![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
So, we should oppose Natural gas exploitation because it doesn’t leave us poor enough?
All climatologists are created equal, however some climatologists (clebrity warmists) are created more equal than others. (adapted from Orwells Animal Farm)
Are these idiots seriously trying to tell us that burning wood or dung to provide light and cooking heat is more efficient than providing modern energy such as natural gas or electricity. Are they really that blinkered.
In all the blogs/posts/media reports nobody ever states the total carbon footprint of manufacturing, installing and maintaining a wind farm and how many years it will take to ‘repay’ all that carbon. I wouldnt be surprised to hear the word ‘never’ in that conversation, especially if clearing up environmental disasters in China (see the mails article reference above) are also properly taken into account
The UK is committed to a reduction of 80% of current CO2 emissions by 2050. How stupid is that?
Read EU Referendum: http://www.eureferendum.com/results.aspx?keyword=owen%20paterson
As usual, the French lead the way in dumb, this time from fear of nuclear, despite having produced almost all their electricity using that technology for many decades, without any problems. and with new designs that are 1000s of times safer than the completely safe nuclear plants they have been running all these years.
People can’t really be this stupid, now can they? Oh, yeah, I forgot …. we’re talking Frenchies – the guys who shipped all their Jews to the gas ovens and whose Arab masters are now forcing Jews to emigrate to Israel, a war zone, rather than stay in France. A pleasure to see their energy costs go up and guarantee what’s already happening – the state going bankrupt, along with like-minded union-controlled Italy and Greece. These countries are old, and some say senile.
A new one, and a fear for the ages : fear of an increased standard of living. Can’t have that – humans are evil and don’t deserve better.
A stimulated economy would be bad for us and we’re just too stupid to realize it.
Heaven forbid that the rest of us enjoy the elevated standard of living and freedom to travel that lower energy costs provide. That is reserved for our ruling elite and the wealthy like DiCaprio. These people are bringing back the feudal system, instead of land it’s energy. They can’t help themselves, it’s their nature.
What’s really ironic is the world has been on the path to real environmentalists’ nirvana. With technology advances, as in first world countries, humans have been moving into larger population areas freeing up land area that can now be put aside as nature reserves. Our population numbers have also stabilized. We can also produce more and more food on smaller amounts of land thus freeing up even more land. By moving the rest of the world into the same levels of technology they would also see the same changes.
But, what has the environmental movement done? They’ve pushed for ethanol which now requires much more land to produce the oil. They’ve pushed wind technology that also requires more land while killing millions of bats and birds. They’ve pushed for slower development in 3rd world countries which increases global population and the human footprint. They’ve demonized fossil fuels which increases the CO2 levels that also reduces the need for land to grow crops. The list goes on and on.
It seems people who call themselves environmentalists are doing more to harm the environment than any other group in the world.
Nature has alerted us to but one of the horrible effects of people having more money. And it gets worse : higher life expectancy, better health,better food, more leisure time. etc.
Is there no end to the horrors?
and still the long pause continues.
This was essentially the same argument made to claim that oil from the Alberta oil sands was “dirtier” than a straightforward technical analysis would suggest — that this oil would reduce oil prices, thus increasing the use of oil and increasing CO2 emissions.
Bollocks .Trying to dress up poverty as Climate Change mitigation.
“Poverty porn”
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Poverty porn, also known as development porn or famine porn, has been defined as ‘any type of media, be it written, photographed or filmed, which exploits the poor’s condition in order to generate the necessary sympathy for selling newspapers or increasing charitable donations or support for a given cause.'[1]
It is a term also used to explain when media is created not in order to generate sympathy, but to cause anger or outrage
And add to that also fashionably promote sustainable living and fighting climate change.
Im sure the Eco warriors would love to work 16 hours per day everyday in bare feet with no protective clothing in the baking sun without adequate water and food provision in the Dharavi slum outside the city of Mumbai municipal rubbish tip sorting through detritus to recycle plastic bags for less than 3 dollars per day.Nothing honorable about living in Squalor even if it is to save planet.
The US is on the verge of independence from offshore oil. This is news that I never thought I would hear. The doomers were out strong all through the 70’s when I was growing up. Oil wars were imminent. Economic stimulus is good news. Nature and their ‘useful Idiots” can’t change that. The future is bright but for the pall of the enviro-communists. They must be stopped!
“…effective substitute for climate change mitigation policy.”
An effective substitute is available. People call it “adaptation.”
It is interesting that so many of the commenters here have completely bought into the spin presented here that “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.”
I see nothing in the abstract of the paper that supports this spin whatsoever. Where are the comparisons of economic growth rates? Are they somewhere in the pay-walled paper that Eric Worrall has seen? Interesting that we have 132 comments on a website whose viewers characterize themselves as “skeptics” and nobody has questioned this spin (unless I missed one)!
Then, you missed my comments above.
Authors of this Nature Letter are completely biased to produce garbage out from their models.
I read through the Nature Letter in its entirety. It’s crap propaganda.
Joel in Tucson
Maybe only 131 Joel.
Please don’t include me, in any list of skeptics. I’m NOT a skeptic.
I’m quite sure they are wrong; as sure as I am that the sun will rise in the East tomorrow.
No one ever votes for anything which reduces his/her prosperity. Greens seem to ignore this with their bizarre efforts to return us to pre-industrial times. I very much doubt any of them would ask their parents to do the same, but they want everyone they don’t know to do this, which no human in the history of the world excepting H. David Thoreau has ever done…
joelshore says:
It is interesting that so many of the commenters here have completely bought into the spin presented here that “Natural Gas will not reduce CO2 significantly…&etc.
But who cares if CO2 is reduced or not? All available evidence supports the conjecture that ‘CO2 is a net benefit’. Scientific evidence supports it so thoroughly that it is now a testable hypothesis, and one which has never been falsified.
The whole debate is over CO2. But now it turns out that the rise in CO2 has not caused any global warming; because global warming stopped many years ago.
It turns out that the rise in CO2 is completely harmless, and it is beneficial for the biosphere. The planet is measurably greening as a direct result of more CO2.
So now what? Do we spend piles of tax money to ‘fix’ something which, it turns out, is completely harmless? And which also benefits us — and that is free of charge? Or do we acknowledge that the facts have changed, and therefore we must adapt to those facts?
Rational people will do the latter, while those working the system — the rent-seekers — promote the former approach. They want that money to spend. Scientific evidence does not matter to them in the least.
I wonder which side Joel supports? The rational folks? Or the scoundrels?
When the “rational folks” mean the CATO Institute, Heartland, Heritage, etc. and the “scoundrels” mean the IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences [and analogous bodies in all the G8+5 nations], the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the councils of most major scientific societies like AGU, AMS, …, then I prefer the “scoundrels”. [For one thing, the “scoundrels” understand the difference between a long-term trend and short-term fluctuations.]
After ignoring the fact that CO2 is harmless and beneficial to the biosphere, the old Appeal to Authority logical fallacy is trotted out.
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No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority.
― Robert A. Heinlein
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The only Authority worth listening to is Planet Earth, and she says global warming has stopped.
That’s good enough for me.
The “I am the only arbiter of what the data is saying” fallacy is trotted out, whereby any science that doesn’t confirm with one’s ideological preference is dismissed by appealing to oneself as the sole authority and dismissing any actual authorities on the subject that disagree with you.
Rebound effect?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_energy_use#Rebound_effect
I didn’t think socialists believed in supply and demand.
You may now stand in/on line for your state-issued buggy whip. No talking, no chewing gum
They hate NG because it competes with “green” energy, which is only competing in the first place because it is being given an unfair advantage by governments out of an idiotic ideology. Oh yes, and the fact it is relatively cheap means it is good for economies, which raises living standards and lifespans and decreases infant mortality, all of which raises the dreaded CO2. Oh, the horror.
Frack baby frack!