GAS LEAKS: Emissions of methane from the oil and gas industry are on the rise.
Image: Flickr/Nicholas_T
U.S. EPA's addition of oil, gas and coal methane emissions to its online greenhouse gas tracking tool revealed an 82.6-million-metric-ton increase in carbon dioxide equivalents over numbers from the previous year, when those figures were not available.
EPA published data yesterday for 2011, adding 12 new sources from the reporting program since last year's 2010 figures. Although carbon dioxide is a much more abundant greenhouse gas than methane, the latter makes a far bigger impact on climate change with more than 20 times the global warming potential of carbon.
Yet carbon emissions from power plants were 4.5 percent lower in 2011 than in 2010, a reduction due in part to the steady switchover of capacity from coal to natural gas, which releases nearly half the carbon of coal per kilowatt-hour. Due to the large impact that power plants have on greenhouse gas emissions, this 4.5 percent drop factored into an overall 3 percent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions between 2010 and 2011.
The comparison over the two years continues to paint a picture of the role natural gas will play in a less carbon-intensive energy system, said Peter Zalzal, a staff attorney in the climate and air division of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). While natural gas provides an option to cut carbon emissions from power generation, the leaks and flaring of methane in the production process could undermine the benefits.
"I think the point that we take from here is that we have an opportunity," Zalzal said. "There are very cost-effective solutions to plug leaks throughout the natural gas supply chain."
Despite the significant methane emissions revealed in the oil and gas sector, the American Petroleum Institute (API) promoted natural gas's role in reducing power plant emissions.
"The oil and natural gas industry is leading the way in reducing emissions and is the largest investor in zero- and low-emission technologies," said Carlton Carroll, a spokesman for API. "Today's report confirms that increased use of natural gas for power generation is driving down total U.S. carbon emissions. While we continue to make substantial progress to reduce emissions voluntarily and in compliance with EPA's recent emissions standards, we're also focused on creating jobs and jump-starting our economy."
Coal power still dominates emissions
Last year, EPA completed standards requiring hydraulically fractured gas wells to use technology that will cut toxic emissions and smog-forming pollution by 2015.
As a co-benefit, the upgrades will also reduce methane by up to 1.7 million tons, said EPA. However, environmental groups have said that the methane issue must be addressed separately from other pollutants (ClimateWire, April 19, 2012).
Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of carbon emissions, outpacing the second-largest source -- petroleum and natural gas systems -- by a factor of almost 10-to-1. Power plants accounted for two-thirds of total greenhouse gas emissions.
"It's a vivid demonstration that if you want to take a real bite out of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, you have to go after power plants. There is no other option for quick and heavy reductions," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch.
EPA's Facility Level Information on Greenhouse Gases Tool (FLIGHT) allows users to visualize the distribution of major greenhouse gas emitters across the country. The side menu to the tool allows one to search for the heaviest individual emitters in the country. This can help improve the understanding of the sources of climate change on a local level, said EPA at the launch of the website last year (ClimateWire, Jan. 12, 2012).
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12 Comments
Add CommentWhat about all the methane being released by cattle? I understand it represents a substantial proportion of the total methane released to the atmosphere.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe we should stop subsidizing oil and gas. Perhaps even tax them extra for these negative externalities; and from these revenues we could issue an annual check directly to each citizen. But seriously we need a clean energy revolution now!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMethane does not remain in the atmosphere it breaks down in a couple of weeks to CO2 and water. Much to do about nothing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBull. The breakdown of methane is already included in the calculation, and it is over a period of a hundred years, not "a couple of weeks".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"What about all the methane being released by cattle?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSure, that's a problem too. Methane emissions from fracking are in addition to cattle emissions and both require entirely distinct policies to reduce.
"It [methane] has a net lifetime of about 10 years,[38] and is primarily removed by conversion to carbon dioxide and water."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane#Atmospheric_methane
Oh, and you should look at this too:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Although the methane GWP traditionally includes the methane indirect effects on the concentrations of ozone and stratospheric water vapour, it does not take into account the production of carbon dioxide from methane oxidation. We argue here that this CO2-induced effect should be included for fossil sources of methane, which results in slightly larger GWP values for all time horizons. If the global temperature change potential is used as an alternative climate metric, then the impact of the CO2-induced effect is proportionally much larger."
"The indirect global warming potential and global temperature change potential due to methane oxidation"
Boucher et al. (2009)
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009ERL.....4d4007B
Yes, you are correct, the methane lifetime in the atmosphere is about 12 yrs, according to the IPCC, but the relevant number, of which I was referring is the GHG effect, which includes other reactions methane has in the atmosphere, is 20-25X that of CO2 over 100yrs, and 72x over 25 yrs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell if we summed up the CO2 released by members of Congress the total would go up astronomically.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is no reason other than being cheapazz drillers, producers to leak or flare HC's from methane/NG, etc. Both it harms the air we breathe and wastes a resource for no reason other than the production company not wanting to pay the costs even if in the long run it would increase output and when NG pipelines came to the wellsite they would have it for sale to make money from.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey should be required to put them back in the ground where they would help produce more valuable oil they are on most cases actually going for.
I'll make them a deal, they can flare whatever they want to run through their home. Afterall they should get the first whack from their wastes before foisting it and it's costs on the rest of us.
"EPA published data yesterday for 2011, adding 12 new sources from the reporting program since last year's 2010 figures." Where's the link to the EPA data, and a short explanation of how the author arrives at conclusions? I want to look this up. (Also, I noticed the other links in that paragraph did not take me to closely related information. Links should be meaningful, or leave them out. Thanks.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdwbd:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo the calculations include emissions from surface & sub surface ocean volcanoes as well as the methane release from methylhydrates from the oceans.
I think that maybe the vast ongoing volcanic activity above and below the oceans surface is having the largest effect on global warming.
The effect of human action is therefore a minimum at best.
It is a matter of scale !