U.S. POLICY - THE ROLE OF NATURAL GAS IN DECARBONIZING THE U.S. ENERGY

Given the large fleet of currently operating will be a long and hard-fought struggle, and until the gas plants and the low-capacity utilization rate of those battle is won, natural gas’ role as the lowest-emitting plants in most of the United States, and with the low- fossil fuel is important. [...] MMTPA, it would rank 16th in the world, just behind BOX 1: Technology: Power Generation Efficiency and Carbon Intensity The emissions of a fossil fuel power plant are a function of the carbon intensity of the fuel used and the fuel efficiency of the power plant. [...] The fuel efficiency is the amount of electricity output per unit of heat input; its reciprocal—the heat rate—is measured as the number of Btus it takes to make a unit of electric- ity. The higher the heat rate, the lower the efficiency. [...] We Natural gas (composed primarily of methane also need to understand the important differences in molecules or CH4) is a backbone feedstock of the the three ways natural gas is used in the world industrial chemical industry: methane is the initial raw material economy: as a power plant fuel, as an industrial for manufacturing a wide variety of chemicals with the feedstock, and as fuel for industr. [...] (Note that the 874 MMTPA of emissions, we will briefly explain the 30 percent Net Capacity Factor (NCF) of combined wind rationale for some amount of fossil generation remaining and PV during the period was identical to the blended for the near- and intermediate-term, as shown in the last NCF used by IEA.) column of Table 6.