Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, seems to have mixed up her description of certain types of energy in a television interview Sunday.
Twice, in an interview on Meet the Press, she referred to natural gas drilling in an approving way, but while making statements that seemed to indicate she thought natural gas was not a fossil fuel. It isn't petroleum (though liquids from it are), but many dead dinosaurs will attest to the fact that yes, it is a fossil fuel.
There isn't too much about the interview that's notable; references to big oil (which NBC failed to capitalize in its transcript -- good for them!), talk about releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and so on.
But when she showed her support for natural gas output, she made the following statements:
"You can have a transition with natural gas. That, that is cheap, abundant and clean compared to fossil fuels. So, so there is a way to transition this instead of doing more of the same."
And then later....
"The fact is, the supply of natural gas is so big, and you do need a transition if you're going to go from fossil fuels, as you say, you can't do it overnight, but you must transition. These investments in wind, in solar and biofuels and focus on natural gas, these are the real alternatives."
I'm sure people in the natural gas industry are going to be very interested to find they are suddenly part of the alternative energy industry. Maybe they can get some alternative tax credits.
What is ironic is that the growth in natural gas drilling in the Barnett Shale, and down the road, maybe some other shale formations, is starting to create a small backlash in certain communities. Drilling rigs are popping up in the middle of residential areas. (There's a good picture in this story from a few years back). By contrast, offshore oil drilling is likely to be all but invisible to coastal residents.
Will Nancy Pelosi's embrace of increased natural gas drilling remain as steadfast if there is an uprising over the fact that much of it could be in people's backyards?
Once again proving you do not have to know a lot to be a successful politician. I guess because Natural gas is invisible to the eye it must not contain carbon! It was not long ago that the utility companies got on the bandwagon to burn natural gas when prices were low --created a shortage-- prices went up-- and Gas fired plants went on sale. Here we go again.
Oh, John, making fun of politicians is too easy. Just ask me. I suspect, if you pin her down, Pelosi knows that natural gas is a fossil fuel and just got all tangled up trying to distingush between "clean" natural gas and the dirty stuff. And, if you parse the quote and insert a comma (which is tough to do verbally unless you channel Victor Borge), the sentence could read, "These investments in wind, solar and biofuels, and focus on natural gas, these are the real alternatives." Ergo, natural gas as an alterantive, not part of the alternative energy industry.
Yes, but she made the same mistake twice. Once, and there would not have been a blog entry. Twice, and it raises the question of this odd distinction she's making.
Beyond that, though, given concerns about CO2, does natural gas deserve that much more support than oil? What I also question is this idea that natural gas is our friend and increased access to offshore oil reserves is somehow evil. But further, opening up offshore access is certainly to result in deposits being found that are heavily gas. The general belief is that the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which has been a source of much controversy, is much more gas-prone than oil.