• Yaztromo@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    As I mentioned in another post on this topic, that “might” is doing a TON of heavy lifting in Higg’s argument.

    AFAIK, no countries have stepped up to say they’d shut down coal fired plants if only they could get hold of more natural gas. China usually comes up in this conversation, but they already have a pipeline with Russia that supplies natural gas, and AFAIK it isn’t even at capacity yet. If China really wanted to replace coal with natural gas, they’d be doing it now with Russian gas, and wouldn’t have to wait the decade-plus it would take to get the infrastructure built to ship Canadian natural gas to them.

    If Higgs draws a dick on his forehead I might give him $100. I probably won’t, and have never discussed any plans to do so, but who knows? I might!

    • OminousOrange
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      8 months ago

      With fugitive emissions, methane is worse than coal. A coal leak just turns into a regular ol rock on the side of the railway. A methane leak is very hard to detect and releases much more GHG potential than even the burning of that coal.

      I’m not advocating for coal, just saying they’re both shit and we really shouldn’t even be having this conversation.

      • Yaztromo@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Agreed — I think replacing coal with natural gas is just a half-step that mostly benefits those with natural gas to sell, and just delays the overall transition.

        But of course the people arguing for natural gas don’t care about that, so it’s easier to challenge them on the fact that they’re also inventing some pipe dream without evidence that if we could get gas to China that they’d suddenly be all for converting (or shutting down) coal fired plants — when there is _no evidence for that anywhere, and where they could be doing that today if they really wanted to.