![natural-gas[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/natural-gas1.jpg?quality=83)
Eric Worrall writes: A new study published in Nature has revealed that switching to cheap Natural Gas will not reduce CO2 significantly, because all that cheap energy will stimulate the economy so much that we will all use more energy.
According to the abstract;
“The most important energy development of the past decade has been the wide deployment of hydraulic fracturing technologies that enable the production of previously uneconomic shale gas resources in North America1. If these advanced gas production technologies were to be deployed globally, the energy market could see a large influx of economically competitive unconventional gas resources. The climate implications of such abundant natural gas have been hotly debated. Some researchers have observed that abundant natural gas substituting for coal could reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Others have reported that the non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions associated with shale gas production make its lifecycle emissions higher than those of coal. Assessment of the full impact of abundant gas on climate change requires an integrated approach to the global energy–economy–climate systems, but the literature has been limited in either its geographic scope9, 10 or its coverage of greenhouse gases. Here we show that market-driven increases in global supplies of unconventional natural gas do not discernibly reduce the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions or climate forcing. Our results, based on simulations from five state-of-the-art integrated assessment models of energy–economy–climate systems independently forced by an abundant gas scenario, project large additional natural gas consumption of up to +170 per cent by 2050.
The impact on CO2 emissions, however, is found to be much smaller (from −2 per cent to +11 per cent), and a majority of the models reported a small increase in climate forcing (from −0.3 per cent to +7 per cent) associated with the increased use of abundant gas. Our results show that although market penetration of globally abundant gas may substantially change the future energy system, it is not necessarily an effective substitute for climate change mitigation policy.”
Source: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13837.html
Some people might be concerned that we are passing up an opportunity if we follow the advice of the study, but we don’t really need cheap energy to help grow the economy. After all, if the economy sags, our politicians can stimulate the economy by printing new money.
http://www.anonymousartofrevolution.com/2013/06/they-had-to-cut-down-all-trees-to-print.html
President Obama understands the “danger” of cheap energy…
One of my all time favorite videos.
It always makes me shake my head and ask: ..What kind of man would say such a thing?
@klem,
A very, very good question.
A man intent on destroying America’s energy infrastructure, for a corrupt mistaken environmental goal,
What kind of people would vote for a man who said such a thing?
What does it say of the elected that are afraid of their electorate armed, be it with guns or facts?
A man who banks on being elected by complete morons.
But you could also take this research to mean that by using fracking we can provide much more benefit to the population without significantly increasing the adverse impact of greenhouse gases (if there are any adverse impacts that is)
win, win situation, stimulates the economy and creates more co2.
How is this a scientific study? This is a white paper, at best. The degradation of Nature as a science journal continues…
So the basic sin here is to stimulate the economy “too much”, did they specify what, in their view, the right level of stimulation is? Or do they prefer the economy not to grow at all?
This looks like a rather stupid rear-guard action in the old struggle against fracking, a battle long lost. What is their alternative? Will they run more Hansenian death trains and call back the freighters that carry US coal to Europe?
One thing is reasonable clear; if they want and achieve economic stagnation in order to save the world, their jobs will be a luxury society no longer can afford.
The perfect level of stimulation is 0%. Ask them.
Actually, they would prefer -100% stimulation. ANY economic activity is bad. Ask them.
To them, all technology is evil, all industry is double evil, and all efforts to get products and goods to the buying public are demonized. They think they wnat to take us back to 1790 levels of technology, before the Industrial revolution, when every one worked on farms and sang Kumbaya every evening around the farmer’s campfire.
They don’t care that that world could barely support 1 billion people, nor that China tried to move hundreds of millions of people onto farms in the 1960s and that that cost millions of lives. Their aim would do the same thing, only at a more extreme level. 7 billion people cannot live on farms and prance around meadows and sing with the singing animals and birds, ala “Bambi”.
ah, written win- win .
Reblogged this on CraigM350 and commented:
“Our latest preprogrammed simulations, with a predetermined outcome that co2 is pollution and controls all, has told us once again poor people must still die but it’s perfectly fine if the priesthood and their government overlords continue to reap all the benefits
Sincerely
The Climate Science Eugenists.
As has been pointed out earlier, we are now seeing the true colours of environmentalism – it is to halt and reverse the development of humanity.
So the question is: ‘What is the correct amount of energy for an average human to use in a day? Let’s work in HorsePower/Hour, because that produces an easy comparison with history.
5? (a typical ploughed field with 1 horse)
500? (a decent car journey)
5000? ( a flight in an airliner)
5m? (rather arbitrary figure for a space rocket)
5bn? (completely arbitrary figure for a fusion-powered teleporter, yet to be invented)
5tn? (?)
…?
In other words, where is it correct for humanity to stop?
So inflicting poverty on the population is the best way to fight Climate Change.?
So the Editors of Nature Magazine will they publish their Tax Returns online and lets all see how much salary they are happy to pay themselves.
Face it, these are evil people, pure and simple. They don’t think they are evil, but they are.
It’s a bit like this statement from the Tyndall Centre a couple of years ago, regarding UK shale gas
even if shale gas were to substitute for imported gas in the UK, leading to no rise in emissions, it is likely that this gas would just be used elsewhere
So what do they think will happen if we build windmills and stop importing gas?
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/the-real-reason-we-cant-develop-shale-gas/
The Schengen treaty and the Maastricht treaty are ignored all across the EU, and constantly broken by dozens of EU member states.
Nobody would bat an eyelid if the same happened to the Copenhagen accord.
Looking at how the EU upholds its own rules, I tend to think the EU has already ceased to exist.
This should be taken one step further, stating the observed obvious. As people’s standards of living improved during the late 20th and early 21st centuries global fertility rates have dropped, and continue to drop. Some say the world’s population will stabilize before 2075 and drop thereafter.
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/05/population-bomb-no-theres-been-a-massive-global-drop-in-human-fertility-that-has-gone-largely-unnoticed-by-the-media/
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/global-population-10-billion-not-so-fast
Excellent point. Thus cheaper energy eventually lowers the population as well as enriching it, which prevents wars as well.
The trace Co2 atmospheric gas.
That nature magazine see as so bad.
Makes nature green with health.
As usual the models are wrong again. Look at the data. CO2 emissions in the US dropped from 6 billion tons in 2005 to 5 billion tons in 2012 due to fracking. When reality is against you, use models to create fantasy.
Good point.
But reality is the enemy of the extremist.
Yep! USA CO2 emissions drop more then any other developed country. All that to shale gas on private and state land, not federal land, and in spite of the federal government.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2012/12/07/surprise-side-effect-of-shale-gas-boom-a-plunge-in-u-s-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
Yet the use of natural gas has not had the positive affect it should have due to government climate policy (“…under my plan electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket”) preventing the full affect of cheaper energy from manifesting.
US Emissions are down. You never hear that from the climate scientists (actually we should just start calling them sociologists).
http://www.technologyreview.com/sites/default/files/images/annual.changex519.png
The main reason for that decline is Electricity Generation emissions are down.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/images/indicator_figures/us-ghg-emissions-figure2-2014.png
And the main reason Electricity Generation is down is due to Natural Gas electricity generation. Solar and Wind made up a tiny 4.4% in 2013.
http://s14.postimg.org/bnejp45a9/US_Elect_Gen_S_W_and_NG_2013.png
Calling them “criminals” (rather than “sociologists”) is more accurate.
Bill Illlis – good post.
I suggest it proves the subject Nature study is nonsense.
Regards, Allan
From 2009 to today, the reason the US economy hasn’t done better and expanded above (a lack luster) +2% GDP growth per year is what must be called…. The Obama Effect.
Ah, life is funny at times. The Germans stimulated their economy with money printing (see http://www.usagold.com/germannightmare.html ) and scroll down to the photo of a housewife cooking with cash, so to speak. One would think the climate “cry wolfers” would demand the world stop printing money since using the “biomass” directly would be more enviro friendly.
Obtw, October 19 is the date in 1781 where the Brits surrendered at Yorktown ending the Revolutionary War. You can play this:
the lyrics are somehow appropriate but we’re the Brits this time around.
cedarhill
October 19, 2014 at 3:48 am
“Ah, life is funny at times. The Germans stimulated their economy with money printing”
The Papiermark was used to pay for imports, as Germany was running low on Gold due to the Versailles treaty shackles. The Reichsbank collapsed the currency on purpose.
The collapse of a paper currency used to pay for imports does only happen once the trust of the exporters vanishes and they do not accept the currency anymore.
That’s why the USD is still strong.
Electricity from coal is quite cheap at present and, other than EPA regulations, there are no forces present or predicted in the future other than normal inflation that would make it notably more expensive. How is it that cheap coal can’t cause the business increases predicted for cheap gas? How can the use of gas alone be the issue? It is the regulation of coal that is the issue.
There’s a fictitious “War on Women” and a very real “War on Coal”. The first is publicized while the second is not, for obvious reasons.
Its deeply disappointing to see Nature publishing this political drivel masquerading as science. Shame on them.
Nature is owned by the German Holtzbrinck group. I don’t know about their policies, but they are in Stuttgart, in Baden-Wuerttemberg, which is currently ruled by the Greens.
My electricity bill in France is 87% nuclear.They export electricity to their neighbours at a premium. The socialist idiot in charge wants to switch to wind and other renewables at immense cost to a failing economy. We are truly led by imbeciles.
Not believing in the CO2 myth and so not concerned about emissions, to me it is a shame that gas is being used to generate electricity when coal is available. Gas is best suited for domestic use and industrial heating processes while coal can be burnt in a reduced number of locations where any pollution can be controlled.
Excellent point. Coal can be and is often burned cleanly and safely.
The climate obsessed have fibbed about coal so much that too few people realize this is the case.
Natural gas is also an important chemical feedstock from everything from methanol to industrial diamonds. Exxon and Gigamethanol together have developed a process to turn natural gas into gasoline. In addition there are two GTL plants in the planning stages to be built in Louisiana that will turn natural gas into diesel, jet fuel, and lubricants.
One outcome of the fact that the climate obsessed dominate the public square so much is that they talk to themselves a lot.
And in doing so reveal themselves for who they are.
“Our results show that although market penetration of globally abundant gas may substantially change the future energy system, it is not necessarily an effective substitute for climate change mitigation policy.”
Whoever said it was?
Are they proposing that a world wide depression is the best ‘climate change mitigation policy’?
Do they mean, like, penicillin stimulated population growth?
Quite apart from the issue of fracking, it’s full steam ahead for the worlds largest ‘ship’ which will be collecting gas from offshore Australia:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/12/05/article-2518943-19DB86C800000578-456_964x601.jpg
And the Japanese are looking into mining methane-hydrates.
I wonder anti-carbonites have a model for how depressed they are going to be? They need another hobby.
I forgot to add that the Shell website says:
Key word:
I am currently working on the second …. Abadi FLNG offshore Indonesia. Based on the Prelude design but adapted for the leaner gas composition. It will be the largest manmade structure to move acrosss the face of the earth.
And here in Australia we’ve just been informed that gas prices for domestic use will increase by several hundred $’s in the next few years all the while we have these massive resourses just off our shores.
That’s incredible. See the number of stairs hanging off the side in front and two tower cranes on the other.
Jeez, it will increase GDP. We wouldn’t want that, would we? Imagine what the proletariat would do with all that wealth! We can’t let them get rich; only the illuminati should be allowed to possess capital. Everyone else must be dependent on the largess of the noble classes for their very existence. Otherwise, they can’t be controlled, and who knows what they might do! They might think things that their superiors don’t like!
At least the truth is out … Reduced CÒ2 or a growing economy … But there is a simpler way to achieve their goals ….. Just increase interest rates……
With sufficient funding I’d like to do a new study for publication in Nature which will show how lack of stimulation of the economy will actually increase, not decrease, greenhouse gases. Using state of the art press releases and news coverage (um, I’m stretching the term ‘state of the art’ in reference to news coverage but please bear with me) I have developed a model that demonstrates the correlation between the increase in the number of greenhouse gas producing incumbent fund raising trips prior to an election, and the poor economic performance produced by said incumbent and his party. My model will show how these fundraising trips [which comprise of at least two jumbo jets (essentially to transport one person), backup fighter jets, cargo jets (to transport additional vehicular accommodations), additional jet flights for an advance guard, a 20-40 vehicle motorcade (which consists of armored luxury vehicles well in excess of the weight of the largest SUV on the planet) to transport essentially one person from the airport to the multi-billionaire’s mansion (wherein the fundraising activity will be commenced)], along with the disruption and increase in congestion for all the unfortunate commuters who happen to be in the path of this juggernaut, will actually increase greenhouse gas emissions far beyond any decrease accompanied by poor economic performance. My model will not show the increase in greenhouse gases resultant from the other billionaires travel to the meeting of the aforementioned incumbent at the aforementioned billionaire’s mansion for $30,000 a plate dinners since the number for the incumbent alone is already almost too large to compute.