The Future of Gas and its Alternatives
Gas’s role in the future is a highly debated topic, and not without reason. It is a fossil fuel, and its use emits CO2 into the atmosphere, furthering the climate crisis. On the other hand it is the lowest emission fossil fuel, and could provide backup power generation to complement renewables and help the transition. However promising gas may be, it will soon nevertheless be facing stiff competition from even more promising alternatives. Whether those alternatives will however supplant gas is uncertain: the main question will be whether they can be developed fast enough to replace gas in time to have the necessary climate impact. In this article I’ll be looking at the alternatives to gas and whether they could replace it, though I’ll only be looking at backup power generation, because other current uses of gas are already being replaced by systemic electrification.
Nuclear:
Nuclear has a pretty bad reputation due to a number of factors. Its opponents are concerned about its supposed safety risks and what to do with nuclear waste. Nuclear will still be vital in the energy transition, as it is one of the oldest and most advanced of the gas alternatives. Nuclear would be a great backup power generation source. Modern reactors are cheaper, safer and smaller than their predecessors. Even with most nuclear power coming from old power plants it is a very safe and reliable source of power. For every terawatt-hour of energy produced (annual energy consumption of ~27 000 EU residents) nuclear kills 0.07 people, whereas gas kills 2.8 and coal kills 24.6. Those figures include industrial accidents. On top of that, these days nuclear waste can be reprocessed into fuel for power plants and microbes could be used to neutralise it.
Hydrogen:
Hydrogen is one of the most promising gas alternatives, as it is very versatile. For example it can replace coking coal in steel production and Airbus is trying to make hydrogen-powered planes. On top of that the only emission of hydrogen is water, and its production can be extremely clean. It can also use a lot of existing infrastructure such as gas pipelines.
Biogas:
Biogas is gas, but man-made, although there are some differences in chemical composition. There are many, many ways of producing it, though most involve fermentation. Biogas’s environmental credentials however vary significantly depending on how it is produced. For instance getting biogas from landfill or sewage is just collecting gas that would have ended up in the atmosphere anyway (and methane does much more damage than CO2 while in the atmosphere). Getting biogas from crops farmed specifically for that purpose could lead to forests being cleared for food crops, and entails the inherent emissions of industrial agriculture.
So which of these is likely to replace gas, if any? Studies on this come up with highly divergent results. Of these, nuclear is by far the most controversial, with older generations having a deep aversion to it. That situation is further complicated by the shared roots of the green and anti-nuclear movements. This has led to irrational, emotionally-driven positions on nuclear power (mainly in the west). The future of nuclear power is extremely dependent on public opinion (in the west at least), but its use is rising in east Asia.
Hydrogen has a very promising future, and has aroused a lot of interest. The appeal for many countries lies in the fact that all you need to do is run electricity through water to split the atoms and produce hydrogen. Even though the technology is in its infancy, any country with a coast and a strong supply of renewable energy can theoretically produce it. Given its versatility, similarity to gas and potentially low prices; it’s quite likely hydrogen will play a large part in future energy use (it is quite possibly necessary for the transition). For example there is talk of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to build what could be the world’s largest hydrogen plant to export hydrogen to germany.
Biogas has several big advantages. Almost anything can be used as feedstock (this is the technical term for biogas fodder): industrial waste, sewage water and crop residues to name just a few. It can be done on an extremely decentralised basis: even individual households could have small biodigesters. Finally, it is almost identical to gas, allowing it to use the same infrastructure. On the other hand its emissions aren’t very clean compared to the other alternatives and even though “carbon neutral” it still emits pollution and particulate matter, making it likely the deadliest alternative here (assuming it has a death toll as high as that of natural gas) due to particulate pollution. Despite this, it is still preferable to natural gas as it is drawing carbon from existing waste rather than releasing carbon that has been locked away. Even if it wasn’t being enthusiastically adopted in countries like Denmark (it also got mentioned in the 27th EU-Japan summit), it would definitely have a future, especially in rural areas not yet connected to the gas grid. Its potential for waste disposal also makes it attractive: for example it is a large part of Stockholm’s 2040 strategy.
Overall each will have their part to play in the phasing out of fossil fuels, though their respective market shares remain to be determined. The speed at which gas is replaced is also hard to determine, especially since it is considered a low-carbon source by some (despite it being ~160 times more carbon intensive than nuclear) and the industry shows no hint of slowing down (with Nord Stream 2 being a good example). While people don’t agree on gas’s environmental credentials (the , most agree it will only act as a transitional fuel.
