Gas as back-up to renewables and bridge to the future.

Natural gas can buy us time and be the bridge fuel to a no carbon future based on a energy mix every bit as diverse as the current coal, gas, nuclear, renewable mix. A no/ultra low carbon future might arise from any one or many sources: wind, tidal, stored solar, oilgae, solar batteries, hydrogen or fusion for example.

Robert F Kennedy Jr of the US environmental organisation Waterkeeper's Alliance is a supporter of gas as an alternative to coal.  He recently proposed using gas as back up to solar:

The solar power sector and the natural gas industry need to build an alliance to get more government support and take over the energy sector from incumbents like Big Oil and King Coal, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said on Wednesday....

The alliance is just forming,” Kennedy told reporters after his remarks. He added that the natural gas industry has been “hiding under oil and they think Big Oil is going to take care of them. But they’re realizing Big Oil is never going to let them make a profit” and that companies like Chesapeake are realizing “that their future is with the environmental community and the renewable community.”

He said the team-up also makes sense because power from natural gas can help balance out solar and wind-generated electricity on the grid, eliminating the problem of inconsistency on sunny days, for instance.

What about UK environmentalists?  Where do they stand on the new world of abundant natural gas?

Many of them are as unaware of the game changing events in natural gas everyone else, simply due to the (diminishing) silence in the UK MSM.  But some greens are starting to educate themselves, and will be popping up in unexpected places shortly.

Comments

[Andy]

Two brief comments. First, Kennedy was not the first to notice the natural gas/solar connection. Most California solar thermal plants have had natgas backup power.

Second, the Hudson River is where his Riverkeeper group got its start. If his old-time member see a conflict between developing Marcellus shale or protecting the Hudson it will be interesting to see whose side Kennedy takes.

[Guru]

I think that the fact that Kennedy doesnt see much of a risk to the Hudson tells us something. Ive been on the Clearwater myself a few times, the original Hudson Waterkeepers vessel, so I know what a big deal the Marcellus can be to the local environmentalists.

I also know people upstate who are rubbing their hands at the prospect of becoming the New Paltz, Mountaindale or Woodstock (!) Beverly Hillbillies!