This past week I've seen a resurgence of T. Boone Pickens on TV talking about natural gas. Then I was listening to my podcast of Talk of the Nation: Science Friday and Ira was talking about natural gas regulation too! On his show, one woman was saying how highly regulated it was and the other was saying how it's not regulated at all. This jogged my memory and I recall reading a NY Times article about fracking and how that was polluting ground water.
So of course I google it and (surprise) it's complicated! Now, I am by no means a scientist so I just wanted the down and dirty: Yes, it's good or No, it's bad. Looks like it's both. On the one hand, natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel, producing less carbon dioxide per joule delivered than either coal or oil and far fewer pollutants than other fossil fuels. BUT on the other hand, natural gas itself is a greenhouse gas (methane) and it's far more potent than carbon dioxide when released into the atmosphere. BUT since it's released in much smaller quantities, it's still considered the cleanest fossil fuel. BUT if natural gas becomes a more popular fossil fuel, then it could actually be worse than the carbon emissions that we produce now with oil. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
And it seems that it is actually regulated at the state level but not regulated very heavily at the federal level, with the exception of natural gas transpiration and rates, which prevent price gouging and market manipulation (ironically regulated by my employer FERC).
Does anyone know anything about natural gas? I'd love to chat about it and get some answers. Sorry for the rant.
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