Natural Gas Has Its Supporters

U.S. utilities, which are under pressure to use more environmentally friendly fuel sources, are increasingly betting their future of natural gas at the expense of coal.

As Bloomberg News notes, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates that gas-fired electricity will climb 31 percent of U.S. power generation in 2010 from five years ago, while coal use will fall 6.5 percent. This comes amid a continuing public relations blitz by advocates of coal, which advocates argue has a smaller environmental footprint than it used to thanks to the $90 billion has invested in new technologies in recent years. That message is not resonating with some.

General Electric Co. CEO Jeff Immelt and Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates are among the business leaders calling for the U.S. government to triple its spending on clean energy research and development to $16 billion in the wake of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.