Letter to the editor: No, natural gas is not 'green energy'




The Repository
Thu, February 9, 2023 at 2:59 AM MST·2 min read

During the recent “lame duck” session, Ohio’s predominantly Republican legislature and Gov. Mike DeWine rushed to pass H.B. 507. The legislation would “create a broad new legal definition of green energy that would include natural gas.”

An anonymously funded, pro-natural gas, dark money group, the Empowerment Alliance, helped Ohio lawmakers spin the narrative that natural gas is green. The 501c4 group “Natural Allies for Clean Energy Future” is aiding the “greenwashing” by claiming gas is “necessary to accelerate our clean energy future.” Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) recently joined their ranks.

Labeling fracked gas as green energy does not change the scientific facts: The combustion of methane produces carbon dioxide, and methane itself is a potent greenhouse gas.

Methane produces lower carbon dioxide emissions when burned but that benefit is overshadowed by the fact that extracting methane via high-pressure hydraulic fracking releases enormous amounts of methane gas into the atmosphere. These emissions can be from leaks of storage tanks, compressor stations, blowdowns, pipelines, and flaring.

A report published in “Energy Science and Engineering” states natural gas (both shale gas and conventional gas) is responsible for much of the recent increases in methane emissions, and because of this have a higher greenhouse gas footprint than coal or oil. Pound for pound, the comparative impact of methane is 25 times greater than carbon dioxide.

Ohio’s southeastern counties are being used as sacrificial industrial sites. Pipelines mar wooded hillsides, well pads rise over the landscape, thousands of trucks loaded with carcinogenic chemicals, frack sand and toxic produced water travel our roads every day. Local residents are exposed to air and water emissions from the process which releases hazardous air pollutants and contaminates water.

The only time “green” can legitimately be used to describe methane gas is when pointing out it is a potent greenhouse gas.

Randi Pokladnik, Uhrichsville

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Letter to the editor: No, natural gas is not 'green energy'