[throwaway5752]

That's not how the chemistry works. Most of the energy's in the hydrogen bonds, and the ratio of carbon to hydrogen is much higher in coal. The same amount of energy produced by coal produces much more CO2 than oil or gas. That's not even touching on higher heavy metal contamination and fly ash.

[sampo]

However, methane is a greenhouse gas in its own right, and 100x worse [1] than CO₂. And some unknown amount, I guess 2% to 10%, of methane leaks into atmosphere during the mining and transport and use of natural gas. Depending on the exact amount of this leaking, natural gas might even be the worst offender, per unit energy produced.

[1] 100x worse on a 20 years time scale, 30x worse on a 100 years time scale.

[diffraction]

Only, but only a little gas gets out. It's ok. Coal is the enemy mainly because you can see it. Natural Gas requires infrared camera to detect. No this isn't snark/cynicism: we regulate the opacity of a scrubbed coal plant's output.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/20...

[sampo]

Even if only 1% leaks, but because methane is a 100x more potent greenhouse gas, this 1% leak doubles the climate impact of natural gas.

[diffraction]

here are some images for you to meditate on

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HrtQUEgYjKs

http://media.mlive.com/saginawnews_impact/photo/12375884-lar...

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ECqpbqbT3UA