Gov. Bill Ritter’s 31-page Climate Action Plan devotes a miserly two paragraphs to the potential of natural gas as a “bridge” fuel to a greener economy. The 2007 document prattles on and on about trash collection, a “climate registry,” and all manner of marginal or exotic methods for limiting greenhouse gas emissions while largely ignoring an elephant in the room. (Another elephant — nuclear power — is more or less dismissed.)
My, how minds change. Suddenly the governor has got that old-time fossil-fuels religion. Not only is he pushing for a climate bill in Congress that encourages greater use of natural gas (the House version that passed in June doesn’t), but he recently told the Western Slope’s Club 20 that natural gas production is “mission critical” for the state’s economy.
It seems that “Drill, Baby, Drill” is not just a red-state shibboleth anymore.
On the one hand, embracing natural gas is merely smart politics in the run-up to next year’s governor’s race because of industry jobs. Yet it’s also good policy because it begins to wrench Ritter’s New Energy Economy out of the land of make-believe where renewable energy alone somehow transports us to the Promised Land. No one but Al Gore or an outright fantasist — but I repeat myself — believes we can meet the growing energy needs of this nation over the next few decades without continued heavy reliance on fossil fuel.
Besides, the natural gas industry has a case to make unlike any other traditional energy resource. It’s far cleaner than coal — roughly half of the carbon footprint. It’s largely a domestic product, with Canadian imports the only major exception — and let’s face it, Stephen Harper is no Hugo Chavez. Perhaps most surprising of all, at least to the doomsday chorus warning about “finite” resources, our country is awash in the stuff.
In the past three years alone, total recoverable reserves of natural gas have soared 39 percent, according to a nonprofit research group — the Potential Gas Committee — affiliated with the Colorado School of Mines. That represents upwards of 100 years of supply. Thanks to advances in drilling technology, huge fields in the northeast, Gulf Coast and Texas can now be tapped — easing longtime concerns about price volatility.
The implications of this newfound bonanza of gas have been slow to sink in with policy makers, environmentalists and others who follow energy issues (myself included). For one thing, diverting more gas to electrical generation needn’t threaten a steep price run-up for residential customers any more. Elected officials who’ve been chanting their New Energy mantras oblivious to reality on the ground are now free to come down off their mountains, embrace a fossil fuel and still plausibly claim they’re promoting both a greener future and energy independence.
Environmentalists are coming around, too, although in some cases with a predictable lack of subtlety. Visiting Denver last month, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared at a gathering of Colorado Conservation Voters, “Coal is the enemy and gas is the friend,” according to the Denver Daily News. Kennedy wants the government to order utilities to convert much of their electricity generation from coal to gas — and pronto.
Fortunately, you don’t have to favor stupendously costly — and colossally dumb — policies like mandated coal-to-gas conversion to appreciate the opportunity in those huge reserves of natural gas.
If nothing else, they represent the New Energy Economy, Take Two.
E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com.
