Even China Gets It: Natural Gas > Coal

Courtesy of Joshua Brown, The Reformed Broker

I never understood President Obama’s fealty to the “clean” coal industry lobby. I also didn’t appreciate the President’s lumping in of natural gas with the rest of the “fossil fuels” during his Oval Office address this month. Sure, nat gas is a fossil fuel by definition, but it’s way cleaner than coal and exponentially more abundant on American soil than crude oil is. It’s also more feasible for things like buses and trucks than solar, geothermal, corn, hamster wheels, etc.

Anyway, China is now seeing the light on natural gas according to reports this morning. They plan to double their usage of it – at the expense of their coal use – by 2015.

From Platts:

China plans to double the natural gas share of its total energy consumption basket from the current 4% to 8% by 2015, a source close to the country’s National Energy Administration said Monday.

The shift would come at the expense of the share of coal in the mix in order to increase its use of cleaner energy, the source added.

On Saturday, China’s administrator of the national energy administration Zhang Guobao told a closed-door session at the APEC meeting in Fukui, Japan, that the country was working on raising its natural gas share in the primary energy mix to boost energy efficiency.

China currently uses coal to meet 70% of its energy needs. Renewables, including hydro, oil and nuclear power account for the remainder. The source said that oil usage would remain unchanged at 26% from 2011 through 2015.

Why is the transition to natural gas so obviously advantageous to seemingly everyone except the denizens of our nation’s capital? What is it about a safer, cleaner, more domestic fuel source that they don’t understand?

We’ve talked about the pending American Power Act that congress is expected to vote on over the next few weeks.

In that bill is a $64,000 tax credit per truck for each heavy vehicle switched over from diesel to compressed natural gas.  Hopefully, China’s move this morning adds some urgency and confidence into the process so that congress realizes that this is a “do”.

I’m hoping for a job-creating revolution should the Act pass, as infrastructure, exploration, storage and transmission capabilities across the country are upgraded. There are estimates that say over a half million jobs could be created.

More employment, less money sent over to our enemies in the War on Terror, cleaner burning fuel.  Win, win, win.

Comment on this post below.