Their carbon emissions are still dramatically lower than those of coal and oil. There are bigger fish to fry than NG.
NG is likely going to be a critical transitional fuel for the planet to depend on while we get to more abundant renewable options, grid batteries and nuclear/fusion/thorium.
With NG you also have to take into account leakage from extraction and transport. Methane is a pretty strong GHG. I've heard that if you take that into account NG is not that much better than coal.
Not really. The equipment to seal wells and pipelines against leaks would cost billions.
We need more generation, but solar is already cheaper than new natural gas built on the leaky network. It makes more economic sense to just overbuild your solar at these prices.
Leaks and emissions specific to NG aside, NG is primarily a byproduct of the oil extraction industry. It lives in a symbiotic relationship with it. To truly get off oil we need to get off gas as well. There's a reason why oil patch boosters and lobbyists and climate change deniers in places like Alberta are also pushing natural gas; the fortunes of oil and gas are tied together. This is a lobby and sector we need to deprecate not support.
There are a limited number of locations where hydro is viable and most of them have been tapped (last I read about it at least),
I'm 100% with you on nuclear.
Regardless of cost, we need base load capabilities when the wind isn't blowing and the sun is down. Grid storage hasn't been well proven yet. People are actively fighting nuclear and the costs as well as timeliness are crazy. If there's one thing in this country worth wasting money on, it's nuclear.
If we can't get base load generation from nuclear due to all of the financial risks, NG is about all that's left to carry the load as an improvement over coal and oil.
I'd much rather have zero emission nuclear, but NG is the stop gap that we are left with until we start committing to nuclear (or we have a better round-the-clock option).
> we need base load capabilities when the wind isn't blowing and the sun is down
That's not a proper use of the concept "base load".
We used to have plants which are only cost-effective when run 24/7, but are cheaper than other kinds. The concept of "base load" is to build those kinds of plants to meet roughly the lowest daily usage so as to minimize costs.
It isn't a substitute for "capacity needed when renewables aren't generating".
Also NG plants have the potential to burn various levels of hydrogen mixed in with the natural gas. It could be a nice compliment to areas that over-provision solar and wind and make hydrogen with the excess energy.
NG is likely going to be a critical transitional fuel for the planet to depend on while we get to more abundant renewable options, grid batteries and nuclear/fusion/thorium.