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With the ink barely dry on Germany’s Coal Commission report recommending a phase out by 2038, the oil and gas industry is breaking out the champagne. While environmentalists criticize the plan’s particulars, the other side is celebrating the slaying of their strongest competitor. And they’re translating that joy into furious lobbying aimed at ensuring that renewables don’t fill the majority of the void as coal plants are shuttered. *Gas infrastructure set to expand in all directions* With the environmental community and media otherwise focused on the Commission’s report, in late January Chancellor Angel Merkel (CDU) addressed the 49th Annual World Economic Meeting and let the cat out of the proverbial bag: “if we phase out coal and nuclear energy, then we have to be honest and tell people that we’ll need more natural gas.” Calling the growing tug-of-war over where that future gas supply comes from “a bit over the top,” she reassured the gathered industry executives and politicians that gas will “play a greater role for another few decades. We’re thus expanding infrastructure in all directions.” Merkel’s candor and bluntness might be rather shocking for those more accustomed to her usual opaque pronouncements. But the fact that coal’s demise was really just a smokescreen for a gas play shouldn’t be a surprise for anyone who has followed the US’ rapid transition from billion-ton-a-year-coal-burner to the world’s largest oil and gas producer. As new technologies came into play, beginning in 2005, fracking companies there covertly funded the nascent <https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600940/how-chesapeake-ceo-aubrey-mcclendon-helped-push-coal-to-the-brink/> “Beyond Coal” movement, directly or indirectly, while ensuring the media labeled fossil gas as a natural bridge fuel to renewables. FULL: https://energytransition.org/2019/03/gas-wars-part-one-lets-be-honest-about-germanys-growing-dependence-on-fossil-gas/?fbclid=IwAR04RqdNFvp-cYl8mn9QIqpP_X-LsDRDG0QhaDcK_xRjB5txzOEY9Wzi7po _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
