New Statesman: Are we closing off technology options for a low carbon future?

In a now famous article in the journal Science, Pacala and Socolow introduced the scientific world to the concept of ‘stabilization wedges’. These are units by which we could measure the amount of effort we’ll need to tackle global warming - while still keeping the lights on. Several of these wedges are needed to get from the ruinous ‘business as usual’ high-CO2 emissions scenario to one where we might reduce global warming to a manageable level.

One of Pacala and Socolow’s wedges consisted of converting coal power plants to gas - in other words to make gas the provider of electricity baseload, rather than coal. They said that to achieve a ‘wedge of carbon abatement’ you could switch 1400 GW worth of 50%-efficient coal plants to gas power stations. This suggestion was rather far-sighted in that it predicted today’s discussions about the potential for natural gas - and particularly shale gas - to provide a lower carbon fossil fuel alternative. Switching from coal to natural gas saves carbon because burning gas in power stations is about half as CO2-polluting as burning coal.  MORE