EU just decided that gass and nuclear is to be concidered green. I get why nuclear is alright, but since both coal and gass is basically just carbon in different states. Why then is gass better?
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Natural gas is methane, and when methane is burned it turns into carbon dioxide and water.
Coal is a large variety of big organic molecules that produces a heck of a lot of soot and other waste products in addition to water and carbon dioxide.
Burning methane still has problems, but overall it is much cleaner than coal.
They’re not just Carbon in different states. They’re different collections of organic (Carbon-based) molecules. Pretty much any organic chemical can be burned to produce (mostly) CO2 and water. However, the amount of energy you get out per amount of CO2 generated depends on the structure of the molecule that was burned. Methane (i.e, natural gas) produces about 50% less CO2 per unit of energy produced compared with coal.
Not relevant to CO2 emissions, but coal also tends to contain lots of other stuff in it like Sulfur compounds that are extremely bad environmental pollutants.
The decision have been criticized [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-06/eu-slammed-over-gas-vote-as-bankers-warn-of-new-greenwash-risks](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-06/eu-slammed-over-gas-vote-as-bankers-warn-of-new-greenwash-risks)
It is a political decision that many disagree with [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/06/eu-parliament-nuclear-gas-green/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/06/eu-parliament-nuclear-gas-green/)
Is has to be said gas is better the coal. The CO2 emission is around half compared to coal for the same amount of electric energy. The exact difference depends on what coal you are talking about and the exact design of the plants. Natural gas use gas turbines which are a more efficient way to extract energy than to go via steam. You can’t run a gas turbine on coal.
[https://www.volker-quaschning.de/datserv/CO2-spez/index_e.php](https://www.volker-quaschning.de/datserv/CO2-spez/index_e.php)
That is just carbon dioxide. Coal is not just carbon it is primary carbon but you find other elements in it like sulfur. It will result in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rain) . Coal contains a lot more sulfur than natural gas we talk about 100x to several thousand times more compared to the heat that is generated.
Coal alos results in more large particulate the natural gas
[https://blueflame.org/natural-gas-the-choice-for-a-cleaner-environment/](https://blueflame.org/natural-gas-the-choice-for-a-cleaner-environment/)
So natural gas is better the coal. If you can replace coal power plants with natural gas power planes their result is an improvement. But better does not mean good.
Gas is more efficient. It means it produces less GHG (green house gas) for the same amount of energy produced. Coal burning also produces a lot more undesirable byproducts than gas.
Gas can be refined, that is you can wash out the sulfur, and most of the heavy metals don’t form gasses (there is no lead gas), and when it burns the light molecules typically don’t end up making soot and since there are really no metals it doesn’t make ash. The result is gas tends to create just CO2 and H2O emissions.
Burning coal is different, you don’t refine the impurities out of the fuel, instead you have to pick it out of the flue gas. That’s a lot harder and doesn’t work as well. Clean coal “fixes” this by making gas from coal, and then burning the gas (which does make it nearly as clean as gas), but you still have all the impurities that you have to dump as ash which is toxic.
Also, burning coal makes more CO2 per energy extracted than gas. It’s just because of the different chemicals you’re burning, but it does mean gas produces a lot less CO2.
Because natural gas [has about half the carbon footprint of coal on a per-kilowatt hour basis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emissions_of_energy_sources). Being able to generate the same amount of energy as coal with approximately half the emissions makes natural gas greener than coal by definition.
Both are not “green” in the traditional sense of meaning “environmentally friendly”.
First of all, there is a strong focus on CO2, which is the low hanging fruit, while there are a lot of other emmissions that contribute to the greenhouse effect as well.
Secondly, the term “green” is not only meant to mean “less polution during use” but also includes the “sustainable” aspect, which is coveniently ignored.
This decision completly changes what it means to be “green” and will probably have impact on other aspects as well.
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