Energy Exchange

Satellites become valuable new tool for governments, industry to cut emissions

By Mark Brownstein / Published: February 5, 2019

For years, people used satellites to observe the Earth’s climate. Now, orbital sensing offers a crucial new way to protect it, by giving us new abilities to identify, measure, and ultimately verify cuts in emissions of methane – a highly potent greenhouse gas.

Two new pieces of research led by EDF scientists demonstrate the growing potential of space-based monitoring tools, and offer a preview of things to come when EDF launches its own dedicated methane satellite in 2021.

Offshore Flaring in Mexico

First is a paper published this week in Geophysical Research Letters, explaining how researchers used space-based readings to calculate the enormous volume of natural gas being burned off (or “flared”) by oil and gas platforms in the Southern Gulf of Mexico. From 2005 and 2017, data from NASA’s Aura satellite show that operators flared as much as 710 billion cubic feet of gas per year.

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Posted in Methane, Texas / Tagged | Comments are closed

Oilfield digitization advancing solutions to meet an environmental challenge

By Mark Brownstein / Published: June 22, 2018

Two global trends are converging in the energy industry, and the result could spur the biggest environmental advancement in a generation.

Known by some as the “digitization of the oilfield,” it’s the new wave of technologies linked with big data that is transforming an established industry. For the world’s oil and gas industry, this push toward digitization is emerging as a central part of strategic planning, as the energy landscape is reshaped by increasing competition from renewables and electrification. But competitiveness means more than bringing new efficiencies online, it also means improving environmental performance.

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Posted in Fourth Wave, General, Methane, Natural Gas / Comments are closed

Whether you love or hate natural gas, stopping methane emissions now is crucial

By Mark Brownstein / Published: November 16, 2017

The International Energy Agency’s new 2017 World Energy Outlook contains the agency’s strongest language yet about the urgent need to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, and the huge opportunities that exist to do so.

Some have taken issue with IEA projections on the overall role of natural gas, suggesting they are beyond what is environmentally sustainable. Others think IEA is underestimating growth potential. Whatever you believe the trajectory for gas is — or should be — the benefits of reducing methane emissions are both enormous and irrefutable.

The good news: IEA estimates the industry can reduce their worldwide emissions by 75 percent – and that up to two thirds of those reductions can be realized at zero net cost. “These emissions are not the only anthropogenic emissions of methane,” says the report, “but they are likely to be among the cheapest to abate.” Read More »

Posted in General, Methane, Natural Gas / Tagged | Comments are closed

Large gas buyers set environmental performance indicators for how gas is produced

By Mark Brownstein / Published: October 31, 2017

Co-authored by Beth Trask

Utilities who deliver gas to homes and businesses, and/or generate electricity from gas, are important stakeholders along the natural gas supply chain. They are the face of natural gas to their customers; and, thus, they need to know that the gas they sell is being produced in the most responsible and transparent way possible—one in which the impacts to the air, water, and communities are minimized.

This week, some of the nation’s largest gas buyers joined forces in a new voluntary coalition, the Natural Gas Supply Collaborative (NGSC). Together, they released a set of 14 performance indicators—spanning air, water, chemicals and community/worker safety—that they’d like to see natural gas companies report on publically on an annual basis.

Developed in consultation with environmental NGOs, including EDF, and with input from a handful of gas company representatives, these indicators are positive step toward a more transparent gas supply chain in which buyers and sellers can have informed dialogue about how gas is being produced.

We encourage more large gas buyers to join the coalition and get involved in this conversation.

Customers are watching Read More »

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Questions in EPA Inspector General letter are narrow, have been asked and answered before

By Mark Brownstein / Published: June 21, 2017

The questions the EPA Inspector General appears to be interested in are ones that have been widely and publicly addressed over the past three years, including in peer-reviewed scientific literature. For reference, see our blog posts from here (December 9, 2016), here (June 9, 2016), and here (March 9, 2015).

The most important thing to understand is that there is an extensive body of scientific research, including substantial research produced just over the last four years documenting the significant problem of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, of which the two studies cited in the IG letter are just a small part. Together, this body of research presents a clear and compelling picture of the magnitude of the methane emissions problem in the U.S. and the urgent need for action to address it.

For example, EDF has helped coordinate 16 different research projects looking at emissions from on the ground and in the air. So far 33 peer-reviewed papers have been published on those projects. More than 35 different research institutions and over 120 individual co-authors have been involved in the work published to date. Read More »

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Fayetteville flyover study sheds valuable light on the role of regional episodic emissions

By Mark Brownstein / Published: June 14, 2017

Five years ago, EDF initiated a series of 16 peer-reviewed scientific studies involving over 100 research and industry experts in order to better quantify the methane emissions coming from the U.S. oil and gas industry and to better understand where and how to focus efforts to reduce them. Since then, over 30 peer-reviewed papers have been published across a number of scientific journals, with the data indicating that emissions from the industry are generally higher than official U.S. estimates.

However, quantifying methane wasn’t our only goal. We also sought to catalyze a community of researchers — both inside and outside academia — to continue this work, because there is still much more we can learn about how to effectively reduce this powerful climate pollutant.  So I was pleased to see the publication of a new independent study that evaluates methane emissions from natural gas infrastructure in the Fayetteville Shale region of Arkansas. Read More »

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