By Adam Peltz and Elizabeth Lieberknecht
Recently, Louisiana, under the leadership of Gov. John Bel Edwards, became the latest state taking action to curb pollution and waste from oil and gas production. In a new proposal, the state says it will limit natural gas venting and flaring and attempt to reduce the risk of thousands of idle wells becoming orphaned. Both actions will help create jobs, protect taxpayers and safeguard the environment. Here’s how.
By Nini Gu
On Thursday, July 20th we saw a major shift in how methane emissions from oil and gas sources can be regulated, and to no one’s surprise it came from the nation’s leading state on this issue: Colorado.
GreenPower electric school bus parked in front of the West Virginia State Capitol building; Charleston, WV
By Ali DySard and Melody Reis
School districts around the country are considering a switch to buses that use less fuel, cost less, and, most importantly, provide safe and healthy trips to and from school. Only one option wins on each of these critical criteria: electric. They eliminate the dirty tailpipe emissions of diesel and other fossil fuel models that harm vulnerable lungs, they save money on fuel and maintenance costs and they can even increase the resilience of the local electric grid.
This clear choice is why the majority of the EPA’s Clean School Bus rebate program applications were for —and nearly 100% of the first round of funding went to — electric buses.
But old technology habits die hard, and propane bus manufacturers have allied with propane lobbyists to push school districts to consider their internal combustion buses. And they’re using some of the fossil fuel industry’s old bag of tricks to take on their electric rivals.
Unfortunately, the truth is not on their side and propane does not come out on top.
By Ilissa Ocko and Steven Hamburg
Hydrogen emissions from leakage, venting and purging leads to global warming, new research confirms. To take advantage of the potential benefits of switching from fossil fuel systems to hydrogen, we need to keep emissions at a minimum, and doing so will depend on the development of new instruments that can detect even small leaks, allowing us to minimize them in the future.
A new paper published this summer in the journal Communications Earth and Environment uses five different climate models that show consistent results on hydrogen’s global warming potential at the 20, 100, and 500 year ranges. These results align with other recent studies.
By Ari Pottens and Maureen Lackner
New research confirms that cutting methane emissions from the oil and gas sector is one of the fastest and most affordable steps Canada can take to help address the climate crisis. According to the report by Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors, Canada’s upstream oil and gas companies can eliminate 75% of their methane emissions at an average cost of about $11 per tonne.
This is one of the biggest bargains that exists when it comes to climate solutions. For example, were oil and gas companies subject to Canada’s entire carbon price, they would need to pay $65 per tonne of carbon pollution they create. By 2030, this figure will rise to $170 per tonne. Meanwhile, technologies that can directly capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere are estimated to cost between $125 and $335 USD per tonne, an astronomical figure compared to methane abatement. Read More
By John Rutecki
Earlier this summer, EDF, Boston University School of Public Health, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Institute for the Environment and PSE Healthy Energy published a peer-reviewed study that quantified the health impacts of oil and gas pollution, both in dollar value and human lives. The study found that in 2016 alone, pollution from oil and gas production caused $77 billion in health damages across the U.S and thousands of early deaths. Appalachian states had some of the highest health damage rates, especially on a per capita basis. Across Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia there were over 1,000 deaths from oil and gas pollution, with some of the highest rates of childhood asthma exacerbations in the country.