Energy chiefs tout natural gas

A panel on climate change opens the annual conference of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association.

Energy-industry officials from across the Rockies kicked off a three-day conference Monday by promoting natural gas, a cleaner-burning fossil fuel, as a weapon against increasing greenhouse-gas levels.

The annual conference by the Denver-based trade group Colorado Oil and Gas Association opened with a panel discussion of climate change. Besides normal industry discussions, four more sessions dealing with climate change and reducing carbon dioxide emissions are scheduled today and Wednesday.

Focusing on climate change makes sense to Fred Julander, founder and president of Julander Energy Co. and the trade group’s conference chairman. He acknowledged the public’s heightened concern about climate change and believes the gas industry should tout its advantages as a cleaner-burning fuel.
“Natural gas will help solve climate change because there’s less (carbon dioxide) in its emissions,” Julander said.

Companies using new technology to tap the Rockies’ vast reserves of gas in more environmentally sensitive ways can lead the way as the nation looks at reducing greenhouse gases, he added.

Most scientists agree that human-caused increases of heat-trapping gases, much of that from burning fossil fuels, is heating up the globe, triggering wide variations in weather.

“I think we’re much more a part of the solution than we are part of the problem,” Julander said.

“Natural gas is many ways is cleaner than many fossil fuels,” said Jeremy Nichols, head of the Denver-based Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action.

But Nichols said even though burning natural gas releases less carbon dioxide, its other emissions, including methane, create problems. He said he believes lessening climate change ultimately will require reducing the use of all fossil fuels.

Denver Post