The gas industry is under fire. It's hiring Democratic politicians to help.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Washington Post

The gas industry is under fire. It’s hiring Democratic politicians to help.

Gas companies have enlisted prominent Democrats to convince liberal voters that the fuel is climate-friendly, documents show

By Maxine Joselow
February 2, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EST

At a time when many other Democrats fault natural gas for fueling climate change, former senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.) frames it as a solution. ... “Yes, this country needs to move forward on wind and solar,” Landrieu said in a recent Bloomberg News interview, speaking on behalf of a nonprofit group that advocates for natural gas. “But we need to back it up with a fuel that we can count on, a power source, and that’s natural gas. It’s abundant, it’s cheap, and it can be cleaner.”

What she didn’t mention, however, is that the nonprofit group was created by a half-dozen gas companies, with the explicit goal of convincing Democratic voters that gas is a “clean” energy source. ... The group, dubbed Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future, comes as Democratic leaders across the country restrict gas use to fight climate change. The bans threaten customer losses for gas utilities, which dominate the liberal strongholds in cities and on coasts. To resist these efforts, the nonprofit group has enlisted prominent Democratic politicians and pollsters to help enhance gas’s reputation among liberal voters.

{snip}

Natural Allies is backed by TC Energy, the Canadian pipeline giant behind the controversial Keystone XL project, and Southern Company, one of the biggest U.S. utilities. Launched shortly before the 2020 election, the group is led by Susan Waller, a former executive at the pipeline firm Enbridge.

Last spring, Waller enlisted Impact Research — a leading Democratic polling firm used by Joe Biden’s presidential campaign — to survey Americans’ sentiments about natural gas. According to emails obtained by the Energy and Policy Institute, Waller told the organizers of a conference for state utility commissioners that the pollsters would share the results with the White House. ... More recently, Natural Allies has run ads featuring Landrieu and former senator Heidi Heitkamp, a moderate Democrat from North Dakota. Gas is “essential to accelerating our clean energy future,” Heitkamp said in an ad that was seen more than a million times on Facebook and Instagram.

{snip}

By Maxine Joselow
Maxine Joselow is a staff writer who anchors The Climate 202 at The Washington Post. Sign up here. Twitter https://twitter.com/maxinejoselow

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/02/02/gas-industry-hires-democrats-liberal-voters/

---

The group funded by gas-fired utilities, dubbed Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future, has been hiring Democratic politicians to convince liberal voters that they should not embrace gas bans as a way to fight climate change.

washingtonpost.com
The gas industry is under fire. It’s hiring Democratic politicians to help.
The group funded by gas-fired utilities, dubbed Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future, has been hiring Democratic politicians to convince liberal voters that they should not embrace gas bans as a...

Link to tweet

[Rural_Progressive]

1. That's sad

but consistent with my opinion of some politicians in the current version of the Democratic Party. Too much money in play for some people to resist temptation but if they're going to sell out to an industry responsible in part for the climate chaos we are facing then they really should take the "D" off their name.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

7. There's probably also the fact that constituents don't like exorbitant power costs

nor, perhaps even worse, intermittent power supplies that depend on the sun shining and/or wind blowing.

[Rural_Progressive]

11. Funny, I've lived off grid for over 20 years

so I've sort of lived renewable energy first hand. You might want to do a search for current and near term energy storage technologies for renewable energy.

I've gone from a some very expensive solar panels and few deep cycle flooded lead acid batteries to running our farm off over 6kW of solar panels and two repurposed Nissan Leaf battery packs. Allow me to mention that is live a little north of the 48th parallel in an area that gets pretty cloudy in the winter so my challenges are far worse than those found in the vast majority of the country. Needed to run our generator 9 hours this past Thanksgiving to mid January season.

People like you are apologizers for the fossil fuel industry. The progress made by the renewable energy field has been against everything the companies you're protecting have been able to put in their way.

Carter tried to get this nation on the track to energy independence and both sides of the chamber mocked his effort because they were already in the back pocket of the fossil fuel industry. We are now paying the consequences for that choice.

By the way, the current system I put together cost about $22k. Baring any unforeseen problems it should last at least 20 years. I'm getting all the power I need for a little over a grand a year, does that sound like an "exorbitant power cost" to you?

[Hugh_Lebowski]

12. Good for you, that's awesome ...

You have the land and capital needed to that. People who CAN do that, should. No argument from me there.

I'm not defending the fossil fuel industry, I have no love for it.

But yours is a fairly unique situation ... what about all the people living in big cities and apartments all over the WORLD? What about the people who have no access to $22K?

Have you thought about how much it would cost, in money, in land, in environmental degradation (ever seen a lithium mining operation?) AND in burning fossil fuels to make BILLIONS of batteries and probably TRILLIONS of solar panels ... to convert the whole world to a set-up like yours, including all industry?

And then there's the fact that we'd also need batteries for all the cars on top of the ones for the homes.

We probably don't even have NEAR the resources physically on the planet to pull that off.

It's not that I love fossil fuels, it's just that I'm looking at the big picture.

[Rural_Progressive]

13. Actually you're not

You're looking at the picture you've been fed by lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry.

Ever heard of the work being done by researchers to create organic batteries thus eliminating the need for all lithium?

How about artificial photosynthesis that would eliminate the need for the metals extracted to create solar panels?

I'm betting you haven't because the fossil fuel industry has done everything in their power to buy up promising technologies and prevent well funded research into advancing these technologies.

As to funding, well currently the people of this planet subsidize the fossil fuel industry to the tune of 5.9 TRILLION dollars in 2020. You suppose if we took that money and spent it on research, development, and deployment we might be able to come up with viable, non environmentally destructive ways to generate and store mass amounts of energy?

So in closing, you're not looking at the "big" picture, you're looking at precisely the picture the fossil fuel industry wants you to believe is reality. You've been duped because you haven't gone to the effort to find out what's really going on. Take a look because the truth is we "don't have NEAR the resources physically on the planet" to keep doing what we've been doing.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

17. You won't convince me, and I won't convince you, so let's agree to disagree

I'm on record here on DU repeatedly arguing there is, at this point, no way out of fossil fuel-induced catastrophic climate change without the following:

1) Massive expansion of nuclear power (and probably some of wind/solar/other technologies where logical/feasible ... my current home state of AZ being a great example of where that may be viable).
2) MASSIVE lowering of All of Humanity's expectations as far as 'standard of living' goes, and a HUGE reversal of 'globalization', wherein people accept that they must live more 'locally'.
3) A complete shift of the WORLD economic paradigm, such that it is not entirely premised on 'perpetual growth'.
4) Negative population growth, starting right now. A moratorium on 'babies', for like ... 15 years at least. Worldwide, but esp. in the First World.

You want to believe there's a 'way out of this', that is not HUGELY painful ... which I understand the need to believe that's the case. And you want there to be an 'enemy' you can defeat, like Exxon or whatever. I get these ideas, they are part of human nature.

But I don't think there is. I think it's too late. And barring some incredible technological, unforeseen breakthrough ... no talk of organic batteries and artificial photosynthesis ... is going to convince me otherwise.

Do you understand that the fossil fuels we've been extracting to fuel our lifestyles represent HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of years of 'photosynthesis' (and to some degree wind energy), taking place over the whole planet? And we've burned over 1/2 of what we think exists, even under the best of circumstances, in like 150 years?

You think I'm buying into industry propaganda ... but what I'm actually buying into ... is physics and mathematics.

[Rural_Progressive]

19. And we head into the strawman arguments

For starters nothing I included in my post suggested I believed 'there's a way out of this' easy or otherwise since I don't.

I certainly do see the fossil fuel industry as an 'enemy'. They've known for decades the effects their products were having on the planet and chose to withhold that information or make any meaningful changes in how they do business. I don't want to 'defeat' them I want to 'defund' them and so should any thinking person.

There doesn't need to be any 'incredible technological, unforeseen breakthrough', the technology is already here. The money taken from subsidizing fossil fuel would allow those technologies to be put on the fast track and brought to maturity quickly. Think of the progress in other fields, some in a matter of years.

I'm not even sure what your rant about how long it's taken to generate hydrocarbons from organic material has to do with anything but by all means rant on.

You support the nuclear industry which is incredibly resource intensive and has generated waste we haven't even dealt with yet.

As to my 'beliefs', I believe that as a species we have come too far too fast since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. We are not hardwired to deal with destructive changes that happen gradually over long periods of time. We are wired for "Look a lion, run" responses. I don't see any way out of this PERIOD, but since I have a daughter and a granddaughter I will keep trying to do the little I can to stem a seemingly unstoppable flow.

And yes I do believe you have totally bought into the centralized energy industries propaganda and all anyone needs to do to see that is read your posts. 'Physics and mathematics', give me a break.

You are correct there is no possibility of changing your mind, it's locked shut. When I engage with people with your sort of mindset I am never expecting to have any effect on them, I just hope, maybe someone reading our exchange will gain something from it.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

20. Actually ... afa living 'off the grid' as it pertains to fossil fuels, you're really not

Do you live in something akin to a log cabin, created by harvesting trees that existed on yours (or your neighbors) property that you and/or your neighbors chopped down with hand saws and axes?

Was the roof covering your 'off-the-grid' house created in a manner that was totally free of the use of petrochemicals, using materials found on your property, or your neighbors?

Does the insulation in your home consist of a bunch of wool that you harvested from the sheep you raised organically on your farm/ranch? Do the sheep subsist on the crops you raised (100 % organically of course) elsewhere on your property, or your local neighbors?

Do you use horse or oxen to till your fields to grow the subsistence crops you need for the sheep and horses/oxen, and for your family? Are the plows with which you accomplish this made from wood you carved by hand from the trees growing on your property? And how did you make the steel with which the blades in your tills are likely composed of? Did you just smelt some of the iron ore that conveniently exists on your property, using chopped up trees, in your personal smelter, or your neighbors? Was it carried to you by hand, or using beasts of burden?

How about all your clothes? Do you have cotton fields as well? Or do you live in wool clothing made from your sheep 24/7, or perhaps animal skins you culled from your property or bartered for with a neighbor? Did you use a hand loom to create the clothes you wear every day?

How about your bowls and glasses and pots and pans? More smelting using your trees for energy, to create your cast iron pans, leveraging ore deposits found on your or you neighbors property? Obviously, you have nothing but clay or glass bowls that you created by culling your clay and/or quartz deposits on you or your neighbors property, which you fashioned yourselves with your glass and/or clay working skills?

You have any sort of cement anywhere, or an asphalt driveway? Do you use asphalt covered roads to travel places to get things you need? Do others use asphalt-covered roads and fossil-fuel driven vehicles to 'bring you things' you needed to create your 'off the grid property'?

Obviously I could go on and on with this ... I mean I could literally do like 20 more of these paragraphs but I'll give it rest.

Hopefully you see what I'm getting at. Fossil fuels still powered your 'off the grid' lifestyle, whether you want to cop to it or not

[Rural_Progressive]

21. Ah, must have hit a nerve because your strawman argument

is increasing exponentially. Apparently something about me being 'off the grid' has really gotten stuck in your craw.

Funny you should ask about what the house is made of, it's straw bale, R value of something like 56 with no additional insulation required in the walls.

By the way, I certainly don't encourage anyone else to live the way I do. If all of you who live in cities and suburbs suddenly decided you wanted to become homesteaders, well things would just get too crowded. My sweetheart always wanted to be a park ranger and I'd been trying to get back to the rural life I had as a child so this is a natural for us. My wife and I consider ourselves as stewards to our acreage. We look after as best we can to the benefit of the local flora and fauna. Our intention is to leave it in better shape than we found it.

Originally our decision to stay off the grid was determined by the local PUD wanting over $60k to get power to our corner, from there it would have probably cost us another $10k to get it to our house and all wired up. Mind you we're talking pre 2000 dollars.

'Hopefully you see what I'm getting at. Fossil fuels still powered your 'off the grid' lifestyle, whether you want to cop to it or not'

I am under no illusions as to how much fossil fuels have contributed to the way I live, really no viable alternatives up until recently. Funny how the natural gas industry has reacted to the idea that gas ranges be phased out and replaced by another technology, why you'd almost think they want to keep any other means of cooking from replacing natural gas.

As to the rest of your vitriol, what exactly does any of it have to do with alternate energy technologies being underfunded while the fossil fuel industry is subsidized to the tune of trillions yearly on a global scale?

'Obviously I could go on and on with this ... I mean I could literally do like 20 more of these paragraphs but I'll give it rest.'

Yeah, I know what you mean, I could do the same, but in my case I'd actually be addressing the original post.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

22. It really is humorous how much you are centered around the idea of me being some kind a shill

I'm actually thinking entirely in scientific terms here, I have no love whatsoever for the fossil fuel industry, nor necessarily the concept of 'centralized power production', except insofar as it 'makes scientific sense' in many cases. So, please stop representing what I'm saying as 'vitriol' or that I'm some kind of evil sellout to fossil fuels interests. I am anything but, and the constant jibes along these lines have grown tiresome, frankly.

8B people can't exist on this planet, living the way you are. YOU can, and that's great you're doing it.

IMHO, we'd need there to be like 1.5-2B people on the planet in order for your low-carbon lifestyle to be possible for everyone. In particular, most of the 'first world' lifestyle would need abandoned.

Which would mean 6,000,000,000 people ... need to die, and not be replaced.

To me, it seems like your making a selective and arbitrary definition of 'living off the grid', and insinuating 'this is a practical solution to our climate change problem'.

And I just fundamentally disagree with. Not cause I'm somehow corrupt or doing someone else's bidding. I'm a database administrator in the real estate field. No connection to fossil fuel power whatsoever

And your case, which is basically anecdotal ... will not, and cannot ... be extrapolated to 8,000,000,000 people (esp. not in the timeframe in which it's needed to combat climate change), and that's really all I'm arguing. I don't 'believe in' the technologies you do. No agenda, no love for big Fossil Fuels, or anything else you keep trying to heap on me. I simply, based on my knowledge of physics and science ... don't believe it's possible.

So like I said at the start, we should probably agree to disagree

PS just because Big Fossil Fuels are doing what you say ... and I believe you on that ... doesn't actually mean that, in reality, these are 'threats to their extraction processes cause they're borderline magical replacements for their main product'. It's just as logical to think they want to own this tech because they're, you know, in the energy production business. I don't know either way, but I don't think you do, either, for a fact.

[Rural_Progressive]

23. Nah, you're not a shill

you're just badly misinformed concerning energy production and storage technologies that exist beyond fossil fuel technology.

These new technologies are only "borderline magical" because that's the category you chose to put them into. 50 years ago the idea that the world would be connected by a huge network that all people could connect to if they had the money would have been considered in the same category and yet, here we are.

The fossil fuel industry buys up and suppresses advances in renewable technology because, they're you know, much more decentralized, don't offer the profit potential, and well you know do threaten the entire fossil fuel extraction, processing, and delivery infrastructure that has trillions of dollars tied up in it. So yeah, I think the fossil fuel energy has a powerful incentive to do everything in it's power to delay, sidetrack, and undermine any form of energy production that they perceive as a threat to their status quo.

As I posted earlier, I know that what I'm posting here will in no way or shape change what you believe. You haven't done the research, you aren't interested in learning about what is happening in other fields of energy production or storage technology. As you so humorously referred to them as 'borderline magical replacements'. But you don't get to make your alleged 'factual' statements without having them challenged by someone who actually has done the research and is constantly learning about other fields of energy production.

You keep posting your 'facts' and I'll keep challenging them.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

24. I use 'magical' loosely ... I don't believe in any magical shit, in reality. Of any kind ...

What I refer to by 'magic' is the question of whether any of these things actually SCALABLE to meet humanity's energy needs.

I don't think they are. Which is something you've not addressed. Just because technology exists for you to live (in a selectively defined manner as 'off the grid'), doesn't mean 8B people can. Do you follow this argument, like, at all?

You've also not addressed the fact that ... they're a business. If these new technologies they're supposedly 'buying up' were profitable ... they'd buy them, and then they'd sell them. But in most cases, they're not. Is your supposition they're all just like a 'cult' of fossil fuel lovers who will quash any advance that's actually remotely equally profitable to their main product? Why would they do that, unless the whole thing is some kind of weirdo cult involving millions of people? Profitability in energy vending ultimate comes down to 'physics', whether you admit that or not.

In my mind, the logical answer is ... they're not scalable, but they buy them up, in hopes they will provide profitable solutions. And then they pursue them when they actually are.

Let me also mention, you paid SOMEONE 22K for your off-the-grid power system, didn't you? Do you know no fossil fuel companies provided ANY of what you utilized to accomplish this state you live in?

Fundamentally I disagree that the Fossil Fuel industry is the entire 'problem' ... I think the problem is 95% caused by humanity ... wanting their products, because they want the energy ... and it actually CANNOT BE REPLACED by artificial synthesis and organic batteries or whatever you think could be 'the solution'.

Anyways, I'm done. Agree to disagree on the fundamental question of whether 'renewables' can replace fossil fuels and support 8,000,000,000 living with their current standard of living. I think we need the 100's of Millions of Years of REAL photosynthesis (and the subterranean pressures involved in creating crude) ... to 'live' ... anywhere NEAR the way we actually live, in 2023, as a human population.

You think renewables can, and I don't think the math actually works. This is fundamentally all we really disagree about.

[friend of a friend]

25. Please explain to me how 8 billion people can live like you.

[Rural_Progressive]

26. That is something Friend Hugh went off on

my initial posts regarded alleged Democratic politicians shilling for the natural gas industry.

Hugh started the strawman argument about how I live. All I pointed out was the fact that alternative means of generating energy and storing it have increased greatly and if we stopped subsidizing the fossil fuel industry and applied that funding to developing other means of generating and storing energy there is a very real possibility that we could cut our dependence on fossil fuel in a very real way.

By the way, I'm betting 8 billion people can't enjoy the standard of living that you, Hugh, and I enjoy. You might want to think about that fact for awhile.

[friend of a friend]

27. You are right about the standard of living for middle class Americans.

According to The Pew Research Center my wife and I are at the top of the middle class. The problem as I see it is that a majority of those that have want more and those that don't have want what we have. My wife and I are happy with what we have, but then we are pushing 80, but healthy. I respect what you have done but you are one of the very few people willing to do it.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

34. Actually you're the one who brought up how you live not me

And of course 8M people can't live how you and I live i.e. like 1st world people either.

Of course Big Fossil has done some evil shit, I've said repeatedly ... not a fan!

But the underlying problem really is too many people, wanting stuff. Too many for this planet to sustain without fossil fuels, because fossil fuels are exactly what made the overpopulation possible.

I do not believe we can sustain anywhere near even the global AVERAGE standard of living ... without them.

You seem to think we could, and I don't. That's really our only substantial disagreement. And I think it's mostly a physics (and human consumer) problem, and mostly not a 'evil corporations' problem.

I also think that insofar as replacing gasoline (at least in things like big rigs and tractors and those kinds of things) and coal-fired power plants goes, it makes sense to leverage natural gas as it is, in fact, considerably less polluting, both with CO2 and particulates.

Thanks for the talk. Except for all the times you questioned my motives for having it

[Rural_Progressive]

35. Actually all I did was describe how I power our farm

you jumped in and expanded onto all the ways I'm dependent on fossil fuel, blah, blah, blah blah blah

People wanting to much stuff?? Well that is a chicken/egg conundrum isn't it? Did people decide they just had to have lots of stuff thus requiring businesses to spring up to supply them will all that stuff OR did greedy people who wanted to make an obscene amount of money engage in mass marketing campaigns after WWII to keep the industries that had been created to win that war in business and avoid a massive economic slowdown? I'll refer you to the work of Edward Bernays and you can consider the effect of war on the senseless waste of a resources and the horrific environmental damage caused by said wars.

What makes overpopulation inevitable is the conflict between humanity's instinctual drives and its ability to problem solve. Instinct drives us to reproduce and do everything we can to postpone death. Problem solving provides us the means to keep way more infants alive than would live without intervention and keeps people alive well after their expiration date. We're sort of stuck between a rock and a hard spot. Would we be in this mess without fossil fuels? My guess is yes, our prodigious post monkey brains would have found another energy source to exploit and we'd still end up somewhere in a place like we are, maybe minus a lot of the pollution and greenhouse gases. There were several significant bifurcation points in the past 400 years and my studies suggest that at each one of them we chose the most destructive path available.

By the way, you really need to open your mind to the new technologies coming online in other parts of the world. We are looking at this hydrogen powered generator the French have come up with to get us through the dark, short winter period where our solar panels are hard pressed to keep our two repurposed Nissan Leaf battery packs sufficiently charged. You'll note that these look to be scalable to pretty good sized units already.

https://h2sys.fr/en/

It's a shame you seem to have made up your mind about what is possible and what isn't. There are a lot of amazing people working on all sorts of alternative ways to generate energy, limit the use of resources, and live more lightly. Sadly the US is not even in the top ten countries making these advances. That said, my daughter's generation isn't nearly as interested in "stuff" as my generation or my parent's generation have been so maybe there's some reason for hope here as well.

I'm a dot connector. My original research in graduate school was uninspired to say the least. My strength, and boy am I good at it, is collecting and analyzing information from a wide range of disciplines and providing a report on what effect they could have on each other and and potential ultimate outcomes.

Honestly I'm terrified of what my daughter and granddaughter will be left to deal with when I am gone. My dot connecting says things are looking bad to worse for the coming decades. But then I remind myself that humans really don't solve problems until they absolutely have no choice and maybe after the end of the inevitable chaos and destruction there will the means and the will for our species to move on in a different direction.

That's what keeps me going and I'm sticking to it. Good luck to you and it's been an interesting albeit frustrating conversation.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

37. I understand wanting to feel like 'there's hope', you have progeny, and I don't

Ergo it's easy for me to throw my arms in the air and say 'it's hopeless'. But you don't have that ... let's call it a 'luxury'.

This article pretty much succinctly spells out ... what my argument has been all along.

https://blog.oup.com/2017/10/solar-wind-energy-carbon-dioxide-emissions/

To which I'll just add ... there is hope.

It's called: Uranium and other radioactive isotopes.

And the sooner we accept that, instead of imagining the answer is low energy density, non-storable-on-the-required-huge-scale 'technologies' ... like wind and solar, the better off we, and your offspring, will be. The things you laud may be impressive tech, and I appreciate the efforts being made, but they're drops in the bucket when there's 8B people on the planet.

Again, to sum up, you think there's another answer besides nuclear, and I just ... don't.

I do really appreciate the thoughtful replies and the conversation in general, and we really agree on quite a lot. Esp. about human nature.

[Meadowoak]

2. Solar is the best way to go!

[Initech]

3. Uh oh they're onto us... better do something to keep the masses quiet.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

4. Excellent example of the legalized Corruption in American business and politics.

Business…hides behind Glossy Orwellian inspired Name, vast amounts of disclosed and undisclosed corporate money pour in from like minded Business…natural gas, oil, tobacco, the list is endless. Gets to call itself a non-taxable public welfare non-profit…while profiting mightly from deception and propaganda.

Politicians…ride the gravy train to the non-profit, paid handsomely to sell the propaganda much like sports players sell, the propaganda of online sports betting…definitely legal, corrupt, but legal!! Note how media will not note the hypocrisy of this being ok and Hunter Biden’s term at Brumisa.

The list is endless.

Want to end the corruption? Simple…make it illegal.

[LymphocyteLover]

5. Puke. Dear Dems, please don't do this.

[ancianita]

29. +1000

I looked this up about four years ago, updated it for 2022, so some Dem names might not be in office at present.

Bad enough we've got Dems turn lobbyist but it really hurts to find out who's even recently taken oil & gas money.

I wish they took Joe Biden's "whole of government" approach to climate more seriously, and not just by voting for it in the Inflation Reduction Act.

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?ind=E01&recipdetail=H&sortorder=A&mem=N&cycle=2022

[Hugh_Lebowski]

6. Unless we're going to buildout a fuckton of nuclear power, in short order

Which is almost surely not going to happen ... we're better off at least replacing coal plants with natural gas ones, for now. It's a logical strategy of harm-reduction.

I'll leave it at that.

[Marcus IM]

8. Is it OK to dis Dems on DU?

I thought that dissing Dems here was a no no.

[azureblue]

9. what the nat gas companies are saying

is true, to a certain degree. There is a lot of NG burn off in the petroleum refining process which could be used, instead of just burning it off, It doesn't take a lot of refining, either. I once had a NG powered truck that ran way cleaner than with gasoline. Just a PITA to refill the tank.


There is no doubt that solar is way better than any other refined resource. But NG is being wasted, so why not use it as fuel as we step away from oil based? Sort of a bridge resource.

[KS Toronado]

10. More democrats should hop on board

Knew a construction company that converted all their pickups and trucks to natural gas back in the 60s,
claimed it was cheaper and friendlier to the environment. So I did a little web search.......

Which One Is More Environment Friendly?

Compared to gasoline, which produces a great amount of greenhouse gas, natural gas is much more environmentally friendly.

When natural gas is burned, there are fewer greenhouse and air pollutants. It is even more efficient than other fossil fuels like coal.

When It is used to produce electricity, it emits a half amount of carbon dioxide than coal burning.

Natural gas produces carbon dioxide and methane, which are potent greenhouse gasses. But the amount is less harmful than the amount of pollutants gasoline produces.

https://techiescientist.com/natural-gas-vs-gasoline/

Installing a tank in most cars would be a problem headache, but pickups, trucks, semis, tractors would be easy.

[Bengus81]

14. No...consumers of Nat gas need HELP because of the Nat gas companies gouging

My heating bill is 100% higher for the same amount of gas used from just two years ago. It's ridiculous and we lay around in a 61 degree house from late evening until morning.

[mathematic]

16. Give it a month. Nat gas prices have collapsed over the last couple months

Natural gas prices are near historic lows right now. Natural gas prices were higher in 2000 than they are now. Natural gas prices were low in the 2010s due to the very type of advocacy and resource production the people in this thread are opposed to: the shale gas boom.

Your price for electricity depends on more than the commodity price of natural gas, of course. For example, all the workers at the electric companies are making more than they were two decades ago and even two years ago.

You're going to have a tough time convincing people that natural gas companies selling natural gas for year 2000 prices despite year 2023 costs are engaged in gouging.

[Bengus81]

18. LOL...I'll let you know when the good guys at our NG companies lower the rates

No...it's GOUGING because of that cold snap two years ago which it was really cold here for about six days. BFD...it was that cold around here every winter. Couple that with climate change where we can easily have temps in the 65-70 degree range in Feb and they sell less and less gas.

[womanofthehills]

30. We are shipping most of our natural gas to Europe because of the war

The US Is Now Sending the Bulk of Its Export Gas to Europe
The US sent nearly three quarters of all its liquefied natural gas to Europe in the first four months of 2022, up from one third last year. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-07/the-us-is-now-sending-the-bulk-of-its-export-gas-to-europe

Energy traders are making a killing exporting US natural gas to Europe as prices soar - with some single shipments bringing in $200 million https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/us-natural-gas-exports-europe-surge-energy-crisis-trader-profits-2022-8?op=1

[Torchlight]

15. Hopefully, in time, we'll look back at this much as we now see the phrases,

"Nine out of ten doctors prefer Chesterfields" and "More doctors smoke Camels" as little more than smoke-and-mirrors. But I'm guessing by then, our for-profit philanthropists will dress up something even more odious in a sweetly-made-for-TV jingle while the ad plays.

About ten years ago, I witnessed a huge swath of family, friends, and acquaintances buy into the "Windmills are cancer cluster" foolishness and decided at that point that while I may not be very clever, I know a lot of fools.

[trof]

28. My daughter us devastated.

Two years ago she did a MAJOR kitchen add on and remodel.
It is beautiful.
And the crown jewel is a very expensive gas range.
No way she's gonna rip that out, but she now feels guilty.
It's sad.

[womanofthehills]

32. Guilty??? Coal runs some electricity plants

It’s all relative. If we just produced enough natural gas for the US - we would be polluting less but our companies are greedy and making big bucks shipping 75% of it abroad.

We are now building wind farms in NM that out produce nuclear reactors 3000 MW vs 900 MW but as we produce more wind/solar energy - it doesn’t seem to matter as the corporations want to make money and will just pollute the US for energy to send abroad.

[hunter]

33. My wife insisted on a very expensive gas range...

...when the electronics on our old gas range fizzled out. Even though I do most of the cooking and was eyeing an inductive range.

It's all good. In my Utopian future we can convert the gas range to DME, and I'll still be the lazy cook using the microwave, electric grill, air fryer, and rice cooker for most meals.

For anyone who simply must cook with gas on some occassions in an all-electric world, they can buy a counter-top butane gas stove in any Asian market for about sixty dollars.

[Emile]

36. Wonder where Sen Manchin is on this?