Reducing emissions in Pennsylvania with natural gas replacing coal trickier than a decade ago

(The Center Square) – Pennsylvania Republicans have shown strong support for the commonwealth’s natural gas industry, and as they argue for an expansion of liquefied natural gas, they’re making a pitch that it will lower emissions.

“America must boost liquified natural gas exports in the coming decade to prevent a reversal of the monumental emissions reductions we’ve achieved over the last 20 years,” Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Williamsport, chairman of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, said in a press release last week.

Yaw promoted LNG after a Senate committee hearing about its potential. Experts testified that “boosting American LNG exports has the potential to reduce harmful emissions at a rate equivalent to electrifying every car in the country, installing solar on every home and doubling our wind capacity – combined,” the press release noted.

“There is no carbon-neutral future without natural gas in the present,” Yaw said. “We have the power to produce and export the world’s cleanest LNG, while keeping emissions low and freeing European countries from Russia’s energy stranglehold. It seems pretty clear to me what our next steps should be.”

Expanding natural gas production to lower emissions sounds counter-intuitive, but Pennsylvania’s development of fracking has decreased emissions.

As The Center Square previously reported, the decline of coal and rise of natural gas led to a 42% drop in emissions from 2008-2020 while power generation rose almost 4%.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, natural gas now dominates the state’s energy production.

Pennsylvania produced 7,500 trillion BTUs from natural gas in 2020, followed by 909 trillion BTUs from coal, 799 trillion BTUs from nuclear power, and 65.6 trillion BTUs from noncombustible renewables. BTU is an acronym for British Thermal Unit, a universal measure of energy.

House Republicans have passed a bill to create a task force to study exporting LNG from Philadelphia for foreign consumption, which Thursday was signed into law by Gov. Tom Wolf.

Increasing LNG exports could spur more economic growth and government revenues, but that isn’t likely to reduce emissions like it has in the past.

Coal has shrunk to a 9% market share in the commonwealth; natural gas is 52% and nuclear power 33%. Replacing more coal with natural gas could lower emissions further, but with more humble reductions.