The claim is that natural gas is a very useful energy storage mechanism. It's portable as gas or a liquid, spills are dramatically less dangerous than oil, and if contaminants are kept out, burning it emits mostly only CO2 (compared to like gasoline or diesel), and the energy density is high. And compared to hydrogen, it's much easier to store and transport (H2 absolutely wrecks metal pipes and storage tanks).
I think part of the future energy equation is CO2 capture and processing back into natural gas for distribution. It's probably going to involve some weird genetically engineered algae or something but I can also imagine wind turbines that both capture and process back to natural gas. There's a lot of people in startup land working on this problem.
I see that Smil has written a bunch of books. Are you referring to "Harvesting the Biosphere?"
Nope but that's also good. I'm talking about this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Gas-Fuel-21st-Century/dp/1119012864
The claim is that natural gas is a very useful energy storage mechanism. It's portable as gas or a liquid, spills are dramatically less dangerous than oil, and if contaminants are kept out, burning it emits mostly only CO2 (compared to like gasoline or diesel), and the energy density is high. And compared to hydrogen, it's much easier to store and transport (H2 absolutely wrecks metal pipes and storage tanks).
I think part of the future energy equation is CO2 capture and processing back into natural gas for distribution. It's probably going to involve some weird genetically engineered algae or something but I can also imagine wind turbines that both capture and process back to natural gas. There's a lot of people in startup land working on this problem.