In November the EPA announced new greenhouse gas reporting rules for the oil and gas industry. For the first time under the Clean Air Act, the nation's guiding air quality law, thousands of small facilities will have to be counted in the pollution reporting inventory, a change that might also lead to higher measurements.
The natural gas industry, in the meantime, has pressed hard for subsidies and guarantees that would establish gas as an indispensible source of American energy and create a market for the vast new gas reserves discovered in recent years. The industry would like to see new power plants built to run on gas, automobile infrastructure developed to support gas vehicles and a slew of other ambitious plans that would commit the United States to a reliance on gas for decades to come.
But if it turns out that natural gas offers a more modest improvement over coal and oil, as the new EPA data begin to suggest, then billions of dollars of taxpayer and industry investment in new infrastructure, drilling and planning could be spent for limited gain.
"The problem is you build a gas plant for 40 years. That's a long bridge," said James Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, one of the nation's largest power companies. Duke generates more than half of its electricity from coal, but Rogers has also been a vocal proponent of cap-and-trade legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Rogers worries that a blind jump to gas could leave the country dependent on yet another fossil resource, without stemming the rate of climate change.
"What if, with revelations around methane emissions, it turns out to be only a 10 or 20 percent reduction of carbon from coal? If that's true," he said, "gas is not the panacea."
The American Petroleum Institute said in an e-mailed response that federal offshore drilling rules are already cutting down on the emissions tallied by the government. Spokesmen for the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the natural gas lobbying groups Energy in Depth, American Clean Skies Foundation and America's Natural Gas Alliance, which have all been pushing to expand the use of gas, declined to comment on the EPA's new figures and what they mean for the comparison between gas and coal.
But industry groups point out that gas looks attractive compared to the alternatives.
Nuclear energy is less polluting than gas from a climate-changing perspective, but it is costly and viewed skeptically in the United States because of the dangers of disposing of radioactive waste. So-called "clean coal"—including underground carbon sequestration—could work, but the technology has repeatedly stalled, remains unproven, and is at least 15 years away. Renewable sources like wind and solar are being developed rapidly, but the energy is expensive and won't provide a commanding supply of electricity for decades.
Gas, on the other hand, is plentiful, accessible and local.
Methane Is a Potent Climate Gas
Measuring the amount of natural gas that is leaking during drilling is one challenge. Getting a grip on how that gas—which is mostly methane—affects the environment, and what effect it will have on global warming, is another. And on that, some scientists still disagree.
Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, as well as methane, propane and lesser-known gases that also affect climate change. For the purposes of standardization, all these gases are described together using the unit Co2e, or carbon dioxide "equivalent." But because each gas has a different potency, or "warming" effect on the atmosphere, a factor is applied to convert it to an equivalent of carbon dioxide.
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12 Comments
Add CommentThe article states:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The administration and Congress are seeking not just a steady, independent supply of energy, but a fast and drastic reduction in the greenhouse gases associated with climate change."
A lofty goal, but as I understand, after 200 years of accumulation, the current atmospheric co2 levels will not dissipate any time soon, even if humanity eliminated all of its GHG emissions.
The article continues:
"To crunch its numbers, the EPA calculated the average concentration of methane in the atmosphere over a 100-year period and determined that over that period methane is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Using that equation, a ton of methane emissions is the equivalent of 21 tons of carbon dioxide."
That's a nice trick. For example, no matter how much methane was released into the atmosphere during the next ten years, the current 100 year rolling average would be primarily determined by the average during the years of 1920-2010. That works for them!
Finally:
"The EPA now reports that emissions from conventional hydraulic fracturing are 35 times higher than the agency had previously estimated. It also reports that emissions from the type of hydraulic fracturing being used in the nation's bountiful new shale gas reserves, like the Marcellus, are almost 9,000 times higher than it had previously calculated, a figure that begins to correspond with Robert Howarth's research at Cornell."
And that's the good news. The bad news is that it's called 'hydraulic fracturing' because it involves pumping enormous amounts of water and minerals (to protect drill bits, etc.) into a huge area, as I understand often contaminating ground water and potentially even critical fossil aquifers used by many millions for drinking water and agricultural irrigation.
If we run out of potable water we may have to use all of our energy desalinating seawater! Potable water is also an extremely critical resource for this, the largest human population that's ever existed, even considering only the U.S.
No matter how much lipstick you put on them, coal, oil, and natural gas still remains very dirty pigs. I know we are concerned about nuclear plants' storage system becoming dirty bombs, leaks at the plant radiating whole communities, and the cost is just mind boggling, but if you do not want to consider Geothermal, which has a 1.5% foot print compared to natural gas at 80%, coal at 90%, and nuclear at an undetermined amount, then nuclear is our only choice. Even though a solar array in Arizona is producing more power than a normal nuclear plant and one river hydro plant in New York is producing enough energy for the whole community of 70,000 and it has even been make friendly to fish...and you don't want to consider electric cars being charged from geothermal, hydro, solar, or wave, then lets go with nuclear and keep our fingers crossed that we don't start glowing green and plunging America into another economic crises from the expense of building nuclear plants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEither way, we should/must eliminate all fossil fuel burning plants and transportation.
Since natural gas is now understood to be more equivalent to coal in its "greenhouse effect", we should decide to just burn more coal for power production. It's cheaper and more plentiful. Besides, gas is more suitable for heating homes and businesses and should be reserved for this use.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis magazine has long touted the Green point of view rather than a Scientific stance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow in quick succession we have the article on the detrimental effects on forests caused by growing crops for bio fuel followed by a contra report on gas. Wind & solar surely must follow. Eventually we will get to the only Scientific solution. Nuclear.
The old ingrained bias is going to die hard however otherwise why regurgitate the old discredited article from the November 2009 issue A Plan to Power 100 Percent of the Planet with Renewables.
Pathetic.
Methane has no effect on climate. Methane absorbs the same photons that are already totally absorbed by water vapor. Therefore, we cannot blame natural gas for any climate effects.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNatural gas escapes naturally everywhere. If we do not use the gas it will escape anyway.
We should monitor oxygen instead of CO2 since oxygen also absorbs infrared photons.
In my last comment, I did not supply a reference. Graphs are available at Wikipedia in the article Greenhouse Gas. The graphs show that methane absorbs photons that water vapor totally absorbs already. The graphs also show that oxygen absorbs photons, and so we should measure it. CO2 absorbs all 15-micron photons and so it cannot cause an increased greenhouse effect. This means that burning natural gas or oil or coal will not alter climate. Reduction in oxygen caused by burning fossil fuels will reduce oxygen-caused greenhouse effects and thus cause cooling to counter warming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMethane and CO2 will still absorb infrared photons bec. there is almost unlimited supply from the sun. White light when absorbed by earth's surface infrared is radiated. Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas but we don't worry about it bec. it's natural and not man-made. Maybe we should worry. 2% increase in humidity has same radiative forcing as all CO2 emitted since 1750.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEventually the structure of modern society is going to have to change. Public utilities are going to have to focus on energy storage just as much as energy generation. Fossil fuels are going to slide into decreased production, even with improved extraction methods.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI almost never agree with JamesDavis or Soccerdad but on this topic I'm in total accord with them. It is long past time to stop messing around and start a real, meaningful effort to eliminate fossil fuels entirely.
The solution to the problem is often said to be CCS. But as CCS will not be applied generally for at least 50 years, we should decarbonise natural gas now using hydrocarbon pyrolysis. This process removes the carbon from methane as coke, leaving clean hydrogen as an energy source. The inert coke can safely go into landfill. The Technology needs to be developped at an industrial scale, but it is cheap and non-polluting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe accident at three mile island although causing damage only to the power station cost far more lives than the Chernobyl incident.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Hysterical over reaction delayed the introduction of clean nuclear power in the USA for at least fourty years leading to the loss of inumerable lives due to polution from coal fired power stations and global warming.
It needs to be remembered that the biomass(corn, fodder beets, etc used to make ethanol, is perfect starch-free feed for cattle, stopping the livestock's methane production, and using the same resources twice! A fact not talked about much by the opponents of ethanol!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow long doe it take to screen Comments? I made one regarding ethanol and it seems to have disappeared.
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