I couldn't pass up some gems of denialist thinking I came across today. It was in response to a new WUWT article, about a paper in Nature. The paranoia runs deep at WUWT.
The paper itself is the result of a study looking to see if abundant natural gas substituting for coal would help mitigate CO2 emissions. The answer was "probably not". Another article in Nature News and Views, which was describing the research, gave three main reasons. From ScienceDaily.com:
- Replacing low-carbon sources: Natural gas replacing coal would reduce carbon emissions. But due to its lower cost, natural gas would also replace some low-carbon energy, such as renewable or nuclear energy. Overall changes result in a smaller reduction than expected due to natural gas replacing these other, low-carbon sources. In a sense, natural gas would become a larger slice of the energy pie.
- More total energy used: Abundant, less expensive natural gas would lower energy prices across the board, leading people to use more energy overall. In addition, inexpensive energy stimulates the economy, which also increases overall energy use. Consequently, the entire energy pie gets bigger.
- Methane escape from production and distribution: The main component of natural gas, methane, is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. During production and distribution, some methane inevitably escapes into the atmosphere. The researchers considered both high and low estimates for this so-called fugitive methane. Even at the lower end, fugitive methane adds to climate change.
Speaking of "natural", naturally, the WUWT article only provided one of the three reasons - that of the lower energy prices leading to more energy being used overall (archived here). Once again, the article was by Eric Worrall - about the only person left (I mean, remaining) who is providing denialist fodder for Anthony Watts' blog these days.
