Coal vs. natural gas: It’s complicated

The glut of natural gas unleashed by hydraulic fracturing—and the resulting low prices—make the idea seem like a no-brainer: Ditch coal-fired electric plants, with all their baggage involving air pollution and water consumption, and switch to natural gas. And as The Houston Chronicle reports, trends over the past year suggest that’s starting to happen nationally, as natural gas has overtaken coal for generating electricity. Use of coal to generate electricity was down almost 18% for the first seven months of 2012, compared with the same period in 2011, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Natural gas use was up by 30%. But low natural gas prices alone aren’t enough to prompt power companies to shift multimillion-dollar investments. “Nobody’s going to tear down a half-billion-dollar coal plant to put in a new natural gas plant just because natural gas is slightly cheaper,” says Edward Hirs, an energy economist at the University of Houston. In a recent analysis, Hirs and his co-authors predicted no more than 20% of coal-fired electric power nationally would shift to natural gas within the next 20 years. But as you may have guessed, politics may also play a major role in determining coal’s future. Read the details in the full story here.