James Manganaro, Princeton
I was grateful for Huck Fairman’s article “The PennEast Pipeline” which outlined the many lesser and greater objections to the proposed pipeline. Of course, the fundamental one being the mind boggling logical contradiction of investing in yet more CO2 producing energy when there is clear evidence and prediction that CO2 emissions are having increasingly dreadful local and global consequences (though, in the grand scheme of things, falling into the category of minor irritant, often notable in annual insurance bills).
Obviously, if an energy company wants to invest with a guaranteed return of 12 to 14 percent it would be better for everyone if it were in solar, wind or fusion research.
One more comment if I may: It is true that natural gas, if it replaced coal as a fuel for a power plant, it would produce half of the CO2 for the same energy production. However, if as little as 3 percent of the natural gas was lost in production, distribution and consumption it would then be at parity with coal since methane is 20 to 30 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2.
So, if the efficiency of natural gas usage was less than 97 percent it would be worse than coal. I am not aware of any data in this regard. Of course, this says nothing about the significant environmental toll, seen and unseen, extracted by the fracking process.
James Manganaro
Princeton
