Journal #16

The reason that people think it's a good idea to convert to natural gas is because it's cheap and clean.  But if you really think about it, natural gas can be risky and isn't the best investment at this moment.  Even though it s it is really fast and cheap to build a power plants it has its downfalls.  For one thing it can wreak a massive local environmental destruction and can undermine energy efficiency and renewable energy.  Also the gas system is estimated to leak from a range of 1.5 percent to as high as 8 percent, it isn't really known yet.  There are 5 rules that have to be followed in order to develop a natural gas system.  The first rule is that there can't be any leaks and it has to be certain.  So already we can't use it since we still aren't for sure of how much leaking is going on.  The second rule is use gas to replace old coal and make htis an explicit condition.  Then the final 3 rules have to with the environment.  Rule 3 is that you have to make sure the are strong standards for wells.  Rule 4 is to make sure that there are no toxics to poison the land.  These two rules are very important because you want to make sure that it is a good enviorment for not only the plant but also for the socitey.  The final rule is something that you need to get right, you can't allow leaky systems.  Everything has to be in order to have these plants.  Overall I think that we shouldn't start using natural gas as our main energy source because we still aren't aware of the risks.