Chevron CEO Mike Wirth came to Gastech Houston 2024 with a plea for a more balanced energy conversation—shortly before laying into President Joe Biden for vilifying natural gas and playing politics with LNG permits.

Wirth extolled the virtues of natural gas for its ability to reduce emissions. Citing U.S. Energy Information Administration data, McKinsey & Co. recently calculated that the U.S.’ switch from generating power using natural gas after switching from coal had reduced carbon emissions by “over half a billion metric tons.”

That’s more than double the reduction from all additions of wind and solar power over the past 15 years, Wirth said during an opening keynote on Sept. 17.

Broader adoption of natural gas could lower emissions even more. The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported in 2022 that coal combustion generated approximately 15 billion metric tons of CO2 worldwide.

“That's more than a third of total global greenhouse-gas emissions. Cutting these emissions by switching from coal to natural gas could represent the single greatest carbon reduction emission in history,” Wirth said.

“Natural gas is a key enabler of a lower carbon future,” Wirth said. “The proof is in the pudding.”

Wirth noted that the reductions are not just achievable, they would also not disrupt national economies or individual lives.

The only thing stopping a move toward cleaner emissions is a polarized view of energy only making emissions worse.

“The U.S. has an abundance of natural gas: a reliable, affordable resource that the world needs today,” he said. “In fact, the case for natural gas is so strong … only politics can get in the way.”

Wirth said energy producers need a stable, predictable policy environment to ensure natural gas remains a reliable source now and in the future.

“But the [Biden] administration's LNG permitting pause elevates politics over progress,” he said. “The DOE’s own findings show that on a lifecycle basis, U.S. LNG can deliver substantial greenhouse-gas reductions compared to coal in both Europe and Asia.”

When it comes to advancing economic prosperity, energy security and environmental protection, the administration’s “permitting pause fails on all three.”

“It raises energy costs by taking potential supply off the market,” he said. “It threatens reliable supplies of LNG, undermining energy security for our allies. And it slows the transition from coal to natural gas, meaning more emissions, not less.”

Instead of halting new permits for LNG exports, the administration “should stop the attacks on natural gas and embrace the benefits it’s already delivering around the world,” Wirth said.

Wirth said that a balanced energy conversation also requires recognition on progress being made, even if at different speeds in distant parts of the world and sectors of economies.

“The complexity of the global energy system is given by the effortless way energy is integrated into our daily lives, especially in the development world,” he said. “We flip a switch and expect the lights to come on. We pay little attention to the intricate supply chain that makes this possible—from distant drilling pads or wind turbines to pipelines and transmission systems and local distribution.”

“Compared to other challenges in creating a global carbon future, incorporating renewables into the power grid is relatively straightforward, especially with natural gas providing the baseload to solve the intermittent challenge,” he said.

However, Wirth noted that many key manufacturing processes enabling modern life can't be readily electrified.

“We will need to develop lower carbon methods for producing steel” along with plastics, fertilizer, fuels for shipping, aviation, agriculture, mining and long haul trucking.

Wirth said the world stands at an inflection point nearly 10 years after the 2015 Paris Agreement, in which the world's developed economies are seeking to decarbonize vast segments of their advanced economies.

At the same time, he said, nearly three billion people living in less developed countries in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America demand and deserve the rising living standards delivered by an escape from energy poverty.

Those challenges are driving the need for a resilient global energy system.

“We can double down on the either/or approach that dominates today's discourse, which too often people [pit] solutions against each other, or we can evolve toward an all approach that recognizes many solutions are needed,” he said. “One that acknowledges the desire for economic prosperity, energy security and environmental protection is an achievement goal, not a zero-sum struggle, an approach based on the belief that we can make more progress through collaboration and consensus than through polarization and partisanship.”

The oil and gas industry, he said, has a leading role to play, “perhaps the leading role.”

Producers have the capabilities, assets and global relationships to help advance the lower carbon energy system of the future.

The IEA estimates 70% of the methane emissions from the energy sector could be reduced with tools and technologies available today, “which is critical to unlocking the full potential of natural gas,” he said.

Chevron, for instance, is applying its core competences in new and innovative ways, he said.

“In Utah, Chevron's [teamed up] with Mitsubishi Power and the Intermountain Power Agency to create an innovative hydrogen project as part of replacing an aging coal-fired power plant,” Wirth said. “We're leveraging our subsurface and reservoir management capabilities to mine geological salt caps to create massive energy storage capacity.”

The plan is to produce hydrogen from water and store excess wind and solar power underground.

“That stored hydrogen will then be co-fired, along with natural gas, to generate lower carbon intensity power,” he said. “Existing high voltage transmission lines will transport this power to Southern California, providing lower carbon electricity to cool homes and run businesses.”

The project, Wirth said, demonstrates the kind of problem solving skills the oil and gas industry thrives on, and the lower carbon solutions “we're capable of delivering.”

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