At the debate, the journalists should drill down (pun fully intended) and ask Beto whether natural gas is "green energy", like the Europeans have recently declared.
The best answer is: 'It's certainly greener than coal or burning liquid petroleum, and we're on top of an ocean of natural gas. We should use it. It also employs probably around 100,000 Texans directly and at least another couple of hundred thousand indirectly (services, chemicals, transport, parts fabrication, etc.). To be "greener", we'll promote more natural gas electric plants, more drilling, and more pipelines But, with the current state of the Texas electrical grid, the existing coal plants (including the mothballed ones) need to stay around for quite a while longer. The wind turbines and solar farms are the icing on top of the cake--they're not reliable enough to be the cake itself.'
The best answer is: 'It's certainly greener than coal or burning liquid petroleum, and we're on top of an ocean of natural gas. We should use it. It also employs probably around 100,000 Texans directly and at least another couple of hundred thousand indirectly (services, chemicals, transport, parts fabrication, etc.). To be "greener", we'll promote more natural gas electric plants, more drilling, and more pipelines But, with the current state of the Texas electrical grid, the existing coal plants (including the mothballed ones) need to stay around for quite a while longer. The wind turbines and solar farms are the icing on top of the cake--they're not reliable enough to be the cake itself.'
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