Energy Exchange

Measuring Fugitive Methane Emissions

By Steven Hamburg / Published: January 4, 2013

In recent days, news reports and blog posts have highlighted the problem of fugitive methane emissions from natural gas production — leakage of a potent greenhouse gas with the potential to undermine the carbon advantage that natural gas, when combusted, holds over other fossil fuels. These news accounts, based on important studies in the Denver-Julesburg Basin of Colorado and the Uinta Basin of Utah by scientists affiliated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Colorado (UC) at Boulder, have reported troubling leakage rates of 4% and 9% of total production, respectively —higher than the current Environment Protection Agency (EPA) leakage estimate of 2.3%.

While the Colorado and Utah studies offer valuable snapshots of a specific place on a specific day, neither is a systematic measurement across geographies and extended time periods  and that is what’s necessary to accurately scope the dimensions of the fugitive methane problem. For this reason, conclusions should not be drawn about total leakage based on these preliminary, localized reports. Drawing conclusions from such results would be like trying to draw an elephant after touching two small sections of the animal’s skin: the picture is unlikely to be accurate. In the coming months, ongoing work by the NOAA/UC team, as well as by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and other academic and industry partners, will provide a far more systematic view that will greatly increase our understanding of the fugitive methane issue, though additional studies will still be needed to fully resolve the picture. What follows is a briefing on the fugitive methane issue, including the range of measurements currently underway and the need for rigorous data collection along the entire natural gas supply chain.

Why methane leakage matters. Natural gas, which is mostly methane, burns with fewer carbon dioxide emissions than other fossil fuels. However, when uncombusted methane leaks into the atmosphere from wells, pipelines and storage facilities, it acts as a powerful greenhouse gas with enormous implications for global climate change due to its short-term potency: Over a 20-year time frame, each pound of methane is 72 times more powerful at increasing the retention of heat in the atmosphere than a pound of carbon dioxide. Based on EPA’s projections, if we could drastically reduce global emissions of short-term climate forcers such as methane and fluorinated gases over the next 20 years, we could slow the increase in net radiative forcing (heating of the atmosphere) by one third or more.

Fugitive methane emissions from natural gas production, transportation and distribution are the single largest U.S. source of short-term climate forcing gases. The EPA estimates that 2.3% of total natural gas production is lost to leakage, but this estimate, based on early 1990’s data, is sorely in need of updating. The industry claims a leakage rate of about 1.6%. Cornell University professor Robert Howarth has estimated that total fugitive emissions of 3.6 to 7.9% over the lifetime of a well.

To determine the true parameters of the problem, EDF is working with diverse academic partners including the University of Texas at Austin, the NOAA/UC scientists and dozens of industry partners on direct measurements of fugitive emissions from the U.S. natural gas supply chain. The initiative is comprised of a series of more than ten studies that will analyze emissions from the production, gathering, processing, long-distance transmission and local distribution of natural gas, and will gather data on the use of natural gas in the transportation sector. In addition to analyzing industry data, the participants are collecting field measurements at facilities across the country. The researchers leading these studies expect to submit the first of these studies for publication in February 2013, with the others to be submitted over the course of the year. Read More »

Also posted in Methane / Tagged , , | Read 4 Responses

“Promised Land”: A Love Letter To Longmont

By Mark Brownstein / Published: December 27, 2012

Source: The Daily Digger

Promised Land is not a movie about “fracking.” You will be sorely disappointed if you go to the theatre expecting to see lurid visuals of sinister-looking waste water ponds, plumes of diesel soot and road dust, or bucolic landscapes scarred by roads and pipes. You will see none of that.

Promised Land is a movie about what happens before the drilling rigs and man camps rumble into town. It is the story of a rural community, proud but poor, struggling to reconcile itself with an enormous economic opportunity that comes at an enormous cost.

And, despite what you may have read in the blogosphere, it is not reflexively anti-natural gas. The movie actually does a fairly decent job of presenting all sides of the shale gas development debate. I was intrigued to read a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article from this past June where John Krasinski, a star in the film and co-author of the screenplay, revealed that he originally conceived the story as a community facing major wind farm development. Krasinski made the switch because natural gas development is more topical, and more visceral, than wind development.  His primary point in making the film was to explore what happens when money and power come to a rural community that has neither.

I suspect the reason why the natural gas industry is so on edge about this movie is because the plot device which propels the story forward is a community referendum on whether development will be allowed within its borders. This is exactly the situation the industry faces in Longmont, Colorado, and to the same or similar degree in many other communities around the country.

The central question the movie poses is whether any amount of potential future prosperity is worth sacrificing a pastoral way of life that has defined a community for generations. Worry over polluted water is part of what fuels the townspeople’s anxiety over what to do, but it is far from their only concern.

Does a community have the right to regulate or prohibit industrial development in its borders?  It’s a tricky legal question currently playing out in Colorado and elsewhere around the country, and there is no simple answer.

One thing is certain: the natural gas industry must be forthcoming and honest about the risks that unconventional oil and gas development create, proactive in taking the steps necessary to minimize those risks, and willing to collect and publicly disclose the data necessary to enable communities to evaluate for themselves whether their health and environment are being fully protected. Many people distrust whether industry can develop shale gas safely, and it’s understandable why they are concerned – especially given recent media reports about industry hiding many of the chemicals they use behind questionable “trade secret” claims.  It appears that even the most basic steps toward greater transparency are grudging and incomplete.

In Promised Land, citizens are repeatedly lied to with predictable results. In real life, the natural gas industry has the ability to write a different story through the actions it takes to address community concerns, measure performance and disclose results. That’s a story I want to see.

Posted in Natural Gas / Tagged , | Read 4 Responses

A Red Flag On Disclosure Of Hydraulic Fracturing Chemicals

By Scott Anderson / Published: December 12, 2012

It’s not often that a new regulatory idea becomes so popular that one or more states per month climb on the bandwagon. But that is precisely what has happened with the push to disclose which chemicals are pumped into the ground to stimulate oil and natural gas production during the process known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”

A year ago, only three states (Arkansas, Montana and Wyoming) required oil and gas producers to tell the public what chemicals they were using. Two other states (Colorado and Texas) were actively developing such rules. Today, just twelve months later, statutes or regulations mandating “frack” chemical disclosure are on the books in no fewer than 18 states, and proposals are pending or under consideration in several others.

FracFocus, an online registry that compiles information on hydraulic fracturing chemicals both for states where disclosure is voluntary and required, has been up and running for just 20 months, but already it houses approximately 800,000 records that include ingredients data. As of December 5, 2012, this data represented 33,606 wells. The amount of information on the site continues to grow rapidly.

It is impressive that so much information has been made available in such a short time. Still, people have begun to wonder whether the disclosure rules are accomplishing what was intended. The question is important because rules that aren’t working need to be changed. A good regulatory system is based on a process of continual improvement, not a naive idea that the rulebook can be written in a way that will never need changing.

Unfortunately, judging from early press reports, there are quite a few bugs in the system. To be fair, the reporting requirements are quite new and still being implemented — and analysis of the data has barely begun. But  problems are emerging. The issue receiving the most media attention is the sheer number of trade secret claims. Read More »

Also posted in General, Texas / Read 5 Responses

More To Come On Methane…

By Steven Hamburg / 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, Methane / Read 1 Response

Loose Use Of Facts Undermines Credibility Of White’s OpEd

By Jim Marston / Published: November 7, 2012

This commentary was originally posted on the EDF Texas Clean Air Matters Blog.

An erroneous and misleading opinion piece by Kathleen Hartnett White with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, ran in Sunday’s The Austin American-Statesman. In the article, White misrepresents several important details from a 4-year old EDF report that was prepared by Dr. Al Armendariz, a former Regional Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. The report catalogued emissions from oil and gas production in the Barnett Shale area. Her purported facts about the study findings are just plain wrong.

First, she claims that the report concluded that ozone precursor emissions from Barnett Shale production are twice as large as all mobile source emissions in the area. In fact, the report concluded that peak Barnett Shale emissions, while significant, were roughly comparable to emissions from cars and trucks (see press release accompanying the report).

White then claims that Dr. Armendariz’s study considered methane to be an ozone precursor, contrary to what is clearly stated in the report at p. 8. While it is true that methane does form ozone, albeit slowly, the report states “[m]ethane and ethane are specifically excluded from the definition of VOC” (volatile organic compounds). Thus, the report excluded methane from the comparison to mobile emissions of ozone precursors.

It is unclear if the author even read Dr. Armendariz’s work, which was not computer modeling, as she claims. Rather, it was an emissions “inventory,” a catalog of the air pollutant emissions from oil/gas sources in the Barnett Shale area, constructed using established engineering practices and industry-backed data sources. The core pieces of information for the inventory were oil/gas production data that are available for every county in Texas from databases at the Texas Railroad Commission. Dr. Armendariz’s resulting emissions estimates were in reasonable agreement with estimates issued by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality later in 2009 (10-20% difference).

You can’t make a strong case when you get facts wrong. And, it is irresponsible for White to make her case by manipulating science, while cynically blaming government bodies of committing the same sin.

It’s time we all get the facts right and use science to expose truths, not veil our own agenda. For our part, EDF is working with leading academic researchers and industry leaders to conduct scientifically rigorous measurements of emissions from natural gas production. Leaks that occur during production (as well as distribution and use) stand to significantly undermine the potential of natural gas as a lower carbon energy source.

Also posted in Methane, Texas / Comments are closed

EDF Pushes Colorado For Full Adoption, Stronger Enforcement Of EPA Oil And Gas Rules

By Dan Grossman / Published: October 18, 2012

Ten of the nation’s 100 largest natural gas fields are located in Colorado.  Three of the nation’s largest 100 oil fields are located here.  Overall, Colorado is host to over 45,000 oil and gas wells.

And yet, the agency here in Colorado responsible for inspecting oil and gas wells for compliance with air quality regulations employs a mere eight inspectors.  Yes, eight.

If we’re going to do it right in Colorado – developing energy resources in ways that protects communities, public health and the environment – the state is going to have to give agencies the resources they need to oversee industry operations.  No one should be forced to sacrifice clean air and a healthy community, and regulators can’t do their job with one hand tied behind their back.

Oil and gas operations emit a variety of air pollutants, including pollutants that contribute to ground-level ozone or “smog,” toxic air pollutants, including known human carcinogens, and methane, a potent climate-disrupting pollutant.

In April, the Environmental Protection Agency adopted ground-breaking rules to reduce harmful pollution from oil and natural gas production.  The New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) contain critical safeguards for human health and the environment that will help improve air quality in Colorado.

EDF applauded EPA’s adoption of the NSPS standards as an important first step to minimize the environmental impact of oil and gas production.  And now our attention is turning to the states that are deciding whether to adopt and implement the new federal standards as their own or to cede enforcement to the EPA.

Despite Colorado’s past leadership in adopting clean air measures for the oil and gas sector, the state is now foregoing an opportunity to reduce harmful emissions from oil and gas operations through full adoption of the NSPS.  The primary reason for the decision not to fully adopt the federal standards is the lack of state inspection and enforcement resources.

Today, the Air Quality Control Commission (AQCC) indefinitely delayed adoption of the new EPA clean air standards as they apply to certain aspects of gas well operations while additional information is gathered.  Moreover, the Commission voted to adopt standards that apply to other facets of production (e.g., compressing stations) “only to the extent that they already trigger the combination of existing reporting and permitting requirements in Colorado.”

This “partial adoption” approach approved by the AQCC will (1) unduly delay the clean air benefits that the NSPS rules can bring to Colorado and (2) create a confusing and inefficient dual-agency enforcement regime that likely will fail to bring regulatory certainty.

The Colorado Air Pollution Control Division staff has indicated that the partial adoption approach is necessary given the sparse resources available for permitting, inspections and enforcement.  This concern is valid.  Even with new inspectors being brought on board, the Air Quality Control Division will only have eight employees to cover over 45,000 wells, for an astonishing inspector-to-well ratio of 1 to 5,625.  However, punting to the EPA for enforcement is not likely to improve the resource issue given that Region 8 employs fewer than five full-time oil and gas air inspectors for the entire six-state region.

Today, EDF and our allies implored the AQCC to fully adopt the NSPS standards for oil and gas operations and called on the Hickenlooper administration and the legislature to give state agencies the resources they need so they can provide effective oversight of the industry.

Oil and gas activity continues to grow at a breakneck pace in Colorado, and it is imperative that we take quick action to make sure it’s being done right.  Doing it right means not only putting strong standards in place, but also making sure our oversight agencies have the resources they need to ensure communities and our environment are protected.

To read the testimony we and our colleagues filed on this issue, click HERE.

Posted in Natural Gas / Tagged | Read 1 Response