Energy Transition Bridge Fuel: Do We Still Need Natural Gas?

The notion that natural gas would serve as a “bridge fuel” to facilitate the transition toward a cleaner energy future from the dominance of fossil fuel consumption in power generation, industrial production, and transportation sectors first was promoted in the 1970s in the wake of the energy crisis. The idea was that natural gas could be used to replace heavier fuels like oil and coal which produce substantially more emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides; help countries decrease their dependence on foreign oil; and buy time until renewable energy could be developed to levels of economic efficiency, scale, and reliability to replace all fossil fuels.