Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Will Gas Crowd out Wind and Solar?

Daniel Yergin, author of the new bestseller The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World, is one of the planet's foremost thinkers about energy and its implications. He received a Pulitzer Prize for his previous book, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power. Yergin is chairman and founder of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, is on the U.S. Secretary of Energy advisory board, and chaired the U.S. Department of Energy's Task Force on Strategic Energy Research and Development. He talked recently with Brian Dumaine about the role natural gas will play in America's energy future.
Daniel Yergin

Fracking technology has given the U.S. a 100-year supply of cheap natural gas. What's its impact on coal, nuclear, wind, and solar power?

Inexpensive natural gas is transforming the competitive economics of electric power generation in the U.S. Coal plants today generate more than 40% of our electricity. Yet coal plant construction is grinding to a halt: first, because of environmental reasons and second, because the economics of natural gas are so compelling. It is being championed by many environmentalists as a good substitute for coal because it is cleaner and emits about 50% less carbon dioxide.

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