Category Archives: Greenhouse Gas Emissions

California Leading The Way To Clean Energy Innovation While A Few Lag Behind Investing In Litigation, Obstructionism

By | Published: April 17, 2013


This commentary by Erica Morehouse, EDF Staff Attorney was originally posted on EDF's California Dream 2.0 blog.

Climate pollution threatens the health of California’s families and the prosperity of our economy. Last November, California began a vitally important program that reduces climate pollution, rewards clean energy innovation, and helps ensure that the biggest emitters are responsible for their own pollution.

The program places a firm limit on overall climate pollution from the largest industrial emitters in California, allows flexible solutions to achieve that limit across sources, and requires major industrial emitters to bear a small portion of their pollution costs by requiring them to obtain carbon emissions allowances under the state’s cap-and-trade program, under which allowances may be obtained in public auctions or trades on the open market.

Fast forward five months, Californians are already realizing critical health and economic benefits from this groundbreaking environmental policy. And, the Golden State continues to lead the way in clean energy and transportation jobs due in large part to AB 32, which has opened the door for greater investment in the clean energy economy. More good news: Yesterday, the state fulfilled a requirement of 2012 AB 32 Legislation by releasing its blueprint for how to expand these benefits by investing proceeds from auctions to strengthen our economy, our health, and the environment.

California’s plan focuses on making key greenhouse gas reductions in three sectors: transportation, energy, and natural resources. The goal is to create multiplier effects that allow Californians to draw benefits from these opportunities that far outweigh the investment. And every day new research shows just how widely the benefits of clean economy investments can ripple. EPA recently released a study showing that if energy costs accounted for the health impacts of burning fossil fuels, they would increase by between $361 and $886.5 billion annually. When California invests in clean energy those hidden health benefits accrue for years to come – and they protect our families and our children.

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Also posted in California, Energy Efficiency, Future of Green, Innovation Exchange, Renewable Energy | Tagged | Comments closed

New Study Expands Efforts to Understand Climate Implications of Methane Emissions

By | Published: April 11, 2013

New supplies of natural gas are no doubt changing our energy landscape and, of all fossil fuels, natural gas appears to be a smarter choice because its carbon footprint is smaller when combusted than coal or oil. When talking about natural gas as part of a potential climate solution, though, it is important to recognize its unique position as either being a good or bad thing for global warming – depending upon the amount of uncombusted methane emissions that are released into the atmosphere.

No matter what market forces dictate for the future of gas, it’s EDF’s job to ensure that natural gas doesn’t become a detriment to public health or the environment. And, with respect to air quality and climate, getting better data on methane emissions is essential.

Methane can be emitted at various points across the natural gas system. Comprised mostly of methane, natural gas is a potent greenhouse gas. When it enters the atmosphere unburned, it has a higher warming potential than carbon dioxide, the principal contributor of man-made climate change. The more gas released, the more it undermines the climate benefits of using natural gas as compared to other fossil fuels. Yet there is no clear sense of how much and from where methane is leaking out from the system, as my colleague and Chief Scientist Steven Hamburg has explained here.

Over the last year EDF has been orchestrating a large-scale study of methane emissions with leading researchers in the field and industry to better understand the amount of methane emissions across the natural gas supply chain. To date the 30-month collaborative effort, with a $10 million overall budget, is bringing together almost 20 universities and research facilities and about 40 industry partners, collectively, in order to measure methane directly at potentially large emissions sources as gas moves from the formation underground to the wellhead and then on to the consumer.

Yesterday, the third part of EDF’s methane research study was announced, which focuses on the local distribution of natural gas (from city gate to customer meter) Read More »

Also posted in Climate, General, Methane leakage, Natural Gas | Comments closed

More To Come On Methane…

By | Bio | Published: December 6, 2012

Concerns around the impacts of methane emissions have reemerged in headlines, with the release of a methane leakage study about Boston. Published in the journal of Environmental Pollution a couple weeks ago, researchers from Boston University and Duke University measured atmospheric methane concentrations leaking from natural gas pipelines in Boston many of which are over a hundred years old. Another report issued last week by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (published in Environmental Research Letters) looked at the impact of shale gas production on greenhouse gas emissions.

When talking about harmful greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2) usually gets most of the attention. Yet methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, is a short-lived greenhouse gas many times more potent than CO2 – or around 72 times more potent over a 20-year time frame. Stakes are high for the scientific community to fully understand the implications of methane leakage rates. These reports help elevate the issue that methane leakage matters to the climate and air quality, but this is only part of the story.

Methane is potentially leaking from the entire natural gas supply chain — from wells, pipelines and storage facilities — and no one knows precisely how much is leaking and where the leaks are stemming from. Some reports estimate the total methane leakage rate occurring during natural gas production, transmission and distribution to range anywhere from 1 to 7.9 percent. At the same time, the data that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and everyone else rely on were collected 20 or more years ago.

A challenge for understanding the distribution of methane concentration data in Boston is that no one knows how to interpret the data yet. Maps of methane concentrations in the urban environment can be spurious. They may look scary, but are they? This and many other tough scientific questions still need to be answered, we are very early in the process of understanding how much methane is leaking and from where. The scientific community at large, including EDF and the authors of the Boston study, are committed to collecting the data necessary to addressing these concerns and to understanding the true climate impact of methane emissions.

EDF is working with leading academic researchers and industry leaders to conduct scientifically rigorous measurements of quantitative emissions across the natural gas supply chain from well to the end user. We are developing the methodologies where necessary to move past a ‘he said, she said’ conversation to one focused on data characterizing leak rates. The critical next step for us in using the increasingly robust data gathered from new innovative technologies is to precipitate a clear enough understanding of where the leaks are in the supply chain to catalyze a constructive conversation about what new policies and industry practices will be required to minimize methane leakage.

The first EDF fugitive methane report, focused on field measurements made at natural gas production sites, will be completed early next year under the leadership of the University of Texas Austin. EDF and our partners are using a diverse array of measurement techniques to characterize leak rates. We are also working to make basin-wide measurements within areas of natural gas production. Over the course of 2013 and early 2014, studies of emissions at other key components in the supply chain, including the local distribution system, will be completed and the data and conclusions released to the public.

EDF is actively campaigning to ensure that fugitive methane emissions from the natural gas industry are less than 1 percent of production in order to ensure that the climate benefits of natural gas are maximized. We see development of innovative, cost effective and accurate methane detection technologies and procedures as a necessary part of minimizing leak rates. Our view is that minimizing methane leakage is an important enough issue that we need to take the time to establish a scientific understanding of the underlying issues and by doing so defining effective well-targeted actions.

Also posted in Climate, EPA, Methane leakage, Natural Gas, Oil | Comments closed