Is natural gas cleaner than coal?
It’s long been considered the more climate friendly of the two fossil fuels. That’s largely because gas-burning power plants emit about half as much carbon dioxide per unit of energy compared with coal-fired plants. Natural gas, now the dominant fuel in the U.S. electricity sector, has other advantages over coal. It generates fewer toxic airborne pollutants when burned.
Extracting the fuel through hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” — using high-pressurized water, sand and chemicals to fracture underground rock formations, releasing gas and oil — also has a less destructive impact on land than open-pit coal mines. Those factors have led energy companies, lawmakers and even some environmentalists to call natural gas a reliable “bridge fuel” that can reduce emissions amid the transition to renewables. And since 2005, planet-warming carbon emissions from U.S. power plants have shrunk by some 40% as hundreds of coal-fired power plants have been retired and many replaced with gas plants.
Diversified Energy Company plc (LON:DEC), formerly Diversified Gas & Oil plc, is a gas and oil production company operating in the Appalachian Basin in the United States.
