A Bridge Not Too Far

Last month, the Canadian Centre for Energy, this humble blog’s (mostly) proud parent, wrote a newsletter about natural gas. In many ways, Canada’s energy future is going to resemble its present, with existing types of energy production, but unconventional sources are going to have major effects on that production.

As the country’s conventional reserves of oil and natural gas decline, we’re increasingly looking toward alternative sources like the Athabasca oil sands and unconventional natural gas. But if unconventional natural gas seems like more of the same, there’s certainly the chance that it’s actually a sign of changing energy use.

According to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, natural gas electricity generation could be a “bridge” to future low-carbon energy production, replacing the carbon-intensive coal generation that dominates the US’s supply. Given natural gas’s lower carbon footprint (natural gas-fired plants emit about half as much CO2 as comparable coal facilities), and its increasing availability, the fuel makes sense for the heavy energy demands of the short term. While renewables are appealing, in Canada, for example, wind still makes up only 0.3 per cent of the country’s electricity generation. Getting that number up will require time and energy in the interim.

Unlike the US, our country’s electricity supply is already dominated by renewables, with hydro making up 61.7 per cent of electricity generation in 2007. Still, the federal government recently announced a plan to phase out the country’s remaining coal generation, retiring two-thirds of the country’s 51 coal plants by 2025. Provincially, both Manitoba and Ontario have already committed to going coal-free. Ontario has set a deadline of 2014, and Manitoba currently has only one remaining coal facility. Alberta, meanwhile, has nine coal-fired facilities. Electricity generation currently makes up about 22 per cent of the country’s CO2 emissions.

Changes to energy are certainly coming, but if our country’s hunger for energy is any indication (13.8 quadrillion Btu in 2007), we’ll need something to sate demand in the short term. In the interim, natural gas could be that fuel.

Via Scientific American