Thanks Fracking: Carbon Levels Down To 1991 Levels, Cheap Natural Gas Chiefly Responsible

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Written By:
Rob Port

Jul 3, 2012
1:12pm

Fracking and shale gas is doing what Al Gore, cap and trade, the Kyoto treaty, the Toyota Prius, wind turbines, solar panels and Congress couldn’t do. Namely, lowering carbon emissions in a meaningful way.

From Mark Perry:

John Hanger points out on his energy blog that energy-related carbon dioxide emissions have fallen so sharply in the first three months of 2012 according to new data from the EIA, that total CO2 emissions this year are on track to drop to the lowest level since 1991, see chart above.

The key driver for the “shockingly good news” that CO2 emissions will probably fall this year to a two-decade low according to John is “the shale gas revolution, and the low-priced gas that it has made a reality, especially in the last 12 months. As of April, gas tied coal at 32% of the electric power generation market, nearly ending coal’s 100 year reign on top of electricity markets (see related CD post on this energy milestone).  Let’s remember the speed and extent of gas’s rise and coal’s drop: coal had 52% of the market in 2000 and 48% in 2008.”

Indeed, as the chart above shows, it took 16 years for CO2 emissions to rise from 5,000 to 6,000 million metric tons, and then thanks to the shale gas revolution, only five years to go from 6,000 back down to 5,000 million metric tons.

I don’t buy that carbon emissions were every really the crisis that our friends in the left-wing environmentalist movement told us it was, but there’s no denying that natural gas is an improvement over coal plants.

Thanks to private sector innovations and advancements, done without need of taxpayer subsidies, carbon emissions are being reduced dramatically. Meanwhile, solar panels and wind turbines are still expensive boondoggles costing taxpayers dearly.