The inconvenient truth about natural gas is that it is not as clean as the industry or Massachusetts says it is.
As what Jim Bates calls an “irksome climate activist,” I’d like to reply to his Feb 2 letter, “Climate activists irksome.” I am sympathetic with him — much of what he says is true based on the readily available information — but there is more to the story.
For 18 years I ran an event called the Tour de Sol, America’s green car competition and festival. The U.S. Department of Energy was our main sponsor. They were interested in competitions that engaged young people in alternative fuels and vehicles, to encourage them to consider careers in these areas. Part of our scoring system gave points to vehicles with low greenhouse gas emissions emitted on a per-mile basis.
The DOE introduced us to researchers at the department’s’s Argonne National Labs working on assessing alternative fuels, and I learned about the concept of “well to wheels” emissions. Researchers were analyzing the “full life cycle” greenhouse gas emissions of all the fuels, starting with fuel extraction (i.e. at the wellhead) through use, in our case energy delivered to the wheels of a car.
In the case of natural gas, we learned that natural gas is 87% methane, which is more than 20 times as powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. As such, when natural gas leakage during extraction and delivery is counted, in addition to the carbon dioxide emitted when it is burned at an electricity-generating power station, the greenhouse gas emissions are about the same as those emitted by coal-fired power plants.
The natural gas industry, and our government, however, conveniently ignore this inconvenient truth and claims it is clean.
As for why bother to reduce our climate emissions when China and India are emitting a lot, I would say it is important to lead by example. Also, China and India have done a lot. Although China has built new coal-fired plants in an effort to bring electricity to their citizens, China also has built more solar systems than the U.S. has. Their efforts have brought down the cost of solar panels so that it is less expensive for us to install them. China is also designing and building whole cities that aim to be zero carbon emissions. Inspiring!
As for our homes and natural gas stoves, again it is complicated. As we work to reduce energy use in our homes, and we reduce air leakage from our windows and walls, we will reduce the need to heat air passing through our homes. While we gain greater comfort and reduced heating bills as we reduce air leakage, emissions from our natural gas stoves become a health problem. The emissions from gas stoves can exacerbate asthma and irritate our lungs.
Electric stoves solve this problem, and induction stoves are best because they use the least amount of energy to cook our food. Today, Mass Save is offering incentives to people interested in replacing their gas stoves with electric induction stoves.
Speaking of Mass Save, this utility-run program offers money to help us all reduce energy use in our homes. They are now offering amazing new programs to help us stop using fossil fuels in our homes, and thereby achieve Massachusetts’ goal of being a zero carbon-emitting state by 2050. The programs are designed to help us, financially, switch to modern electric heating systems called heat pumps.
Heat pumps not only deliver heat, but also can cool our homes at less cost than a window AC unit.
The Mass Save program is now offering free heat pumps to income-eligible people, and offering up to $10,000 incentives to others.
To find out more about the new Mass Save program for income-eligible people for free heat pumps and weatherization, Greening Greenfield is offering free workshops over the next month, one for income-eligible people, and one for everyone else. Keep your eyes peeled for event announcements, or go to GreeningGreenfieldMA.org and click on events.
Massachusetts may not be able to reach our goal of zero emissions by 2050, but we can make great strides toward that goal. If you heat with oil or propane and switch to a heat pump, you will also reduce your heating bills. And, if you replace your gas stove you may feel healthier. And if we all do this, we may be able to reduce the catastrophic effects of climate change. I think it is worth the effort. I hope you will join me.
Nancy Hazard is a member of Greening Greenfield, a former builder, the retired director of the Tour de Sol, and sits on the city’s Sustainable Greenfield Implementation Committee. She can be reached at NancyHazard30@gmail.com.