Those wild and crazy profs at Cornell University are at it again. This time Lawrence Cathles, a professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, says natural gas is better for the climate than coal, even with methane leakage. That counters last year's report by colleagues Robert Howarth and Anthony Ingraffea that maintains that after including methane leaks into the atmosphere, natural gas is a worse global warming gas than CO2. "The only thing that really counts is the amount of carbon dioxide you put in the atmosphere," Cathles told Bloomberg News today. On that count, natural gas releases much less CO2 than coal, leading Cathles to conclude that "the story is quite clear than we would be very well advised to substitute natural gas" for coal in such uses as power generation.
Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but leaves the atmosphere faster. Cathles said that even if 10 percent of all the natural gas produced leaks unburned into the atmosphere -- which he calls "an impossible number" -- natural gas is still the winner. For the record, Howarth and Ingraffea estimate that as much as 7.9 percent of natural gas production escapes unburned, while Cathles said he believes the figure is likely less than 2 percent.
-- Jim Fuquay