Stanford is selling out. The Stanford Natural Gas Initiative was inaugurated this year with the stated goal of conducting research into natural gas development. Stanford’s involvement provides a veneer of climate concern on an industry hell-bent on extracting and burning every fossil fuel it can sell. The move into shale gas requires a huge investment into infrastructure that will tie the global energy system even more tightly to fossil fuels for the next several decades. The clear answer to avoid the worst consequences of climate change is not to exploit new reservoirs as responsibly as possible, but to begin to wean off fossil fuels.
The global warming potential benefit realized switching from coal electrical generation to natural gas is marginal at best. This seems to contradict conventional wisdom, but this switch makes a tradeoff from higher CO2 emissions to higher methane leakage and reduced cooling effects (the pollutants from burning coal are detrimental to health, but also have a cooling effect significant to global climate).
My frustration with Stanford’s involvement stems from the fact that the world is spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually on natural gas capital investments that will expand the total amount of greenhouse gases spewed into the atmosphere at a time when the consensus calls for reductions. The latest IPCC report analyzes four future carbon concentration scenarios, and only one of them is likely to keep us below 2°C. This one scenario counts on realized mitigation measures that arrest the growth of CO2 and methane emissions by 2020.
Unfortunately, the capital expenditures made by the gas industry appear to be sound investments. They have every reason to believe that their infrastructure will allow annual returns delivering ever growing amounts of fuel. Their lobbying and public relations efforts will preclude even small impositions from regulators. And when the climate goes south, the consequences are paid by others–much like the Wall Street fiasco, only worse. That’s why we need to fight the expansion now, before the new infrastructure is entrenched and emitting for the long term. The fossil fuel industry will never willingly depart from the model that has been their golden goose, no matter the consequences. But if Dana Milbank is right, the industry is in the middle of a shift in tactic. They are pulling their support for climate deniers and painting themselves as responsible energy leaders developing cost-effective solutions for the coming decades. The Stanford Gas Initiative fits perfectly within that strategy.
I suspect Stanford may see the natural gas resurgence as inevitable, so we might as well cash in on the dirty money and hope that we solve the carbon problem with scrubbers at the plant, or climate engineering on the planet scale. We can all have that hope, but given the magnitude of the climate consequences, it is not responsible leadership. Carbon capture may yet provide a solution, but the current outlook is full of uncertainty.
What is certain is the ability to power our future with wind, water and solar energy. The comprehensive research laid out by Stanford Professor Mark Jacobson, among others, shows how even the current technologies are adequate to meet our energy demands. The naysayers about the difficulties are relying on tired fallacies, ignoring the demonstrated potential. Solar and wind are intermittent sources, but research shows how the geographic diversification of wind and solar farms coupled with energy storage, demand response and hydropower will provide continued service. And the arguments about wind turbines killing birds or solar farms taking too much land area don’t hold up against objective comparisons with fossil fuel impacts in either of those categories.
There are real technical challenges to building the modern grid to deliver a green power system, but they are comparable to the technical challenges being solved by the natural gas industry in its extraction of shale gas and its delivery to points near and far. Liquefied Natural Gas terminals are being built all over the US and the entire world at the cost of several billion dollars each, and there are plans to upgrade the home gas utilities to meet the future goals set by the industry. Investments in this exploitation of shale gas keeps us going down the wrong direction at huge expense. For some comparison, the oil and gas industry invested $300 billion for upstream infrastructure in 2014. That is enough money to build 170 GWs of wind power capacity (17% of current US generating capacity). Solar and wind capacity added in the US for 2014 was only 9 GWs. And this natural gas infrastructure is not for short-term, or bridge benefits. The Energy Information Administration predicts US natural gas exports will quickly grow to 4 trillion ft3 in the next decade, continuing through 2040. That is approximately $40 billion annually at today’s prices.
Divestment from coal was a great step in the right direction, but it remains to be seen if that was a genuine commitment on behalf of the trustees to future generations. Divestment from coal is arguable just a sound financial move, and may have just been cover for a larger commitment to the new face of fossil fuels. We should divest from all fossil fuels and apply the same effort to build our carbon-free future that we’re currently diverting toward expanding natural gas.
Steve Barg, Ph.D. student, CEE Department
Contact Steve Barg at barg ‘at’ stanford. edu.