The Avid Weekly Article, Natural Gas: Cheap, Clean and Risky is about the pros and cons of using natural gas rather than coal. The article also talks about the effects of converting from coal to natural gas would have on the economy. I believe that converting to natural gas is a great idea. However, natural gas is only a good investment if there are not leaks in the system.
Using natural gas instead of coal is very beneficial. One way it is beneficial is natural gas emits only half as much carbon as coal does. This is extremely beneficial to the world because it would help decrease the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Using natural gas would create a new renewable energy. This is very beneficial because there would probably be less conflict over other sources of fuel and people wouldn’t have to worry about what would happen if we run out of coal or oil. Using natural gas rather than coal, oil, and other fossil fuels would be greatly beneficial to the Unites States because the cost per unit of energy is only a third of the cost of oil.
Unfortunately there are also many cons of switching from fossil fuels to natural gas. One con is that natural gas could be a worse generator of greenhouse gases than coal. This means that if there are leaks in the natural gas system, then global environmental issues could become worse because there would be more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Global warming would increase. Natural gas could cause massive local environment destruction and undermine energy efficiency and renewable energy. Lastly, figuring out where to drill, and actually drilling would be very expensive. There would be surface disturbances on roads, drilling rigs, compressors, pipelines, drainage ponds, and heavy equipment. Even though money would be saved by not using oil, the money saved would be used to pay these expenses.
In conclusion, I think that while there are many benefits to using natural gas and that finding a way to successfully use natural gas should become a priority, I do not think the United States is ready to convert to natural gas yet because the cons outnumber the pros and there would be many expenses.
This is an informative piece, except you made a small error when talking about natural gas being a renewable resource. It's actually a nonrenewable resource since it is a fossil fuel. It definitely would reduce the international tensions we have around other fossil fuels, like oil, so that was a correct point.
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