[kpmcc]

What is climate friendly about natural gas?

[jeroenhd]

It's cleaner than coal and oil. If you upgrade a coal plant to a gas plant, that's a step forward against climate change.

Yes, we'd be much better off with wind farms, solar plants, and nuclear reactors, but a step forward is a step forward.

Countries like Poland, running mostly on coal, would get cleaner air and contribute less to global warming if they were to upgrade their power plants to anything non-coal.

Replace them with nuclear generators and they'd also significantly reduce the amount of radiation people would be exposed to.

It's not that gas is that good, it's more that coal is that bad.

[zekrioca]

Clever use of the adjective “cleaner”. Try replacing it with “less dirty, but still pollutant and toxic” to see an alternative, correct version of what you have written.

[T-A]

A methane molecule is one carbon atom bound to four hydrogen atoms. More than half of the energy released by burning it (53% according to [1]) comes from oxidizing the hydrogen to water. So it's roughly half as bad as coal in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, and does not have the additional problems of sulfur (acid rain) and soot.

[1] https://people.wou.edu/~courtna/GS361/Energy_From_Fossil_Fue...

[LunaSea]

So not climate friendly.

[m101]

Is it less climate unfriendly than the alternatives. Every form of energy generation releases CO2. Gas also has the benefit that it doesn't need all sorts of extras to make it dispatachable when needed (which also require CO2).

I forgot to say hydro is also great where possible.

[vintagedave]

> Every form of energy generation releases CO2

…except nuclear, hydro, solar… They are stable once built.

“Natural gas” is a fossil fuel and adds CO2 that was locked away.

[tedk-42]

Much better to have CO2 than methane in the atmosphere

[thrance]

Even better to have neither.

[dudeinjapan]

I tried telling that to my brother but he won't quit releasing methane.