Energy Exchange

As SoCal Braces for Aliso Canyon-Related Blackouts, These Energy Programs Can Help

By EDF Blogs / Published: June 14, 2016

By Jayant Kairam and Timothy O’Connor.

Adding insult to injury, Californians learned this spring that the disastrous four-month methane leak at the sprawling Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility could result in a new problem: outages.

The failure at Southern California Gas Company’s massive storage site exposed a critical weakness in the state’s energy system. Densely populated Southern California is over-dependent on natural gas from a single provider.

As a result, a vast area stretching from San Diego in the south to Los Angeles and San Bernardino County in the east may face power and gas shortages during the hot summer and cold winter months, a recent report by a group of state regulatory agencies warned. Read More »

Also posted in California, Demand Response, Electricity Pricing, Energy Efficiency, Gas to Clean, Grid Modernization, Natural Gas / Tagged Energy Storage | Comments are closed

Mexico Methane Reductions: An Opportunity For North American Leadership

By Drew Nelson / Published: June 13, 2016

In partnership with Mexico’s Mario Molina Center and Canada’s Pembina Institute, EDF released a policy brief in Mexico City this week that illustrates that national action in the United States, Canada and Mexico could cheaply and quickly eliminate 232 billion cubic feet of methane from the North American oil and gas industry.

Titled “North American Climate Leadership: A road map for global action,” the brief synthesizes analyses included in ICF’s North American report and its research conducted in the U.S. (2014), Canada (2015) and Mexico (2015). All of ICF’s analyses found that reducing methane from the oil and gas supply chain is cost-effective and environmentally beneficial. Even at today’s historically low gas prices, the cost of capturing methane would add just one penny to the current price of gas, based on the cost of solutions and the ability to sell the recovered gas. Read More »

Also posted in General, Natural Gas / Comments are closed

Industry Study Applies Own Numbers to EDF Study, Strengthens Our Case for Regulation

By Mark Brownstein / Published: June 3, 2016

The natural gas industry group Our Nation’s Energy (ONE) Future Coalition released a paper yesterday applying their own set of assumptions to an earlier analysis commissioned by EDF, which had shown that oil and gas methane emissions can be dramatically reduced for about a penny per thousand cubic feet of gas sold. Both analyses were carried out by ICF International.

We always welcome new points of view, but it’s important to note the new calculations change key variables in ways that boost the cost of reducing methane emissions while significantly understating benefits of these reductions. An even bigger problem comes when others in the industry public relations machine start to mischaracterize the study.

Despite these changes, the results still end up making what we think is a strong case for sensible regulatory standards to make sure that best practices become the standard practice industry-wide in order to reduce the oil and gas industry’s nearly 10 million metric tons of yearly methane emissions.

Even Slanted Figures Underscore Need for Rules Read More »

Also posted in BLM Methane, Natural Gas / Read 1 Response

3 Key Energy Policies that Can Help Us Turn the Corner on Climate

By Diane Regas / Published: June 1, 2016

We know we need massive decreases in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 if 177 countries are to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement.

But before emissions go on a steep decline, we need to turn the corner. At Environmental Defense Fund, we have analyzed what it would take to turn the corner by 2020, and zeroed in on a few key actions that will halt the rise in global emissions and make them start to go down. For good.

Christiana Figueres, the United Nations official who led the Paris climate talks, rightly talks about technology, finance and policy – technologies to store and distribute energy, financing to scale the technology we have, and policies to reward innovators who deliver results. Read More »

Also posted in Clean Power Plan, Climate, Electricity Pricing, Grid Modernization / Read 1 Response

Five Nordic Countries Agree to “Drive Down” Oil and Gas Methane Pollution Alongside the U.S.

By Drew Nelson / Published: May 20, 2016

Last week’s White House announcement marked an important step in the march toward global climate action. The U.S.-Nordic Leader Summit Joint Statement, issued by the United States, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, underscored the need for a broad climate strategy, one that prioritizes reductions in both long- and short-lived climate pollutants across key industry sectors.

In addition to addressing renewable energy, HCFs, international aviation emissions and deforestation, the statement included a commitment for each country to develop a national plan to reduce emissions of methane, a powerful short-lived greenhouse gas. This is critical, given a wave of scientific data that highlights the need to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas supply chain. The agreement is another sign that methane is starting to get the international attention it deserves, as reducing oil and gas methane is one of the most impactful and cost-effective actions we can take to slow the current rate of warming. Read More »

Also posted in General, Natural Gas / Tagged global methane | Read 2 Responses

Regulation as a Platform for Innovation

By Aileen Nowlan / Published: May 20, 2016

To get anything accomplished, you can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. One unsung story buried in last week’s release of EPA’s new source methane rules may make good options even better – driving innovation and offering industry more options to meet the methane challenge.

The new rules target a pervasive problem: methane – the primary component of natural gas – leaking throughout the oil and gas value chain. Methane emissions represent a waste of saleable resources, a reputational risk, and a contributor to both poor local air quality and climate change.

Under the EPA’s framework, oil and gas operators must take steps to minimize emissions from new and modified sources – from finding and fixing equipment leaks to swapping out equipment to reduce methane vented from pneumatic controllers and pumps,. Companies in Colorado working to comply with the state’s similar rule have reported that putting similar measures in place are cost-effective, even generating positive returns from selling the captured gas.

But what should an agency do when the solutions available now are reasonable but not perfect? Existing strategies don’t monitor all the time—only a few days a year. So leaks and malfunctions can be missed, or leak for months before they are fixed. Read More »

Also posted in Natural Gas / Comments are closed