Natural Gas: It Isn't Winning.

So I was perusing my Facebook and I happened to see a news article about natural gas. You see, when I'm not playing Farmville (which is genius, by the way) or updating my status with lyrics from Black Flag, I check out the news articles that NPR posts. NPR is awesome, and if you don't agree, you are a fool. But I digress...

This article was the last in a three part series about natural gas and why it isn't catching on. What with this whole debate over Global Warming and environmentalism that has been raging, especially in the past few years, the lobbyist for natural gas have been working their asses off, but to no avail! But why not? After all, if we compare it to other fossil fuels, it's a lot better. Half the emissions of coal, more abundant (especially in this country) than oil, blah blah blah. What the lobbyist for natural gas are, or were, trying to do was convince Congress that natural gas would be ideal for the transition between other fossil fuels and zero waste technology (and ideal for their profit margins, no doubt).

They've tried, tried, tried to get this to pass, but to no avail. The biggest reason is politics. They targetted the Republicans. Republicans like them. But Republicans are not in power in this country right now (although, judging from what they're doing to the Healthcare bill, it can sure seem like it!). The Democrats have favoured more "radical" (read: smart) steps to dealing the emissions. Namely through wind and solar power (oh, and I forgot not-so-clean coal... not very smart). Another problem is that the natural gas industry lead by a number of vocal Global Warming deniers! Now, how silly is that? And last, but not least, these companies aren't very large and cannot compete, lobby-wise, with the sheer size of Big Oil, nor with the political favouritism that the clean energy lobby.

I'm not too saddened that nautral gas isn't catching on. To be fair, I like it better than not-so-clean coal, which is being pushed heavily. But the real solution is a nice blend of hyrdoelectric, wind, and solar power. As our technology gets better -- and it is every day -- the costs of these is reduced more and more. The payback will eventually be cheap, clean, environmentally fiendly, and efficient energy. Hooray! Well, that's where MASSPIRG comes in, and it's up to student involvement that we push our government towards these simple solutions for very real problems.

To Read The Full Article, Go Here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113138252&sc=fb&cc=fp

- Cam Mancini