Environmentalists weigh methane emissions against reduced CO2 when grading Natural Gas for environmental impact.


Natural gas is touted by its supporters as a better fuel than petroleum or electricity. For one, they say, it is more efficient to burn. Appliances and furnaces fueled by natural gas are 70% more efficient than their cousins who operate on electricity. The main reason for this is in differences in the way natural gas is harvested and transported as compared to other forms of energy. In electricity, for example, there is a high energy cost in generating and transporting this type of power.


Natural gas burns cleaner than other hydrocarbon fuels. Because it is composed primarily of methane, it releases fewer toxic substances per unit of energy produced. And, it is also cleaner burning than other hydrocarbon fuels. Because it is composed primarily of methane, which is a very light and simple compound, it releases fewer toxic substances per unit of energy produced. In fact, natural gas emits 25% less carbon dioxide than gasoline, 27% less carbon dioxide than fuel oil and 44% less carbon dioxide than the cleanest coal.


With a ready source of domestic supply, less pollutants and better efficiency, why do we even use coal or oil? You have to remember that natural gas is better at all of these things, when compared to other fossil fuels. Because of Americans demand for energy, natural gas still has a significant impact on global warming. Right now, emissions from natural gas constitute 20% of the United States’ carbon dioxide emissions. That is up from 10% a decade or so ago. In other terms, natural gas emissions produce almost 1,200 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, more than the TOTAL CO2 emissions of all but three other countries in the world: Russia, China and Japan. In addition, methane, the prime component of natural gas, is in itself considered a greenhouse gas. Although methane emissions account for only 1.1 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, they account for 8.5 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions based on global warming potential.


Natural gas impacts the environment in other ways than just its CO2 emissions. The 297,000 miles of natural gas pipelines and their associated easements are eating up land and disturbing pristine and environmentally sensitive areas, above ground and below the ocean.


Despite its documented environmental impact, the solution to America’s environmental problem may actually be in the increased use of natural gas. A major study performed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Gas Research Institute (GRI), now Gas Technology Institute,in 1997 sought to discover whether the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from increased natural gas use would be offset by a possible increased level of methane emissions. The results of the study showed that the reduction in emissions that would occur when other fossil fuels were replaced with natural gas outweighed the detrimental effects of the resulting increased methane emissions.