[Watchdogs] J. Wayne Leonard: Cool the Planet With Natural Gas - WSJ.com

Fri Dec 17 13:08:37 CST 2010

Dear Andy: Your letter of Dec. 17, 2010 sounds very bad.

I am a Pet Eng., a Registered Professional, spent most of my life in the "Oil Patch".  I was one of the early pioneers of well fracturing back in 1953 in Odessa, Tx.  I have drilled, completed, fractured wells all over the world in thirty odd years and I have not heard of all this spoiled water, asthma and cancer that you talk about.
Has all this grief developed just in the Barnett Shale play?  Do you have any info from the Railroad Comm?
The folks that I worked with all those years in the oil business were good folks who do their best to not cause harm in their daily work.  They have families, too.

Sincerely,    Paul Langston   404 Westward Ho   Horseshoe Bay, Tx   78657 
                                                 830-598-1322    langston at zecon.com   

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Andy Wilson 
  To: Milton Hawkins 
  Cc: Chris Perry ; Dale Jones ; Luis Garcia ; Watchdogs ; Bob Rodi 
  Sent: Friday, December 17, 2010 10:22 AM
  Subject: Re: [Watchdogs] J. Wayne Leonard: Cool the Planet With Natural Gas - WSJ.com

  I don't disagree that natural gas is a cleaner option than burning coal, but we need to be aware of the other problems associated with it as a fuel.  I don't want to say "Natural gas is the answer for PEC" if that means more water is spoiled, more of our neighbors develop asthma, more of them get cancer from drilling up on the Barnett Shale.  Also, we need to be circumspect about the price of natural gas.  While it is at near historic lows, that means that there is little place else for the price to go than up.  California tried this in the 1980s and 90s-- building natural gas burning plants instead of coal-- and look at how volatile and unaffordable their energy prices became.

  Also, let's be a little wary about what the guy hawking natural gas says about why it is the answer.  I mean, not like he has any financial incentive to sell people on natural gas as a solution.

  His statistics are very different than those that came out of Texas A&M and the cost-effective way that wind reduced both CO2 and other regulated pollutants like NOx and SOx.  Compliance with the Texas Renewable Portfolio Standard has not increased prices for Texas consumers, Texas wind is among the cheapest cost resources in the state, and we have the most installed capacity of any state.  I agree with his contention that renewable energy mandates in areas with little or no renewable resources is not cost effective, just as mandating the use of oil, coal, or natural gas in areas with little of those resources may not be cost effective.  But this is Texas, and we have the 2nd most wind potential of any state, and the 2nd most solar potential of any state.  

  For those of you who are skeptical, please take a look at Mike Sloan's Powersmack article for today.  It also includes the links to the Larry Weis presentation I referred to several days ago.  http://powersmack.org/clean-energy-is-affordable-energy/ 

  On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 8:55 AM, Milton Hawkins <milton.hawkins at gmail.com> wrote:

    J. Wayne Leonard: Cool the Planet With Natural Gas - WSJ.com

    From the article:

    There are already more than 300 natural gas-fired electricity plants in the U.S., but according to a Congressional Research Service Report (CRS) of January 2010, we are only using 40% of their 171,000 megawatts of overall capacity. By substituting this unused gas-fired capacity for an equivalent amount of coal-based generation, the CRS report noted, we could almost immediately reduce CO2 emissions in the U.S. electricity sector by more than 10%, or more than 240 million tonnes. 

    Ultimately, we'll have to retrofit conventional coal plants with new technology to capture and sequester carbon if we are to achieve more substantial reductions in global CO2 emissions. But while we work to develop an economically viable technology for retrofitting carbon, gas-fired generation offers the country a cost-effective approach to begin reducing emissions. 

    Mandating the use of renewables, on the other hand, is much less attractive: Despite their allure, they displace only a modest amount of CO2 at a very high price. According to the Northbridge Group, mandating that 20% of every utility's generation portfolio come from renewables—a proposal currently before the Senate—would cost $225 more per household each year than achieving the same CO2 reduction by increasing the use of existing natural gas- powered generators. 

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