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- Title
THE GAS HYDROGEN GAMBIT: NATURAL GAS FOLLY OR FUTURE CLIMATE POLICY?
- Authors
KALEN, SAM
- Abstract
The Biden Administration appreciates the deleterious consequences associated with unregulated natural gas usage, while it seemingly shies away from pursuing progressive measures against the industry. But a 2050 future characterized by zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions demands that here in the United States and globally, we arrest methane emissions as swiftly as possible. Methane emissions, after all, over the next several decades are far more potent than emissions from coal. And yet, our news is populated with stories warning of increased methane emissions and corresponding initiatives to reduce or eliminate them. To be sure, in April 2023, the White House announced a methane finance sprint to curb emissions, joining a host of other programs targeting methane. It even acknowledged how reducing such emissions would “have an outsized impact on nearterm warming.†Unfortunately, little about these existing initiatives afford sufficient comfort that natural gas will not simply replace coal as the fuel cabining our race to reach a 43% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030, the target of the 2015 Paris Agreement, or a net zero energy economy by 2035 or a zero-emission economy by 2050—targets of the Biden Administration. This Essay probes the array of assumptions animating the Administration’s continued support for natural gas. It chronicles how we may be creeping toward another of what I term energy folly, championing a fuel ostensibly necessary today to support a reliable electric grid and spur the nascent yet emerging hydrogen economy. And it explores how natural gas proponents assume that several initiatives will diminish the climate change impacts from methane emissions, counseling against aggressive programs for reducing continued investment in natural gas infrastructure. But as this natural gas infrastructure continues to grow, possibly becoming a future-stranded asset or chilling our willingness to wean ourselves off natural gas, our existing regulatory system avoids any meaningful inquiry into the role of natural gas from now until 2030, 2035, or 2050. To remedy this, I suggest we ought to engage in this inquiry by constructing appropriate institutional mechanisms capable of asking the right questions. State regulatory commissions, the Department of Energy, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) ought to appreciate how their decisions today can solidify possibly problematic natural gas infrastructure long after immediate need for the natural gas has faded. To avert this scenario, they should be capable of scrutinizing whether any proposal involving natural gas is necessary not merely immediately or the following year, but five or more years later as well. Regional entities could be formed to aid the endeavor; those entities could be tasked with combining annual analyses by the Energy Information Administration with similar regional assessments and projections on the need for natural gas not just immediately but for the entire physical and economic life of the infrastructure. This ought to include requiring any proposal for new natural gas infrastructure to accept a decommissioning or transition plan. FERC, for instance, should demand from applicants an enforceable timeline for achieving zero emissions, whether through a commitment toward carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (CCUS) or an agreement to transition away from natural gas and toward hydrogen, or otherwise agreeing to shutter the infrastructure. Climate change is propelling us into a perilous future, and yet we continue to promote natural gas with unverified assumptions about how we can arrest methane emissions. Those assumptions may well prove our prescience. Natural gas may well provide a catalyst capable of transitioning our energy systems toward a much more dominant hydrogen-based economy. But a gambit with natural gas is risky. Our future, consequently, warrants being cautious and charging our institutions with the obligation to prevent natural gas from becoming the proverbial sword of Damocles, preventing our transition to a zero-carbon economy sooner rather than later.
- Subjects
UNITED States; NATURAL gas laws; GREENHOUSE gas mitigation; EMISSION control; METHANE; ENERGY economics; UNITED States. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; UNITED States. Dept. of Energy
- Publication
Administrative Law Review, 2024, Vol 76, Issue 1, p159
- ISSN
0001-8368
- Publication type
Article