Study Says Natural Gas is Not the Bridge Fuel to Stop Global Warming: I Disagree

Well its seems that 5 sets of scientists are saying that natural gas might even make global warming worse for some reason or another.

Five teams of experts from around the world, using five different sets of computer model simulations, looked at what would happen if natural gas — also known as methane — remains cheap and plentiful and nothing else changes, such as policy mandates. They all came to the same conclusion.

"It doesn't reduce climate change," said study lead author Haewon McJeon, an economist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Two computer models even found that when considering other factors like methane leaks, cheaper natural gas could lead to more trapping of heat by greenhouse gases, the mechanism that drives global warming. Methane traps even more heat than an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide.

First of all why are these models so different than one another? I guess two have methane leaks in them while the others do not. This is assuming that better pipeline leak-finding technology will never be available for 100 years for some reason. 

You figure that profit motive alone will have companies actively screening their pipelines for leaks. I mean a leak might costs $1000s of dollars if it goes long enough. I guess those studies want us to keep burning coal because a train car full of the stuff will not leak and create "greenhouse gasses."  

What actually invalidates much of these studies conclusions is the term "and nothing else changes" which doesn't make sense to me. Solar and wind energy is taking off like never before because if economic incentives. If you put a solar panel on your roof you need less power from the natural gas fueled power plants and thus they burn less of the fuel.

I cannot fathom the idea that technology will stand still for a 100 years. I mean the changes in the last 50 or even the last 20 are mind boggling to say the least. Hell, Lockheed Martin is looking to build a fusion power plant and might get one done in 10 years. A few neighborhood fusion reactors or even a backyard one the size of a water heater will do more to change global warming than 100 studies by scientists ever could.