PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • March 10, 2021
Despite attempts by the American Petroleum Institute to convince the world that “clean” natural gas will help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, recent studies suggest that it is no cleaner than oil or coal. Natural gas is just a nice phrase for methane, which is 86 times more powerful over 20 years than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. A study published in the journal Energies in 2020 said, “natural gas pipelines are some of the worst offenders” when it comes to greenhouse-gas emissions. Building an infrastructure to transport natural gas is locking in those emissions for decades. We don’t have decades to wait to battle climate change. Natural gas may be promoted as a bridge fuel to cleaner, greener energy, but in reality it is a bridge to nowhere. ~ David Kuchta, Portland