The Validity of Natural Gas as an Energy Resource
In a newsletter, Bill McKibben notes that we need to:
1) Stop new fossil fuel infrastructure. If you’re serious about Paris, that means realizing we’re already overshooting the temperature targets we set there – there’s literally no more room in the carbon budget for more pipelines, more frack fields, more coal ports. If France’s new president can put an end to exploration for oil and gas, so can our leaders.
2) Commit to 100% renewables. Not to “more solar panels,” but to powering our cities and states with sun and wind, and soon. Already cities from Atlanta to Salt Lake to San Diego have made the pledge; California’s state senate has already passed such a bill. 100% is the most important number we’ve got.
3) Recognize that natural gas is as bad an enemy as coal or oil. This has been America’s greatest climate mistake in recent years: we’ve driven down our carbon emissions by driving up the methane that natural gas production pours into the atmosphere, meaning we’re making no progress. And all that cheap fracked gas is holding back the conversion to actual clean energy. It’s got to stop.
I love the guy, but I wouldn’t say this about natural gas. I suppose it depends on how we measure the validity of our energy resources. It’s true that we’ve used the presence of natural gas to delay the development of renewables, and that, of course, is terrible. But I would say that’s a failure of our society and not a reason to label gas an “enemy.” Used in the right setting, natural gas can hasten, not delay, the adoption of intermittent resources.
Craig,
I’m afraid we differ on your esteem for William Ernest McKibben.
IMO, activists like Bill McKibben are self aggrandizing Eco-pests.
His impact is purely negative. He, and those of his ilk just make it so much harder for genuine environmentalists trying to persuade the general populace to support the benefits of practical clean technology and viable environmental solutions.
He’s a sanctimonious windbag, preaching to a collection of old style lefties, the naive young, trendy greenies, professional demonstrators, radicals and other ratbags.
He has no practical solutions and if his absurd ideas were ever to be attempted, they would result in economic chaos, millions dying, and repression on a scale unseen since Mao Or Stalin.
Fortunately for the world, Bill McKibben has never actually held any form of employment other than preaching. He’s never been responsible for running anything. He’s a professional ‘critic’, living in a fantasy world of his own creation.
Like I say, an Eco-pest of the worst kind.
Mao and Stalin, OMG. Extreme?
Sorry you feel that way.
Craig,
Perhaps you think I’m overly harsh toward folk like Bill McKibbon,but I’ve seen first hand the damage they can do if left unchallenged.
Bill McKibbon offers no realistic solution but agitates for simplistic action which if implemented would lead to disaster.
Recently, you refused to justify your claim that eating red meat was environmentally harmful. I understand your reluctance, it’s always embarrassing to discover you’ve made an unsupportable claim.
Bill McKibbon does this on a gigantic scale. No matter how illogical or patently absurd are his claims, he and his army of supporters never apologize, they just shout louder, like naughty bullies throwing a tantrum.
Here’s the fundamental difference between myself and Bill McKibbon:
Problem: Methane Producing Cattle are harmful to the environment.
Bill McKibbon: The solution is to abolish all Bovine farming immediately, destroying huge sections of the economy and enforcing ideological ideology upon unwilling participants.
MP: The solution is to modify cattle by cure the defect (it is defect) in cattle’s digestive process that produces excessive methane. This process allows for healthier cattle, which consume less feed and far less water.
(We’re are currently at an advanced stage of R&D and expect commercialization of our project within seven years).
Bill McKibbon : (piqued) We’ll demonstrate against your solution because it interferes with nature.
MP: ?!! Nature ? What’s natural about modern cattle?
Craig, even given your admiration for Bill McKibbon you must see there’s a lack of logic in the statement:-
“Commit to 100% renewables. Not to “more solar panels,” or “wind turbines” but to powering our cities and states with sun and wind, and soon.”
How ? One can only assume from McKibbons admittedly prodigious output of hot air!
Like you, McKibbon refuses to acknowledge or discuss the serious problem of pollution from obsolete Solar panels;
The US EPA warned nearly a decade ago of the toxic waste dangers posed by used solar panels. Waste solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of energy than nuclear power plants.
Discarded solar panels, which contain dangerous elements such as lead, chromium, and cadmium, are piling up around the world and the EPA warned little allowance has been made to mitigate this growing danger to the environment.
While nuclear waste is carefully monitored, regulated, and contained safely, no facility has been provided for the disposal of toxic panels.
Unfortunately, Solar panels are often disposed by shipping to poor countries where scavengers simply burn the e-waste in order to salvage the valuable copper wires for resale. Since this process requires burning off plastics, the resulting smoke contains toxic fumes that are carcinogenic and teratogenic (birth defect-causing) when inhaled.
The IEA estimates Solar-panel waste to exceed 700,000 – 1,000,000 tons per year by 2025.
Bill McKibbon has no answer for such an event, (he never has) whereas MP is busy devising a profitable disposal regime.
Bill McKibbon uses the environment as an excuse to advance a political-ideological agenda, whereas I’m simply interested in mitigating environmental harm by economically affordable methods.
I’ll admit my efforts are far less exciting than those of publicity seeking “Crusaders” .
Again, (after this) I’m not wasting another nanosecond of my life on the subject of red meat and the environment. The relationship between bad dental hygiene and tooth decay is more ably debated than the eco-damage associated with beef. Just look it up.
That the manufacturing of solar panels has its own eco-footprint is similarly true beyond debate. No one thinks there exists a “free lunch” in terms of energy generation and consumption.
Why don’t you move on to something that matters?
Craig,
So that’s it, uh ? You just dismiss anything that contradicts or disputes your faith in McKibbon’s assertions.
Are you really saying 1 million tonnes of deadly pollution per year isn’t a problem ? It just doesn’t matter ?
Then what is more important we should move on to ?
The unnecessary disruption of one of the world largest industries resulting in the economic and nutritional deprivation of millions, you also feel doesn’t matter ?
Of course you are quite right, they don’t matter because fortunately no one will ever allow Bill McKibbon’s idiocy to become public policy.
Unfortunately. as long as you keep defending him in such a dismissive manner, it makes it harder to attract support for real environmental improvement.
It’s not enough to just obsessively rail against a President you dislike, while ignoring the flaws in your own heroes.
It’s not enough to just be ‘against’, you must also stand ‘for’ something. I mean something practical, something you can defend with factual, reasoned explanation. Something of tangible, practical benefit.
Craig, when did you grow too tired to explain and defend the things you believe in ? Your railing against the President seems to have exhausted your enthusiasm for celebrating advances in clean technology.
I’ve invested many years and considerable funds persuading investors to fund a reduction in bovine emissions. Years of research into more efficient cattle and livestock production, years of personal investment.
I’ve also spent years, studying the economic and environmental impact of cattle production. (Including endowing a Scholarship).
So when you tell me, and millions of others whose livelihoods depend on this industry that you can’t be bothered;
” wasting another nanosecond of my life on the subject of red meat and the environment”,
does it surprise you that they vote for Donald Trump ?
I don’t need to “look it up ” ! I don’t say stuff unless I can defend what I assert.
There was a time, you also seemed to believe in the importance of new technology and practical solutions to environmental problems.
It’s very important to address issues like the problem of safely disposing used solar panels. Not only from the environmental aspect, but to prove the technology has been properly thought through.
Don’t be like Hilary Clinton and express contempt for anyone who doesn’t share your mindset.
Sorry. Not going there.