Greenwashing Gas

Once nuclear fission was pitched as the energy source that would be “too cheap to meter.” Now the construction cost overruns are so incredible, and the operating and decommissioning liabilities so staggering, only the promise of blank check public subsidies makes it possible to even give away a half-finished nuclear plant.

Now the methane gas lobby wants to fix its own well-deserved image collapse problem by attempted greenwashing of its climate-altering product as “the cleanest energy in the world.”

Don’t buy it. While methane produces less carbon dioxide than coal when burned, methane itself is a far more potent heat-trapping greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Analysts are finding now that the amount of methane gas leaked to the atmosphere in its production and transportation processes could offset much of the gains from substituting gas for coal.

At a recent industry conference, frustrated gas corporation executives lamented that they had “lost the narrative” needed to sell their product as the way to go on energy policy. We are shocked…shocked…to hear confirmed that the public would rather see investment in truly clean (and increasingly also cheaper) alternatives like solar and wind power, than to pour their rising electric bill money into more fracking fields, groundwater contamination, and massive cross-country pipelines from the methane gas industry.