Overcoming Peak Natural Gas

Hi everyone.

I've almost got this figured out! I can get past Peak Oil and Coal... not perfectly mind you, but I can get past them. I can get emissions down far enough to squeeze under 3 degrees by 2200. I can keep the world a fairly safe, clean place to live, even.

But I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to get past natural gas.

The scenario: It's 2175. The Endgame. And indeed, the end is in sight. Most of the world is doing okay; global GDP is significantly down since the beginning, but this is acceptable. Emissions have been reduced by a huge amount, and Artificial Trees are helping too. Coal and Oil have been banned. Most nations have enjoyed between 2-5 turns of Expand Nuclear or Renewables, and Europe and North Africa have been Expanding Biofuels since 2040. Money is tight, it's true; most of the funds in the last 30 years have been given to Aerosols, Artificial Trees or Security. Still, if I can just keep the world from disintegrating for 25 years I've won.

Hit End Turn.

Stare in shock as Global GDP went from $75,000b to $30,000b in one turn. Wonder what I'm going to do with -$250b and no nations happy enough to Tobin. Realize I've lost, inevitably. And I did.
I held on until 2195, which is just unfair, then all the nations dropped me (except South Asia- I think I've mentioned before that they're an unreasonably happy bunch of people). Not that it would have mattered; I didn't have enough funds to keep all the Trees and Sulfates going, so temps were above 3 degrees.

TL;DR:

How do I get past Peak Natural Gas? I've tried Expanding Renewables, but I'm just wasting money as they don't actually expand. Expanding Nukes doesn't work either; typically Uranium runs out, and when it doesn't, someone starts a global thermonuclear war. Biofuels work for a while, but when Peak Gas hits, agriculture stops, so they don't help when it matters.What can I do?

Unfortunately, renewable energy is pretty much rubbish. I've been trying to find ways to increase its usefulness without making it a game winner but it's really unreliable in the current state. Since you mentioned artificial trees, did you make the move to synthetic feedstock? This will cut the need for natural gas in your agriculture and industry allowing what little is left to go toward energy use while also not allowing gas shortages to not impact them as drastically, if at all. If they feel a shortage, you will lose workers in those industries, lowering GDP, and leading to the inevitable collapse.

If you'd banned Clathrate mining you could lift the ban once you have the AI in place as that makes the chances of accidents quite slim and opens up a new supply of natural gas that was previously untapped.

Aside from that, you can always consolidate down near the end, ditch any regions that are growing unhappy, put your sulfates up in the regions that are left and hope you've done enough!

[Skull-]

Just invest in renewables a lot. If you cannot stop the gas shortage, go nukes and grow your agriculture for the biofuels, it's easy.

[Sorgrid]

Originally Posted by Skull-

Just invest in renewables a lot. If you cannot stop the gas shortage, go nukes and grow your agriculture for the biofuels, it's easy.

In theory. More often than not, investing renewables or biofuels doesn't pay. No matter how long I press biofuels or renewables and what policies I use to keep a steady growth in power use like the coal switch, biofuel yields go down and so does production of renewable energy in contrast with cheaper alternatives such as gas or coal.

[Skull-]

Coal will run short very fast, belive me. This game become very very easy when you master the economy. And belive when I say that if you go biofuels + grow agriculture + nukes and bum renewables after this, you will never have any crisis until 2200(after I don't know, but I doubt). Of course it's not all, but you rest I think you can figure out reading the forum

Detail: I never needed to ban Oil or Nat Gas to avoid a crisis and make my econommy bum

I've never actually had gas run out in the game, ever.