“Twenty-five percent [of people consider] natural gas to be renewable, in this millennial and gen Z bucket,” an unidentified PERC board member said. “There’s a perception out there—not reality, but that’s perception. We can attach to that for propane.”
“You can’t say natural gas is renewable,” PERC board member Leslie Woodward cautioned.
“Perception,” the unidentified board member repeated.
Natural gas isn’t propane, it’s methane (with some other trace stuff). Also methane can be made fairly easily by various biological processes so it is renewable. It’s still not good for the environment but it is renewable.
It can be produced that way, but only in quantities of a few percent of current use. The gas you’re burning is likely 99% or more fossil-sourced.
Oh definitely. Right now it isn’t economically viable to produce methane in a renewable way when we can just get it from the ground. It’s like how wood is renewable even though clearcutting old growth forests is unsustainable. We can produce methane; it is a renewable resource. We just aren’t using it in a renewable way.
It’s not even that; it’ll never be economical outside of a few narrow cases because it’s cheaper to avoid the need for methane in the first place.