The Biden Administration should be congratulated for its accomplishments in the energy sector. The infrastructure bill has funded more high-speed electrical charging stations across the country, incentives to ramp up electric car production, and numerous other inducements to lower our nation’s carbon dioxide emissions in the future.

Biden energy policies have allowed the U.S. to produce a record 13.2 million barrels of oil per day during fall 2023 and eclipse the previous record for U.S. natural gas production as well. Dropping oil prices are forcing OPEC to consider additional production cuts and the Saudis may not want to cut production further, putting additional downward pressure on oil prices.

Lower oil prices mean less money flowing into the coffers of Iran and Russia that they can utilize to wage war on us and our allies. This has allowed us to export record amounts of methane as liquefied natural gas. The methane exports are mainly going to replace the coal Europe would be burning to heat and electrify homes due to the cutoff of Russian natural gas. Replacing coal with methane significantly lowers carbon dioxide emissions in two ways.

First, the thermal efficiency of the old European coal-fired power plants is much lower than the newer gas-generating facilities. Second, a molecule of methane has only one carbon atom while coal is loaded with carbon. Thus, a great deal more carbon dioxide is produced burning coal than methane to generate electricity, especially in the older European coal-fired facilities.

Jeff Johnson

Redmond

Do you have a point you’d like to make or an issue you feel strongly about? Submit a letter to the editor.