Obama, who calls natural gas a bridge to a cleaner energy future, is taking a political risk with the country’s boldest single step to restrain rising global temperatures.
His plan conflicts with mounting evidence from peer-reviewed scientific research and data collected by other government agencies that suggest swapping coal for natural gas has little to no net benefits for the climate.
When researchers from NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory measured methane from oil and gas sites in Colorado, the amounts were three times greater than predicted, according to a study published by the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
“You don’t get natural gas at the gas-fired power plant out of a bottle -- it comes out of thousands of wells, and those wells are dirty,” said Anthony Ingraffea, a Cornell civil and environmental engineering professor and co-author of the 2011 study. “You don’t win, you lose, in the climate change battle if you switch from coal to methane.”
Obama Emission Rules Discount Gas Leaks, Scientists Say
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