King Natural Gas

摘要

Early this summer, a simple graph from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shocked even the most astute energy wonks. It showed that for the first time since the federal agency began keeping track, coal was no longer the dominant fuel used to generate electricity in the United States. Over the previous few months, the use of natural gas in power plants had risen so quickly that it accounted for as much electricity as coal, a far dirtier fossil fuel. (As usual, renewables such as wind and solar power flatlined near the bottom of the chart.) The milestone was just one more sign of a transformation in the energy prospects of the country-and probably the world.