They claim that shale gas has twice the carbon footprint of coal over the short-term.
The Press & Sun Bulletin (Ithaca, NY) reports,
ITHACA — A group of Cornell University scientists is standing its ground in the face of a challenge to its research on the climate change impact of shale gas drilling.
Led by Cornell ecology and environmental biology professor Robert Howarth, the scientists released a study last year showing that energy produced from natural gas drilling in shale formations can have a greater greenhouse gas footprint than energy produced from coal.
The study attracted national attention because its findings undermined a common argument in favor of natural gas production: that it is a cleaner energy source and can be a “bridge” fuel toward more sustainable energy sources like wind and solar.
Instead, Howarth and his co-authors wrote, the greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas is “perhaps more than twice as great as coal” when you compare the two energy sources over a 20-year time frame and “comparable” to coal over a 100-year time frame…
Regardless of the emissions, with respect to their climatic impact: 2 x 0 = 0.
They made an unrealistic and baseless assumption of methane leakage and took advantage of methane’s high GHG warming potential. Natural gas is 99% methane so allowing it to leak in great quantities is financially retarded. They basically assumed that companies wish to lose money. Economics understanding is poor in leftist “science”, so they’re predictions and conclusions are fantasys that don’t have any relavance in the real world.
Not that it matters anyway, because “carbon footprint” is irrelevant and unimportant.