In the wake of Pennsylvania’s natural gas well explosion, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has already begun examining what went wrong and what potential effect the spill will ultimately have on the surrounding environment. It’s unfortunate when accidents of this nature occur, but I would encourage the EPA, Congress and the Administration not to rush to action and move to implement more regulations within the energy sector without in-depth analysis to better understand how they would affect energy reliability, jobs, and the economy.

This seems to be standard practice for the EPA – implementing burdensome and unreasonable mandates on energy generators with no consideration of the economic consequences for energy consumers. A study by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) found recent Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) utility regulations will not only affect the reliability of the energy grid, but will also affect energy cost because as the power companies are required to spend the $300 billion needed to comply with the regulations, the cost will be passed on to the consumers.

While we can all agree that it’s important to integrate cleaner, renewable sources of energy into the grid, it’s equally important to consider the economic consequences of rushing to achieve these goals. Recently, I have noticed a trend of implementing costly regulations that will destroy some of our most abundant, affordable, and reliable sources of energy while threatening jobs and the economy. Artificially limiting demand will also be a de-facto leg up to many of our international manufacturing competitor nations…an additional advantage that they don’t need.

At a time when America’s energy demand is only increasing, it’s important to recognize the need for a diverse set of energy resources. Just as natural gas is valuable to the reliability of the energy grid, so are coal, oil, wind, solar, hydropower, biofuels, and nuclear power. There is no cure all energy solution without risks of interruption. These sources should all work in tandem with one another to ensure that when one energy source fails, there are others to back it up. America needs a steady and affordable supply of base-load power. It would be irresponsible to begin relying exclusively on one energy source over another, particularly through layers of government mandates designed to force specific energy generators to shut down.

I would encourage Congress and the Administration to consider the implications on the economy and the energy grid before placing further burdens on the energy sector, particularly as it relates to our most reliable energy sources.

Greater demand of natural gas to the transportation sector is the responsibility of markets, not Congress, subsidies or mandates. Subsidizing natural gas demand is not sound energy or economic policy and will have the long term effect of increasing the price of natural gas and electricity to all consumers. If natural gas offers added-value to vehicle owners, including corporate fleets, private sector investments will be made and demand for natural gas will increase. Why should tax payers subsidize corporate auto and truck fleets to the tune of $64,000 for heavy duty trucks?

Given the reported abundant supply of natural gas and the high price of existing transportation fuels, natural gas should be able to compete without subsidies. There is nothing to stop natural gas from competing and gaining market share. Existing transportation fuel providers had to invest in production facilities, refueling stations and collaborate with the producers of vehicles to create the market that they have today. They did so without subsidies. Natural gas providers and fleet owners should be required to make those same investments without subsidies.

There is value to increased energy security in using greater amounts of domestic natural gas. Given its importance, Congress should instead ensure that there are no regulatory barriers to entry to using natural gas in the transportation sector.

Besides, natural gas demand is growing quickly without subsidies. According to the EIA, US natural gas demand increased by 5.7 percent from 2009 to 2010. Natural gas is used as a both a feedstock and a fuel by manufacturing. It is also a growing fuel for power generation as well having increased by over 42 percent since 2000.

Let markets – not subsidies determine natural gas demand.

As with all forms of energy, when we talk about current and prospective natural gas development in this country, we have to address three key areas – health and environmental concerns, supply, and economic impact.

The recent gas well blowout in Pennsylvania as well as the Cornell report on fugitive methane emissions, have brought environmental issues related to a larger role for natural gas in our to the forefront of the natural discussion. Consumer Energy Alliance was created as a broad public forum to debate issues on energy and the environment with information that is based on sound science and with a goal towards forming policy without a predetermined agenda. A primary message at Consumer Energy Alliance is that protecting the public health should be the number one priority of our domestic energy production efforts. Our organization feels that proper regulation and protection of our groundwater resources is essential to responsible and sustainable energy development and that any and all problems should be acknowledged and properly handled.

We do not think that there should be a tradeoff between natural gas production and public health. However, it is our contention that in the public debate about the safety of hydraulic fracturing, the bottom line is that the concerns that have been raised are either exaggerated or solvable. Assertions by opponents of natural gas production that hydraulic fracturing allows chemicals to seep into the public water supply are not accurate, are alarmist – which may be the point – and, frankly defy the laws of physics. Water tables are 1,000 feet or less from the surface, while “fracking” usually takes place beyond 7,000 feet. And in Pennsylvania, where it has been determined that methane leaked into the water supply, the cause was sloppy producers who didn’t take the proper care to cement their wells. While this is a serious concern, and we should ensure that safety regulations are in place to prevent this, the technology and process of fracking itself is not the problem.

Finally, the statistics highlighted in the Cornell report regarding the potential for greenhouse gas emissions have been widely disputed. It’s certainly not the definitive report on the subject and I would presume that more than a few scientists from other prestigious institutions (and maybe with more defined and a stronger background on the subject) might take umbrage at the methodology and assumptions used in the Cornell and we’ll see a direct challenge soon.

But what all these public debates on natural gas fail to highlight is what a gift the discovery of the Marcellus shale is for our country and our economy. With these supplies come great opportunities for economic growth – and a more favorable climate for U.S. manufacturers (and CEA members) that use natural gas as a source of energy. We can and should continue to ensure that safety standards are stringent but also take this opportunity to restart our national economy.

The exploration of these natural gas resources could give our country options we’ve never had before – the opportunity to significantly reduce our dependence on foreign oil and the opportunity to jumpstart and reinvigorate a domestic manufacturing industry, which has been an engine of economic growth in previous decades.

Natural gas is a clean, abundant, efficient and affordable source of energy and it can and should be developed safely and responsibly. Recent reports estimate that the United States could have as much as 3.22 quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas potential – as much natural gas as Saudi Arabia has oil…times two.

With these supplies come great opportunities for economic growth – and a more favorable climate for U.S. manufacturers that use natural gas as a source of energy. We can and should continue to ensure that safety standards are stringent but also take this opportunity to restart our national economy and create much-needed jobs.

According to James A. Garfield, “Man cannot live by bread alone – he must have peanut butter.” Such is the case with our nation’s energy resources.

It’s taken a while for the information to sink in, but now almost everyone knows the country has a vast natural gas resource. Therefore, the role natural gas plays in the future has the potential to be much larger than was thought just a few short years ago. The fastest-growing part of that resource, shale gas, exists deep under many different regions of the country, not just the old-school Gulf Coast gas patch. In fact, the largest shale gas basin, the Marcellus Shale, lies under Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, Ohio, and Maryland—right in the middle of the consuming regions. It would seem that gas’s role would be assured for the immediate future. . . However, that just is not the case at all.

Recently we have heard from an increasingly vocal minority calling for the end of shale gas development – as it is currently performed – because of the potential dangers of “fracking.” This cry grew louder with the recent explosion of fracking material at a well in Pennsylvania. A lot has been made of this incident and it has resulted in a voluntary operations moratorium by the well owner on wells in Pennsylvania until the cause of the explosion can be identified and a fix is engineered and installed.

No one short-term event should keep us from placing gas, or any other domestically available, relatively clean energy resource in our quiver of energy supply. As Americans, we love “choices.” Even our Sunday Brunches provide more meal options that we could realistically eat in a month. But if we completely remove one of our energy options from the energy mix because it’s not absolutely perfect, it would be like taking eggs or bacon completely off the menu just because salmonella exists.

As long as the country needs fossil fuels to keep our beloved electricity on, we should at least maintain some kind of a healthy, home-grown diet. Energy efficiency and renewable energy should be highly favored in our buffet; they are what will ultimately sustain us. Gas may run out. Our currently recoverable natural gas resource may last more than 100 years, but it is not an infinite resource by any means. We need to use the time gas provides us to put our great American ingenuity to work and truly establish a new era in energy creation; an era that will last longer than the last one hundred years of natural gas, or the one hundred years of oil before that.

What the country needs to do is understand that using our current resources, whether it be solar, wind, coal, natural gas and yes, even nuclear, is better for the country’s long-term economic well-being than continuing to rely on expensive depleting resources from foreign lands. And I’m not talking about peanut butter.

The mantra of energy developers in the U.S. needs to be one line: “Do it right.”

So far, and especially recently, the mantra has been “do it cheap” – and the results are as bad as expected from an emphasis on profits over safety (see the blowout last week in Pennsylvania, and the hilarious-if-it-wasn’t-so-awful bonuses paid to TransOcean executives for their “safety record” that included the deaths of 11 people on the Deepwater Horizon).

Natural gas might release less carbon pollution when burned than dirtier fuel sources like coal, but that doesn’t make it a “clean” energy source, just a “marginally less dirty” one. Producing the gas releases tons of polluting ozone – several areas in Wyoming have had to issue “ozone alert days” in the brisk days of March because of nearby natural gas wells. And the methane released by burning natural gas could be worse than the carbon from coal burning plants – exacerbating climate change even faster.

None of this is “doing it right.” Doing it right means fully disclosing the chemicals that are in the millions of gallons of “fracking fluid” that is being pumped into the ground at each well. Doing it right is responsibly drilling wells away from sensitive water resources and wildlife habitat. Doing it right means not shutting down producing wells, and expecting that “… many of the idle wells will be brought back into production when the price of natural gas rebounds.”

Doing it right should be the only way that America produces natural gas. It should be a complement to truly clean energy sources like wind and solar, that don’t threaten entire watersheds of drinking water or entire communities’ clean air. But assuming that natural gas is a “clean” energy source or one without major risks to American families and communities is “doing it wrong.”

Plentiful and cheap natural gas is the Prozac of American energy policy. It may take the edge off of some of our worst symptoms in the near term. But it can also dull us to solving key long term and chronic problems, especially regarding climate change. And, as with any medication, there can also be some negative side-effects – some clearly remediable (methane leaks), and some (water and air contamination impacts from fracturing – or “fracking”-- of shale to yield gas) still to be managed with sufficient rigor and transparency.

On the positive side, there is little doubt that cheap natural gas can help provide some environmental relief in the short term by lowering the cost of displacing older coal-fired electric generation. Natural gas power plants emit less than half of the CO2 per kilowatt-hour as do those powered by coal; the emissions reduction gains are even greater for conventional pollutants like smog and soot and for air toxics like mercury. True, upstream leaks of methane (a far more potent global warmer than CO2) are a source of greenhouse gas pollution that cuts into the climate advantages of burning natural gas. But these leaks can be virtually eliminated, and the gas industry needs to focus a lot more on fixing them, and less on insisting that we should only consider climate impacts over a full century (which de-emphasizes the importance of the methane leaks, relative to the CO2 advantages of gas over coal, because CO­2 lasts longer in the atmosphere).

But fuel switching alone simply is not a long-term solution for climate change. Recent reports by the National Academy of Sciences indicate that CO2 emissions are, effectively, permanent; half the carbon atoms emitted today will be in the atmosphere thousands of years from now. Because the atmosphere does not drain carbon quickly, much of the emissions from a “natural gas bridge,” unfortunately, will be with us for millennia. Given this carbon inertia, and uncertainty around the sensitivity of climate to CO2 (with really bad outcomes somewhat more likely than moderately bad ones), the only prudent approach is to pursue options that are zero-carbon. For example, gas-fired generation, like coal-fired generation, must be coupled with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) to ensure near-zero emissions. Carbon capture from gas-fired generation has been commercially demonstrated in the US. Happily, it is also less expensive than carbon capture at coal plants at today’s natural gas prices.

The recent controversy surrounding a paper by Robert Howarth of Cornell that compares the life cycle emission of coal and gas power generation (arguing that natural gas may have a bigger climate footprint than coal due to leaks of methane), risks becoming a distraction from the main point. We need to develop and deploy greenhouse gas-free technologies today, regardless of the fuel source. My colleague at CATF, David McCabe, has provided a more detailed technical critique of the Howarth report. Some of his main points:

1. Despite the paper’s flaws, it has brought long overdue attention to a critical climate issue: methane leaks from production of natural gas, oil and coal. These leaks are enormous sources of an extremely potent greenhouse gas, and they need to be eliminated – and this can happen right away. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that only with carbon capture and sequestration from all fossil fuels will we have the near zero-carbon electricity we need to protect our climate. We’ll need to use coal and gas for a long time around the world and we likely can’t develop and deploy renewables and advanced nuclear fast enough to avoid the worst effects of climate damage. It’s time to apply CCS at commercial scale.

2. We can eliminate needless methane emissions from gas, oil, and coal extraction immediately at relatively low cost (some of these measures pay for themselves in months), making much of the coal-versus-natural gas methane leaks discussion irrelevant. EPA and the states should take appropriate actions to make this happen.

3. Available data on these fugitive methane emissions are generally terrible, so this debate won’t be well-resolved for some time anyway. EPA needs to focus on improving that data, and the natural gas industry needs to stop fighting those efforts and help out. In the meantime we must begin eliminating the leaks we know about.

One last word on “cheap gas.” There is substantial euphoria right now over the “shale gale.” Otherwise sober-minded utility executives are staking their companies’ futures on cheap shale gas, and downplaying the need for policy changes to develop and deploy zero carbon energy. But serious doubts are being raised about the notion that a glut in shale gas will result in low gas prices in the long term. Putting aside potential environmental problems associated with “fracking” of shale gas, there is some evidence that current projections of low shale gas prices are based on early, high-yield production that in many cases declines rapidly, cross-subsidies from shale liquids, and the frenzied exercise of “use it or lose it” lease terms. In my almost 30-year career, I’ve witnessed gas-powered generation go from being legally forbidden, to low-cost savior, to high priced-delicacy, and now back again to apparently becoming America’s de facto energy policy. But history tells us that any energy or climate policy that makes an all-hands bet on a dominant solution is likely, in the fullness of time, to prove unwise.

To a large degree – and as has, unfortunately, been frequently the case on energy policy issues – public discourse around natural gas to date has been a series of polemical, one-sided statements by proponents and opponents. Each camp typically dismisses the other’s concerns and arguments, little effort is made to reconcile the other’s assertion of facts, science, and technology, and there is more hyperbole than reasoned engagement. Regardless of what role natural gas should play in America’s future energy mix, whatever role it does play will have been impacted by how we approach these issues today; indeed, its potential to help address our energy problems – whatever it is – needs to be discussed in a responsible, inclusive, and open way, or we will never achieve that potential.

An example of such an open discussion happened last December when OurEnergyPolicy.org hosted a panel discussion on natural gas. The panel featured three natural gas experts – Melanie Kenderdine of the MIT Energy Initiative, Greg Dolan from the Methanol Institute, and Greg Staple from the American Clean Skies Foundation – each with a distinct perspective. They agreed on some points, disagreed on others, but most importantly were addressing the issues of reserves, hydraulic fracturing, distribution, environmental impact, etc. based on facts and experience, and with an eye toward possible solutions. This discussion took place respectfully, publicly, and on the record—characteristics of discourse that will be necessary if America is serious about identifying areas of consensus and innovative solutions. Regardless of natural gas’s position in the future energy mix, a lot more of this kind of dialogue will need to take place if natural gas is going to (1) be used responsibly and over the long haul, and (2) earn the trust of the American people.

It seems that every technical advance promising to reduce the carbon intensity of energy generation is met with an environmental assessment saying it is actually worse than the energy source it is intended to replace. As biofuels were compared to petroleum gasoline, hydraulic fracturing to retrieve unconventional natural gas in shale formations is now being said to emit more greenhouse gas than coal. The truth is no energy technology is absolutely risk free. Policymakers need to measure relative risks and fund the most promising, least risky alternatives.

The problem with such comparisons is that the emissions from petroleum gasoline and coal are held as constant values. In the case of biofuels, biotech innovations are constantly improving their costs and emissions profiles, while with petroleum, technological improvements are merely allowing it to be drawn from ever more marginal and carbon intensive sources, such as the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The risks and benefits of energy choices should be measured appropriately.

We need petroleum products but we also need advanced biofuels The biotech innovations applied to biofuels over the past 20 years hold promise to improve fossil resource extraction as well. Natural gas is the product of microorganisms, heat and pressure that break down coal and petroleum below ground. Biotech scientists are currently studying the naturally occurring microbes in coal mines and coal seams to understand how they can be utilized to efficiently produce coal bed methane for energy use.

Several companies are pioneering work that seems to be a credible way of stimulating methane production in coal seams. This biogenic natural gas could allow us to utilize deep coal seams that are not available for mining in a more environmentally friendly way. In addition, some researchers are looking at using biotechnology to increase production in oil wells. Microbes and/or enzymes can be injected into low performing wells to enhance secondary and tertiary oil recovery.

First, proper context and the facts: Your readers should know that the recent incident in Bradford County, Pennsylvania was not an explosion, nor was it a fire – it was a release of brine water, according to the company. Most importantly, no one was injured and initial samples of a nearby stream show “little, if any” adverse impact on aquatic life.

This accident should and will bear a full and proper investigation by state regulators to determine the cause. Across the board, America’s independent oil and natural gas producers actively seek to enhance best management practices to ensure that such incidents – as uncommon as they are – do not occur. There are more than 1 million active oil and gas wells in the United States, and independent producers drill 95 percent of these wells, both on- and offshore. There’s a reason we don’t read about well-control incidents often, it’s because they’re extremely rare.

Further, claims asserted against American natural gas production in a recently released, non-peer reviewed ‘Cornell’ paper – which relied on fundamentally flawed data – simply do not pass the smell test. In the days that followed the study’s release, scholars, environmental groups, and other independent experts were quick to point out its host of errors and flawed assumptions. Michael Levi, a Council on Foreign Relations energy and environment fellow, described the study’s data as “really bad,” adding that an “unforgivable methodological flaw” exists.

For the past 60 years, state regulators have ably regulated hydraulic fracturing. State regulatory agencies have a unique and far superior understanding of their regions than EPA could ever amass. A misguided, one-sized-fits-all approach to regulating fracturing -- as called for in Senator Bob Casey’s FRAC Act -- would dramatically undermine American natural gas production without adding any environmental benefits.

The Obama Administration can play a meaningful role, as the president outlined recently, by leading efforts to responsibly leverage American’s abundant natural gas resources for expanded transportation usage. With an estimated 100-year supply of domestic, clean-burning natural gas, the expanded use of natural gas as a transportation fuel makes economic and environmental sense, especially with consumers paying more and more at the pump.

However, more taxes, more unnecessary red tape, and more Washington solutions in search of problems are not the answer.

In a period of increasing energy demand, the United States needs solutions that are domestic, readily available, abundant and clean. Natural gas answers the call on all fronts. It is encouraging that the Obama administration and legislators across the political spectrum are recognizing the benefits natural gas can provide.

While there is risk inherent in any type of energy production, natural gas development has an excellent overall safety record. Risks are managed in a safe and responsible way in communities across the country every day. Given these facts, the extraordinary contributions that this vast domestic energy source can make to our nation’s economy, environment and energy security make a strong case for a growing role for natural gas in advancing cleaner power generation and transportation.

These benefits have made natural gas an attractive alternative for utilities throughout our nation from the Tennessee Valley Authority to the state of Colorado. The potential for natural gas to promote cleaner air at an affordable price makes a compelling case to policymakers and utility executives. On the transportation side, companies like AT&T, UPS and Verizon are investing heavily in natural gas vehicles because they can slash vehicle emissions and fuel costs, while reducing U.S. dependence on foreign energy.

Natural gas is such an incredibly versatile and valuable component of our energy future. So it is disappointing when misleading claims cloud the debate. The Cornell University report has been widely criticized. Robert Howarth, the study’s author, is not a climate scientist, but an evolutionary biologist whose biased methodology produced patently false assertions about the climate impacts of natural gas that established scientists have taken issue with.

When facts are applied, it becomes readily apparent that natural gas is produced safely, that the vast resources we have right here in America are critical to our energy security, and that, in addition to clean air benefits, natural gas production can generate much needed economic activity and jobs in communities across this country. Most importantly, we don’t have to choose between reaping these benefits and safeguarding our environment.

All parties to our nation’s energy debates share a strong commitment to safe and responsible development. It shows in the strong overall record of the natural gas industry. And, it makes a clear case for why natural gas should play a growing role in our nation’s energy future.

Nature and technology have generously coincided to provide a great blessing – a clean, competitive and inexpensive windfall. That windfall is abundant natural gas, a genuine elixir that will deliver the cleaner energy the U.S. needs to compete in the world.

New gas finds, both conventional and shale gas, have dramatically increased our domestic supplies. The U.S. is now the third-largest producer of natural gas after the Middle East and Russia. The Colorado School of Mines estimates that the total potential of U.S. gas supply increased by 61 percent from 2000 to 2008. And they are not the only ones. CERA, MIT and others all believe the country is flush with natural gas.

Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel. It emits approximately 80 percent less sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide per megawatt hour (MWh) than coal, 55 percent less carbon dioxide, and no mercury or particulates. And inexpensive natural gas will help jumpstart the transition to clean energy. Low natural gas prices have driven utilities to retire or mothball nearly 12 gigawatts of coal-fired generation nationwide, because they are simply no longer economic. Meanwhile, gas usage in the utility sector was up an average of 6 percent year-over-year for the first half of 2010, compared to 2009.

The existing natural gas fleet can cheaply accommodate the majority of coal retirements that will result from the EPA’s proposed clean air rules. Deutsche Bank believes that two-thirds of the coal-to-gas switch can be met by increasing the utilization of the existing gas fleet. And if new plants need to be built, new natural gas combined cycle plants cost less than half of a new coal plant and only a sixth of the cost of a new nuclear plant.

Congress does not need to do anything to drive the nation’s transition to an economic clean energy future. Natural gas will do it – by making great advances in affordably cleaning up the country’s electricity generation fleet and enhancing our global competitiveness and energy security.

Natural gas, justifiably, is grabbing attention, both among policymakers and in the media, as a key component to America’s energy future. It’s domestic, affordable, abundant and cleaner than other fossil fuels. But, like all energy sources, its use is not without risks.

New, innovative use of hydraulic fracturing technology has opened the door to over a 100-year supply of natural gas from shale formations. While new development mostly has been done safely and without incident, our industry’s record has not been perfect.

Any accident can heighten concerns, particularly in areas not used to such development. Much of the newly recoverable shale gas resources are found in regions that have not seen oil and gas development in generations – if ever. We can – and we must – improve our safety record. We need the public to feel comfortable with natural gas and its development because natural gas is crucial to a cleaner, more sustainable U.S. energy future.

It is important to take the time to find out what happened after an incident before jumping to conclusions or making rash policy decisions. That is not to say that accidents should be accepted. We believe that safety must be a core value of our industry, and that every day our workers and our contractors should be working toward zero incidents – a perfect record of safety and reliability. Still, we must get the facts and make reasoned, responsible decisions, rather than knee-jerk reactions that could not only fail to improve problems, but actually exacerbate them.

Just like with accidents, we should be careful not to react excessively when it comes to studies or reports. We have good reason to be suspicious of the results of the recent study by Cornell professors Robert Howarth and Tony Ingraffea, “Methane and Greenhouse-Gas Footprint of Natural Gas from Shale Formations,” which purports that coal has fewer harmful emissions than natural gas. We’ve identified a number of serious flaws in study, and particularly in its assumptions. We welcome a debate on the risks and benefits of various energy sources, and we are confident – when those analyses are conducted in a fair and accurate manner – that natural gas’ benefits to the America consumer far outweigh any risks.

Exelon Chairman and CEO John Rowe recently gave a major policy speech in which he said additional federal legislation was not necessary to drive the nation’s transition to an economic clean future. He cited natural gas as a basic clean energy tool that could make great strides in affordably cleaning up America’s electricity generation and enhancing our national energy security. We agree.

Not only has the supply of natural gas increased thanks to the shale gas revolution, demand is expected to grow steadily in the coming decades – without mandates, handouts or other incentives from the government. If the market is allowed to work, the industry will drill new gas wells and bring on more production. It will expand the pipeline and storage infrastructure to allow natural gas to move from new supply areas to markets. And the electric power industry will build new plants, or convert old plants, to operate on natural gas.

We, as an industry, understand natural gas’ importance to our nation’s future, and we are committed to its safe development and transportation. We hope that President Obama and Congress continue support the use of natural gas by allowing the market to see its benefits without putting natural gas at a disadvantage to other fuels.

--Don Santa is president and CEO of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America.

Don't believe the hype! Media headlines notwithstanding, the most recent DOE and EPA data show that, when it comes to electricity generation, natural gas is still much more climate friendly than coal.

The evidence is marshaled in a recent analysis that I completed with Joel N. Swisher Ph.D., director of technical services for Camco International, a carbon offset developer, and a consulting professor of engineering at Stanford University.

Using the EPA' s most recent estimates of the fugitive emissions from shale gas production and comprehensive DOE data on electricity generation we found that, on average, gas-fired electricity produces 52 percent fewer greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than does coal-fired generation. The reduction in GHG is even greater when compared to coal-fired plants built at least 30 years ago.

The study – available at cleanskies.org/ghgemissions-- updates existing studies by incorporating 2011 EPA estimates of fugitive methane emissions from producing natural gas. These new EPA estimates have triggered controversy about the extent of the emissions associated with gas drilling, especially in shale gas formations. Even assuming the EPA's new emissions estimates are correct (which is doubtful), we found that the fuel-chain emissions from existing gas-fired power is still about 52 percent less GHG intensive on average than is existing coal-fired generation.

Our paper also corrects the misleading impression about the overall GHG footprint of gas and coal recently offered by a team of Cornell researchers led by Professor Robert Howarth. The Howarth team compared the estimated GHG footprint of shale gas versus coal based solely on the estimated amount of energy input for power generation. They did not take into account the comparative efficiency of modern gas-fired generation based on empirical evidence from the U.S. power sector in terms of the electric energy output -- kilowatt hours.

The Cornell team also looked primarily at a 20-year time horizon rather than the 100-year period that many scientists regard as more appropriate for estimating the comparative climate impact of methane and other greenhouse gases. Howarth et al. also assigned a global warming potential (GWP) for methane that is 46% higher than the value established by the UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change for a 20-year time span. This inflated GWP figure probably accounts for much if not all of the 20% greater GHG footprint Howarth et al. attributed to shale gas versus coal.

So, no, the Howarth study will not have much bearing on policy making. When Congress and the administration consider how natural gas should be weighted in any new Clean Electricity Standard (CES) they might better begin with the most recent government data and climate assumptions incorporated in our study.

Life in an advanced society brings risks but the rewards far exceed them. On the other hand, life in countries without the benefits of technology, an endowment of natural resources, freedom and democratic institutions has risks that far exceed any rewards--high mortality and disease rates, lack of an adequate diet, and lack of hope for a better future.

Energy is a necessary component to economic growth. And, as we become more of a service economy, electricity is strongly correlated to economic growth. No matter how much politicians push for and subsidize wind and solar power, our major sources of electrical power are coal, gas, and nuclear. Until a few years ago, it appeared that those sources were limited to coal, nuclear, and imported LNG. Now thanks to private technology and investment, our natural gas reserves have increased tremendously and are sufficient to meet our needs for at least a century.

The prospects of competitive clean coal technology are like the horizon, they recede as we approach them. Whether or not nuclear is more risky as a result of the recent Japanese accident, it is 20%-30% more expensive than coal fired power and the government still has not resolved the controversy over storage. That leaves natural gas. In spite of large and unjustified subsidies, wind and solar are at best niche sources of electrical power. If they ever advance to the point of being major contributors, it will not be any time soon.

The cause of the accident in Pennsylvania is still being investigated. Once the investigation is completed, it is a virtual certainty that corrective actions will be taken to minimize it happening again. Although a large volume of fracking fluid was released, there were no fatalities and Chesapeake energy responded promptly to control the release and begin an extensive investigation at the site and at other wells.

No matter how hard we try, it is a fact of life that “accidents” do happen in our personal lives and in industrial operations. Life in an imperfect world is imperfect. Each year, about 50,000 people die from highway accidents but we don’t stop driving because the benefits of mobility exceed the risks. There are reports of new medicines causing serious adverse effects in some but most stay on the market because the benefits exceed the risks. The list goes on.

So, Congress and the Obama Administration should not over react to this incident. The promise of shale gas will bring about advances in “fracking” technology and drilling operations and control. Those will include methane capture as well. These advances will be the result of companies investing their own funds, not subsidies using taxpayer dollars.

It would be a mistake to put too much weight on the Cornell professor’s report until it has been independently reviewed and validated. It may turn out that it contains valuable information about methane releases or it could be an artifact of assumptions, limited data, and modeling.

In the end, shale gas holds much promise and the government’s role should be to help achieve it efficiently, safely, and without over burdening regulations.