“GAME OVER” - The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America's Future - page 101

while still slashing its emissions. Whether CCS or renewables or some-
thing else (or for that mat er, nothing) is the future of zero-carbon
energy will depend on a complex mix of economics, technology, and
public policy.
h e last factor is critical: if you want to maximize the odds of hit-
ting ambitious climate targets while also taking advantage of cheap
natural gas, you need to use public policy ef ectively. Carbon taxes,
cap-and-trade, or a clean energy standard (CES) could each have the
potential to strike the right balance. Carbon taxes are charges that would
make coal, oil, and natural gas users pay penalties proportional to their
total greenhouse gas emissions. Cap-and-trade would make them buy
permits for every ton of carbon dioxide they emit, with a similar ef ect.
A CES would require that electricity producers derive an increasing
fraction of their power from cleaner sources, with partial credit for natu-
ral gas. All three admit a wide range of options for cut ing emissions:
whichever technology is most cost-ef ective—natural gas, zero-carbon
coal, nuclear power, renewable energy, or greater ei ciency—is the one
that will be pursued. So long as each becomes stricter over time (higher
carbon taxes, fewer emissions permits, or more clean energy under a
CES), this will encourage the conventional use of natural gas to replace
coal at i rst but will eventually tilt the incentives toward zero-carbon
power, including natural gas with CCS.

I n early 2011, Robert Howarth, Anthony Ingraf ea, and Renee

Santoro, three researchers at Cornell University, published a bomb-
shell study with a simple implication: everything I've just told you
about natural gas is wrong. Natural gas, they argued, was worse for
climate change than coal. h e announcement reverberated through the
energy world and through Washington. h e New York Times put the
stakes clearly: “Natural gas,” it wrote, “with its reputation as a linch-
pin in the ef ort to wean the nation of dirtier fossil fuels and reduce
global warming, may not be as clean overall as its proponents say.” 37
Environmental groups previously torn between supporting gas because
of its climate benei ts and opposing it because of its local risks sud-
denly had a way out. h

ere was no trade-of to be made: natural gas

was simply bad.