Natural gas' 'bridge' to clean energy future 'getting shorter,' executive says

摘要

Natural gas-fired generation investments can continue to help in the energy transition to a zero-carbon future, attendees of a Platts Global Power Markets Conference learned April 13, but the natural gas “bridge” to a clean energy future “is getting shorter.” “I do think there’s a place for natural gas … depending on the geography where you’re sitting,” said Mark Voccola, co-head of Ardian Infrastructure US, the US arm of Ardian, a Paris-based infrastructure investment firm. “In coal country, you are generally displacing older, less efficient coal-fired generation.” Gas-fired generation burns cleaner, provides good jobs and contributes to the local tax base for decades, Voccola said during a virtual panel discussion entitled, “The evolving renewables/natural gas equation.” “I do agree in the longer term, it will be displaced by renewables and other technologies,” Voccola said, but gas-fired generation in 2020 supplied about 40% of US power, and “it’s going to take a while to eat through that.”