Energy Exchange

Getting a Better Handle on Lost and Unaccounted for Gas

By Simi George / Published: August 4, 2016

480px-Gas_meter Natural gas is a major source of electricity in the United States. Roughly one-third of the 33 trillion cubic feet of gas produced each year is used to power our homes and businesses. And it’s the gas delivery and transmission industry that ensures these services are delivered nationwide.

Most of us don’t think about this industry often, or the gas for that matter, unless it’s unavailable when we need it, or it costs more than usual. But it’s important to pay attention. That’s because not all of the gas flowing through our pipelines actually reaches its intended destination – a problem that is further complicated by a poorly defined and complex method for tracking this paid-for but unused gas.

An indicator of gas system efficiency, accounting for lost gas (known by insiders as “lost and unaccounted for gas”, “unaccounted for gas”, LAUF or its many other acronyms) is how distribution companies manage the overall flow and supply of gas through their systems. Essentially, it is a ratemaking tool for calculating the difference between the volume of gas purchased by operators and the volume of gas delivered to customers that includes leakage, venting, theft, meter errors, temperature and pressure changes and other factors. Read More »

Posted in Natural Gas / Read 1 Response

STUDY: A Closer Look at Urban Methane Pollution

By Steven Hamburg / Published: August 4, 2016

7174642172_60f5ed16e8_k The United States produces approximately 33 trillion cubic feet of natural gas each year. A majority of this gas is converted to electricity at power plants or used for industrial purposes, but about one third ends up making the journey from the well head, through underground pipelines, and into our homes and businesses. How much of this gas gets lost along the way—whether it’s through leaky equipment or other factors—is important because of the damaging climate impacts of methane pollution. And a new study published this week in Environmental Science and Technology is helping to expand our understanding of methane emissions in urban environments.

The study—a multi-year collaboration led by Washington State University and included researchers from Aerodyne, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, GHD, Purdue and Pennsylvania State universities—used a variety of techniques to measure the rate at which methane is lost to the atmosphere in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Posted in Climate, Methane, Natural Gas / Tagged methane studies, science | Comments are closed

Hot Topics at the Summer’s Biggest Electricity Meeting

By Diane Munns / Published: August 4, 2016

NARUCMeeting More than 1,000 people gathered in Nashville, TN this week for the summer meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC). The meeting is one of three yearly where thought leaders gather to socialize the knottiest issues of the day in regulated utility industries, including telecommunications, electricity, natural gas, and water. Two electricity debates dominated the stage and the halls during this summer’s meeting: nuclear power and rate design.

NARUC meeting participants represent state public utility commissioners and their staffs, federal energy agencies, regulated industries, and special interest groups. The meetings are a place to define issues, float solutions, and begin to understand and narrow disagreements.

Nuclear power and rate design were hot topics at this summer’s meeting because of cracks in the present electricity system created by new technologies and environmental regulation.

Posted in Electricity Pricing, Utility Business Models / Comments are closed

Going for the Green: Rio Olympics Show Link between Environment, Economy, Health

By Kate Zerrenner / Published: August 3, 2016

OlympicHand Olympic Games are historically about gold, silver, and bronze – not green. Even the “greenest” Olympics, held in London in 2012, used nearly 400 temporary generators, which release harmful pollution, including carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides among many others. Nevertheless, when Brazil won its bid in 2009 to host the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the country pledged to host the “Green Games for a Blue Planet,” a festival with sustainability at its core.

Brazil, nearly as large as the U.S. and holding 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest, currently uses renewable energy to make about 85 percent of its electricity (compare that to the U.S., where only 13 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources). With renewable energy success like that, who better to host the “Green Games?”

Yet, despite Brazil’s ambitious goals, years of planning, and an advantage in existing renewable energy resources, Brazil is falling short of its goal for a cleaner, greener Olympics. This is because serious social, political, environmental, and health challenges tangent to the Olympics have constrained the nation’s ability to realize the sustainability goals Brazil thought achievable in 2009.

Posted in Energy-Water Nexus, Texas / Comments are closed

10 Reasons Why We Love Community Solar

By Jorge Madrid / Published: August 2, 2016

Carlos Mandeville co-authored this post.

This year is set to be another record-breaker for solar power: the industry is on pace to nearly double in size by the end of 2016, and there are now more than one million solar installations in the U.S. that generated more new electricity in the first quarter of the year than coal, natural gas, and nuclear combined. This is good news, in part because 2016 is also on track to be the hottest year in recorded history – awash in scorching hot solar rays we can tap for clean, renewable energy.

Unfortunately, solar power is still inaccessible to vast, unreached markets and segments of the U.S. population. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory says only 22 to 27 percent of residential rooftops are capable of hosting a solar system because of structural challenges, tree shading, or “ownership issues” – mainly households who rent, and cannot install solar panels on roofs they don’t own. Likewise, U.S. households who earn less than $40,000 per year (40 percent of the U.S. population) account for less than five percent of all solar installations.

But the solar game is changing. New models are emerging to complement and fill gaps in the market.

Posted in Energy Equity, Solar Energy / Comments are closed

Face the Facts: BLM Methane Rules Needed, Have Wide Bipartisan Support

By Jon Goldstein / Published: August 1, 2016

It’s unfortunate that a partisan group of Congressional representatives recently tried to turn back the clock on new rules from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management that can protect taxpayers and local communities from the needless waste of our natural gas resources and methane pollution.

It was a disappointing move, considering that a bipartisan group of elected officials came together to defend the BLM’s natural gas waste rule during a budget fight on the House floor in July.

Some members of Congress are really good at expressing their opinions. However, in this case the facts clearly show that efforts to cut waste and protect our air are necessary and warranted.

Fact: Despite some creative data cherry-picking to spin a different story, the data is clear that methane emissions from oil and gas operations have grown significantly in the past decade (up 8% since 2005). Read More »

Posted in BLM Methane, Methane, Natural Gas / Comments are closed