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o Gas: The Potential Risks And Rewards
by NPR STAFF SLO CITY CLERK
Enlarge Orlin Wagner /AP
Oil field workers drill into the Gypsum Hills near Medicine Lodge, Kan Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," to coax out oil and gas
has led to a natural gas boom, but some remain concerned of the potential environmental impact.
July 15, 2012 text size A A A
This past week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a report linking
climate change to some of the extreme weather events of 2011, like the devastating drought in Texas
and record high temperatures in Britain.
None of this bodes well for the future, but there is a glimmer of hope. It turns out that U.S. carbon
emissions are down nearly 8 percent since 2006.
Much of that has to do with the weak economy — people are consuming less electricity. But another
part could be related to the decline of coal and the rise of cleaner- burning natural gas. This boom in
natural gas has been killing the Appalachian coal industry, but it also has environmental impacts both
good and bad.
Extreme Weather
Philip Mote is the director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University
and one of the authors of the NOAA report. He and a team looked at last year's drought in Texas and
compared what happened there with climate models going back five decades.
They wanted to figure out the odds that the drought was indeed related to climate change, and he tells
weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz that it was an extreme event that was beyond
anything that had happened before, but is likely to happen again.
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"Certain types of extreme weather events, it's pretty clear, are increasing and will increase as the
climate changes," Mote says. Extreme heat events being one, he says, as well as extreme rainfall -
There have been some extreme cold events, however, but he says they shouldn't be mistaken for
evidence against global warming.
"One incorrect conclusion is that global warming is not happening," he says. "Another incorrect
conclusion is that global warming is making our weather more extreme in every respect. The correct
conclusion is probably that that cold event happened despite global warming."
Mote's hope is that this report gives us a better understanding of what's happening in the world. In this
case, he says, we're talking about events that are part of a larger portrait of how we're changing the
climate.
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"Even without climate change, in some respects, the ever - growing human
race is very unprepared for extreme events," he says. "But we should
certainly be prepared for those events we think of as unlikely and they're
actually getting more likely."
Worth The Risk
The question now is whether human behavior can halt the pace of climate
change. President Obama has set a goal of reducing U.S. greenhouse gas
emissions by 17 percent by the end of this decade.
Another study suggests that goal might actually be feasible. Not because of
tough new regulations or even legislation, but because of the increasing use
of natural gas to generate electricity.
Gas is one of the cheapest sources of electricity generation, now half the
price of coal. Much of this a recent development, the result of advances in
hydraulic fracturing or fracking, the controversial process by which gas is
extracted from deep under rock formations. Fracking now produces a third of
all U.S. natural gas.
Rising Shale Water Lawrence Cathles, a professor at Cornell University who wrote that study,
Complicates took a close look at natural gas usage and he found that replacing coal with
Fracldng Debate natural gas would cut about 40 percent of carbon emissions linked to global
warming.
Fracldng's Methane
Trail: A Detective
Story
"When you burn natural gas it's a cleaner burning fuel," Cathles tells Raz.
"But the more significant thing ... natural gas can generate electricity with
almost twice the efficiency in terms of conversion of energy content of fuel."
Natural gas is made up largely of methane, and some of it can leak as the
gas is extracted and transported. Cathles says leakage of gas from well site
to customer through pipes and compressors is about 1.5 percent of total
production of gas.
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