A glut of cheap gas will see the fuel overtake renewable sources in the global race to build new energy generation, says a senior energy industry executive.
"More gas [power plants] than wind and solar will be built [in the 10 to 20 years]," said Steve Bolze, chief executive of General Electric's power and water division, which makes gas-fired turbines. "Gas is a good alternative to being 100% renewable."
However, he was unable to say whether a massive increase in gas-fired power generation would be consistent with the world meeting its climate change target of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 compared with 1990 levels, which scientists say is the only way to avoid dangerous levels of global warming.
He said: "We need not only to be able to work through these targets, but also to deliver the power that is required in the world. Our role is to supply the industry – and we are seeing more demand for gas."
The International Energy Agency has predicted that if the anticipated "dash for gas" goes ahead, the world will be far adrift of its greenhouse gas emissions targets. Laszlo Varro, head of gas, coal and power markets at the IEA, said: "We have said repeatedly that on our current trajectory we will miss these targets."
GE is putting its engineering and marketing muscle strongly behind gas – the company has just launched a new gas-fired turbine that is being billed as complementary to renewable energy. The new turbine is more efficient, and its key selling point is that it can be sparked up or powered down much more quickly than previous models. The company says this means it is a good way of providing back-up for intermittent renewable generation from wind turbines – which the company also manufactures to a lesser degree.
"When the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine, gas is an efficient way of meeting demand," said Bolze.
Gas companies have been stepping up their lobbying efforts in recent months, in an attempt to persuade policymakers around the world that an abundance of unconventional gas – fuel that was previously too expensive to exploit or inaccessible because it is bound up in dense rocks – means the fossil fuel is the best way to meet rising demand for power and cut greenhouse gas emissions.
This argument is rapidly gaining traction in the US in particular, where a rush to exploit shale gas reserves is spurring the construction of gas-fired power plants. "The US will be a gas island, because there is so much local supply, and it may be cheaper than gas traded in the rest of the world," said Varro.
Gas is being positioned as a low-carbon fuel – burned in a power station, it produces about half of the carbon associated with coal. However, this is not the whole story; a recent study showed that the most common form of unconventional gas, shale gas, which is released by fracturing dense rock formations, produces as much carbon as coal because of problems with its production.
As Bolze's remarks illustrate, this new "dash for gas" is likely to be at the expense of renewables. A report from the European Gas Advocacy Forum suggested that Europe could meet its carbon-cutting targets hundreds of billions of euros more cheaply by pursuing gas than by relying on renewables.
GE contends that gas can be complementary to renewables. "To have more renewable energy on the grid, you need to have more flexibility, other forms of power," Bolze said.
However, building a massive new fleet of gas-fired power stations around the world would effectively lock in fossil fuel generation for decades, because each new plant has an operating life of at least 25 years.
The UK's committee on climate change has warned that all British energy generation must be decarbonised by 2030, and the same is likely to be true of other developed countries if they are to comply with scientific advice on emissions. This would mean that gas-fired power stations built in the next decade would have to be taken out of commission before the end of their lives or fitted with carbon capture and storage technology (CCS).
Green campaigners fear that relying on CCS is dangerous because the technology is unproven and may be extremely expensive. There are no power plants currently using CCS at scale.
Bolze was unable to say how much the company spends on CCS research and development, but conceded it was "a small portion" of the $1bn GE devotes to clean energy projects.