The Online Newspaper of Lakewood High School

Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

    Zero-Carbon Natural Gas

    Zero-Carbon Natural Gas

    The world is in need of a new type of fuel that will not cause carbon emissions and further pollute the planet. A source that may be able to provide a part of the solution is zero-carbon natural gas. For regular natural gas already accounts for more than 30% of the US’s electricity and 22% of the entire world’s electricity. Although it is cleaner than fossil fuels, it still lets off a lot of carbon emissions.

    The company that is experimenting with this natural gas is Net Power. They are testing it in a plant right outside of Houston. What they did with the natural gas is catch the CO2 emissions, preventing them from going into the atmosphere. Most of the CO2 is used to drive a specially built turbine, making most of the CO2 recycled. The rest of the CO2 can be easily captured.

    The importance of all this is that we can now create a cheap energy source that has no carbon emissions. For there are other ways we can create energy without giving off carbon emission, like solar panels and wind turbines, but it can cost a lot of money. Most businesses do not want to pay the price to be carbon emission free. But if producing this type of energy as cheap as coal, there could be some serious changes in our energy source.

    This natural gas does not fix the entire problem of carbon emissions. But it is definitely a large step in getting as carbon free as possible.

    More to Discover