Pros and Cons of Natural Gas

On one hand...

Natural gas is clean burning, and emits lower levels of harmful byproducts than other fossil fuels like coal and oil. While coal emits 2,249 lbs/MWh of carbon dioxide and oil emits 1672 lbs/MWh of carbon dioxide- natural gas only emits 1135 lbs/MWh. And according to the center for climate and energy solutions, vehicles fueled by natural gas can have greenhouse gas emissions that are roughly 15-30 percent lower than those that are gasoline- and diesel-fueled. 

In addition, natural gas is a primarily domestic resource. In 2008, net imports constituted only 13 percent of total U.S. natural gas consumption.

Lastly, it’s cheap! According to the New York Times, new discoveries in the United States and abroad have significantly increased known reserves, and caused natural gas prices to be relatively low in the last two years.

But on the other hand...

It’s not a completely clean and renewable resource, and it still emits CO2. According to a new study featured in National Geographic, switching from coal to natural gas would cut the warming effect in 100 years’ time by only 20 percent. But this study also says the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is so large that even a switch to carbon-free electricity couldn’t stop temperatures from rising.

And according to The New York Times, hydraulic fracturing, a method of extracting natural gas, can pollute water sources including rivers and underground aquifers. They say with hydrofracking, a well can produce over a million gallons of wastewater that is often laced with highly corrosive salts, carcinogens like benzene and radioactive elements like radium, all of which can occur naturally thousands of feet underground. Other carcinogenic materials can be added to the wastewater by the chemicals used in the hydrofracking itself. (But the EPA has passed a rule to curb this problem- giving companies until 2015 to start doing green completions. Read and listen to the story here.)

Even further, if natural gas were to become more in demand, prices would rise. This would make it less cost-efficient, and less attractive to users.