No Hot Air

(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel

Remember the blog No Hot Air is British:


No Hot Air: "Shale Gas: What Now? What Next?

Is this a harbinger of a shifting UK understanding on shale gas, described here as unconventional? The eminently mainstream forum of the New Scientist is hopefully a portent of a new UK understanding of the environmental benefits of shale :

FORGET coal, it's too dirty. Forget nuclear power, it's too expensive and controversial. Forget renewables, they're too unpredictable. To meet our energy needs and cut carbon emissions we need an abundant source of clean, cheap energy, available night and day and in all weathers.

We may be in luck. Natural gas is such a fuel, and it's sitting right under our noses in abundance. Predominantly methane, it's the cleanest-burning of all fossil fuels (see chart), so using gas rather than coal to generate electricity could halve greenhouse gas emissions from traditional coal-fired power plants."