TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Over the past decade, the U.S. has seen a boom in fracked gas, also known as natural gas.
With a name like "natural" gas you would assume it is clean for the environment, but just because the name contains the word natural, doesn't make it clean.
Fracked gas is produced when oil and gas companies drill vertically and horizontally far below the ground. The process unearths both oil and gaseous fracked gas.
Once at the surface the companies dramatically cool that gaseous gas into liquid gas. It is then called liquid natural gas (LNG), at LNG facilities, many of which are located along the Gulf Coast. The reason why it is converted into liquid gas is to significantly compress the gas to store and transport it.
The U.S. has become so prolific at these processes that within just several years it has become the largest producer and exporter of fracked gas.
But is fracked gas (natural gas) really better for the environment than coal? That depends.
Fracked gas produces less pollutants and, when burned, emits less carbon dioxide. However, scientists have discovered that a lot of methane leaks out in fracking and transport.
Methane is 80 times more powerful a heat-trapping greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Methane has increased by three to four times since the beginning of the industrial revolution. To put this into perspective, carbon dioxide (CO2) has gone up by 50%. Thus the rate of methane increase is more than six times faster than CO2.
Methane is responsible for around 30% of the human-caused rise in global temperature. With that said, methane is emitted in other ways like wetlands, landfills, and agriculture. Still, with fracked gas increasing, methane leaks are as well.
That's why several methane tracking satellites have been launched into orbit, according to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The goal of these satellites is to use technology to see these leaks from space and put pressure on the culprits to fix the leakage.
Our guest in today's climate classroom is a former LNG worker named James Hiatt who, after two back-to-back hurricanes devastated his town, connected the dots between carbon pollution and stronger storms. This set him on a completely different path becoming an advocate for his community and the environment, through his organization called "For a Better Bayou."