Gas-fired power plants are the largest source of carbon emissions in the US electricity sector and a major source of pollution. By investing in renewable energy, we can directly ramp down gas—and decrease its climate, health, and environmental harms.
Unfortunately, the fossil fuel industry and its allies are increasingly proposing gas-oriented solutions for addressing gas plant carbon pollution. These include hydrogen cofiring, carbon capture and storage, and biomethane. Because these approaches are all based on the full, ongoing use of gas plants, they fail to address many of these plants’ ongoing and unjust harms.
In this analysis, we took a fuller look at the climate implications of the industry’s proposed approaches. We found that heat-trapping emissions potentially arising from other steps in the process could undermine their overall reductions.
Our issue brief and customizable tool, available below, are intended to support decisionmakers, advocates, and the public in considering the full picture—of both carbon and non-carbon impacts—as they evaluate proposals for reducing gas plant pollution in their own communities.
Beyond the Smokestack
This is an online version of the report. The full issue brief can be downloaded here.
As efforts to drive down power sector carbon emissions focus more on gas plants, the fossil fuel industry and utilities with a vested interest have increasingly offered three potential approaches in response: hydrogen cofiring, carbon capture, and use of biomethane. Each has the potential to reduce carbon emissions—yet each is also complicated by climate implications of other steps in the process, threatening to undermine overall climate contributions. Also, each is premised on the full, ongoing use of gas plants—meaning the perpetuation of existing environmental, health, and social inequities, plus the addition of new ones. By contrast, increasing renewable energy generation enables direct reductions in gas generation and its related impacts. As power sector decisionmakers weigh multidecade investments, they must evaluate—and act on—the full picture.
In this report
UCS Gas Plant Alternatives Tool
Downloads
Citation
Rogers, John, Maria Chavez and Julie McNamara. 2024. Beyond the Smokestack. Cambridge, MA: Union of Concerned Scientists. https://doi.org/10.47923/2024.15637
Related resources
Science Hub for Climate Litigation
The Electric Utility Toolkit
Feet To The Fire
