stations for much of 2012 (not that consumers contracted to suppliers with a slice of coal capacity see any price difference compared with customers of all-gas generators).
On the up-side, at least this has happened while UK still has the c-f capacity on line that has to close by 2015 (and some of it much sooner, having exhausted its allowed hours), otherwise we’d already be… I was going to say “toast”, but even that requires more energy than UK may have before long.
Its almost as if the Germans (a) stopped their nuclear program and (b) refused fracking gas and then as a consequence (c) now ordered 23 new coal fired power stations, just in order that they could (a) buy the new coal they need from the USA, so they can (b) allow environmentalists to argue that USA nonconventional gas production is just shipping CO2 production abroad.
That’s about how twisted, dishonest, cynical and muddle-headed these people are. In the end they just confuse and deceive themselves.
If the watermelons really cared about the climate and CO2 emissions they would support a crash program to perfect nuclear fusion. However, when the Clinton administration came in in 1992 they actually exited the United States from the ITER program. Bush brought us back in until 2007 when the Pelosi led congress cut our contribution by over 50%.
They don’t want a zero carbon future, they want a zero energy future. Humans are vermin that need to be culled for the good of the planet.