Failure to develop U.S. natural gas punishes the world

America can produce enough gas to eliminate coal powered electricity plants worldwide and reduce global CO2 emissions by 51%.

The United States produces about 90 Bcf/day of natural gas, and has domestic demand between 70 Bcf/day in the summer and 95 Bcf/day in the winter months. Obviously these average numbers depend on how hot it gets in summer and how cold in winter. Given the seasonality, gas is stored in summer months and withdrawn from storage in winter.

Climate alarmists think CO2 emissions are a threat. That is nonsense but the climate cult will not yield to reality and the real culprit to global emissions is coal. Depending on the grade of coal, complete combustion of a ton of coal will result in the creation of about 4,075 to 5,700 pounds of CO2 or in metric, between 1,850 and 2,600 Kg of CO2. For simplicity, I will use an average 2,225 Kg/ton.

A ton of coal yields about 25 million British Thermal Units (BTU’s) of energy in theory but EIA data show in practice the output of combustion of one ton of coal yields 1,786 KwH of electricity while at 7.4 cubic feet of natural gas per KwH the same electric generation requires 13,214 cubic feet of natural gas. Complete combustion of natural gas produces about 50 Kg of CO2 per million cubic feet so replacing a ton of coal with natural gas (assuming entropy is equivalent between these power sources) reduces emissions by 2,225 - (.13214 x 50) = a reduction of ~2,119 Kg per ton. For those who wonder how 1 ton of coal can produce a bit more than 1 ton of CO2, it is the added two molecules of oxygen that account for the apparent rise in mass and we are assuming complete combustion of the coal which is 100% carbon.

Coal is still a major source of power for electricity generation, comprising about 37% of world power generation. About 8.5 billion tons of coal are burned annually to produce electricity, creating about 8.5 billion tons x 2.225 tons CO2/ton of coal = ~19 gigatons of CO2 from coal. If that were produced by natural gas, the associated CO2 generated would fall to 1 Gigatons.

Total fossil fuel emissions are estimated at 35 Gigatons per year. Converting these power plants to natural gas worldwide would reduce global emissions by 18 Gigatons taking emissions from 35 Gigatons to 17 Gigatons, a drop of 51%. That would stabilize atmospheric CO2 at current levels (1 ppm by mass is 5.148 Gigatons which by volume is 4.47 ppm. The 35 Gigatons of current emissions raise levels by 2 ppm (by volume) a year with the extra 2.47 ppm from fossil fuels removed from atmosphere by other processes, largely photosynthesis). The shift to gas from coal would see CO2 levels stable and falling slowly while the world continued to use oil for so many key uses.

If world leaders are on a crusade to reduce emissions, they should be embracing natural gas. The Biden administration’s failure to develop America’s vast natural gas resources is an absurd left wing policy devoid of common sense driven by a failure of advisors to the Administration to carry out the basic maths, physics and chemistry of their own climate change narrative.