Dec 9, 2021 · 46m · catalyst
The future of natural gas
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of Catalyst, host Shayle Kann and Energy Impact Partners' Andy Lubershain analyze the complex physical, economic, and technological challenges of decarbonizing natural gas infrastructure. They evaluate alternative fuels, utility death spirals, winter peak heating demands, and the necessity of maintaining dual energy delivery vectors for long-term grid resilience.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Shayle holds 27.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Shayle as informed peer 5.9 Guest teaching 4.5 Guest disagreement 1.4 Shayle pushing back 1.2
speaking balance: gold is Shayle, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 33:45 Dismissing hydrogen distribution blending as completely implausible
Andy forcefully dismisses the common proposal of blending hydrogen into city gas networks, calling the required customer appliance transition almost entirely implausible.
Hardest push from Shayle ▶ 38:00 Clarifying vehicle electrification versus gas end usesWhen Andy asserts that nothing in natural gas demand is easily electrifiable, Shayle immediately intervenes to distinguish it from petroleum and ground transportation.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 8:05 Methane leakage impact compared directly to coalAndy demonstrates that a 2.5% upstream methane leakage rate makes burning natural gas in home appliances worse for near-term global warming than burning coal.
Shayle holds their own ▶ 24:01 Listing commercial and handling advantages of solid carbonShayle jumps in to explain the specific advantages of solid carbon over CO2 pipelines, citing storage stability and commercial markets like carbon black for tires.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Shayle as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Shayle pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Decarbonization Debate: Pragmatism Versus Climate Hipster Views | 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | Shayle sets up the framing around whether natural gas should be completely eliminated immediately, prompting Andy to address the 'climate hipster' purist view. Andy explains that natural gas end uses are exceptionally difficult to replace in the near term, establishing a collaborative discussion tone. | |
| Upstream Methane Leakage: The Existential Threat to Gas | 6 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Shayle points out that upstream issues may be the biggest threat to gas, inviting Andy to elaborate. Andy provides detailed research data regarding the 2.5% upstream leak rate and its severe near-term global warming implications compared to coal combustion. | |
| Gas Bans and the Threat of a Gas Utility Death Spiral | 7 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Shayle references local gas bans and contextualizes the historical electric utility death spiral theory. Andy delivers an in-depth breakdown of how declining gas volume forces higher unit rates, creating a genuine gas utility death spiral scenario. | |
| Preserving Infrastructure Optionality and Energy System Reliability | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Shayle highlights the equity and decarbonization speed risks if alternative economics do not materialize. Andy agrees and emphasizes the necessity of preserving gas infrastructure optionality and system reliability. | |
| Decarbonizing Methane: Abatement and Pre-Combustion Capture | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Shayle bifurcates the solution space into decarbonizing methane versus replacing the fuel while repurposing infrastructure. Andy outlines methane abatement as an essential prerequisite followed by pre- and post-combustion capture techniques. | |
| Pre-Combustion Technology: Blue Versus Turquoise Hydrogen | 7 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Andy explains blue and turquoise hydrogen pathways, while Shayle jumps in to demonstrate clear expertise on the advantages of solid carbon over CO2 pipelines, including markets like carbon black. Andy validates Shayle's points and details the commercial economics. | |
| Evaluating Renewable Natural Gas Potential and Limitations | 5 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Shayle introduces renewable natural gas (RNG), asking how far it can scale. Andy educates on the limits of current biological waste streams and the significant cost hurdles of biomass gasification. | |
| Technical and Logistical Barriers of Hydrogen Pipeline Blending | 5 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Andy explains the severe technical and coordination bottlenecks of blending hydrogen into distribution pipelines, highlighting customer appliance incompatibility. He dismisses pipeline blending at the local distribution level as fundamentally implausible. | |
| Dedicated Hydrogen Pipelines and Green Hydrogen Economics | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Shayle distinguishes blending in legacy pipes from building dedicated hydrogen infrastructure. Andy expands on why piping hydrogen from remote renewables can be more cost-effective than long-distance electric transmission. | |
| Electrification Realities and Winter Peak Heating Constraints | 6 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Shayle asks for a spectrum of electrifiable end uses, prompting Andy to point out that power generation itself cannot be electrified. Andy details the exponential cost curve and efficiency degradation of heat pumps during sub-zero winter peaks. | |
| The Long-Term Outlook for Gas and Energy System Resilience | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Shayle prompts Andy for his synthesis of the long-term outlook for natural gas over the next 15 to 20 years. Andy highlights turquoise hydrogen for industrial uses and the resilience value of gas infrastructure for peak building heat, wrapping up with lighthearted banter. |
Statements from this episode (23)
Kann: US Natural Gas Use Is Split Between Power, Industry, and Buildings
“In the US, for example, as of twenty-twenty, we used 38% of our natural gas in the power sector, 33% directly in the industrial sector, 25% in buildings, mostly for heating.”
Lubershain: Full electrification cannot eliminate natural gas within 10 to 30 years
“Natural gas is used in just so many end uses for energy today and it's used in some of the end uses that end up being the hardest to decarbonize on any kind of, You know, 10, 20, even 30 year time frame purely through the prospect of decarbonizing the power su…”
Lubershain: Too early to treat total natural gas elimination as only pathway
“While I think it's possible that the purest viewpoint, the climate hipster viewpoint ends up being the right one in, in the very long run, it's possible we do move towards a zero fossil fuels, zero natural gas as a portion of primary energy supply. I think it'…”
Lubershain: EDF Studies Find 2.5% Natural Gas Leak Rate Across Supply Chain
“If you look at the most kind of credible, well-respected widely accepted recent studies of the leak rate, the amount of natural gas that is escaping to the atmosphere, all the way from the wellhead where gas is extracted, all the way to the end use It ends up …”
Lubershain: Home Gas Appliances With Upstream Leaks Are Worse Than Coal
“If you are to burn natural gas in in an appliance in a home, for example, like a home boiler or in, in, in an oven And you take that two and a half percent leak rate upstream as a given, then it's actually even a little bit worse in the next 20 years from a gl…”
Lubershain: Roughly three quarters of methane leaks occur upstream
“So according to the study I referenced they're coming predominantly, I think about three quarters from what we think of as the upstream part of the natural gas value chain. So from the production of natural gas, from drilling for gas and from, Sort of the imme…”
Kann: Berkeley was the first US city to ban gas hookups
“There are natural gas bans for new construction. I live in Berkeley, California. We have one here. I think we were the first city in the country to have one.”
Lubershain: Solar makes clean electricity the world's cheapest non-firm power
“And, you know, in fact, the falling cost of solar has made electricity and clean electricity, you know, the cheapest levelized non-firm energy cost in the world”
Lubershain: Gas utilities face a death spiral as volume declines
“And what that's manifesting in partially right now is like threats to natural gas where, you know, there's a lot of attention being paid to displacing natural gas... And then, you know, most importantly, it means that natural gas infrastructure owners with dec…”
Lubershain: Full electrification poses severe consumer cost and reliability risks
“What I've really come to believe in is that electrification, yes, hypothetically could get us all the way there. That strategy could get us all the way there, but it's a risky strategy from the standpoint of total costs particularly total costs to consumers wh…”
Lubershain: Energy systems must preserve gas infrastructure optionality during decarbonization
“I'm not positive gas is worth preserving for the long haul, but I think I think it's important to preserve optionality to use gas, and also more importantly, the infrastructure that gas flows through today through a period of decarbonization.”
Lubershain: Aggressive Upstream Methane Abatement Is a Low-Cost, No-Regrets Necessity
“So the absolute first thing you have to do, which is basically a no regrets option because it's actually ends up being relatively low cost is. Become a methane emissions hawk and go after those upstream emissions as aggressively as humanly possible.”
Lubershain: Blue hydrogen economics depend on shared CO2 transport and sequestration infrastructure
“In the case of blue hydrogen processes, you then also have to build a whole new set of infrastructure to transport and permanently dispose of that gaseous carbon dioxide that you've captured before you take the hydrogen away. And that's a significant challenge…”
Lubershain: Solid carbon byproduct sales can significantly subsidize turquoise hydrogen costs
“If you produce really high quality, high grade solid carbon, it has a real value today in a lot of end markets. Those markets aren't huge today, but they're big enough to soak up, you know, a significant amount of the, you know, the early projects one could ro…”
Lubershain: Landfill and livestock RNG cannot scale to meet gas demand
“The problem with all those sources of RNG landfills and cows and pigs is that they just don't scale to serve anywhere near the,
Full amount of natural gas demand that we have today.”
Lubershain: Biomass gasification for RNG costs 5x to 10x fossil gas
“Now, even, even that pathway can't scale to fully supply or even really nearly fully supply or replace the methane that we're using today, but it could take a more significant chunk out of it.
It's generally at least today, a far more expensive pathway.
You kn…”
Lubershain: Gas pipelines max out at ~7% hydrogen by energy without retrofits
“Most pipelines We're learning today can probably take up to 20% hydrogen by volume, which is somewhere around seven percent hydrogen by energy content before you need to start at the very least making some changes in all of the ancillary equipment, the pumps a…”
Lubershain: Blending hydrogen into gas distribution networks is almost entirely implausible
“I think it's an almost entirely implausible scenario at the distribution level. So once you get down to natural gas distribution systems where you've got you know, smaller pipelines going through cities and service lines going to individual homes and businesse…”
Lubershain: Long-distance electric transmission buildout will face increasing constraints
“And I really believe that over the coming decade or two, we're going to see more and more constraints on building out long distance electric transmission infrastructure to serve and to bring that those massive renewable resource potential to market.”
Lubershain: Moving Energy via Pipeline Is 3x Cheaper Than Transmission Lines
“And you know, if you look back at the past couple of decades at differences in infrastructure costs, it turns out to be at least three times lower. Oftentimes much, much lower to move energy via pipeline than via electric transmission line. If you sort of norm…”
Lubershain: Electrifying natural gas demand gets exponentially harder near 100%
“What you find in almost every use case, and I would say in particular Again, in the distributed use cases like building heating is that, you know, maybe the first, you know, the first 50% of gas demand that you soak up with electrification is relatively easy. …”
Lubershain: 100% Heating Electrification Would Cause Peak Energy Costs to Skyrocket
“One of the areas that I think it's important to preserve some kind of role for gaseous fuel delivery is probably going to be to serve that, you know, last X percent, I'm not quite sure what it is, of building heating load for which a pure electrification strat…”
Lubershain: Building heat will see the longest tail of natural gas use
“Where I'm pretty confident we'll, we'll see the longest tail of natural gas for the foreseeable future is in all of the end uses that are currently served by natural gas at the distribution level. So again, That's predominantly building heating. Interestingly …”