Energy Exchange

In California, Electric Vehicles are the New DeLorean in ‘Back to the Future’

CARRAs any child of the ’80s knows, October 21, 2015 is “Back to the Future Day” – the day that the film’s protagonist, Marty McFly, travels to the future in his DeLorean. Though it would no doubt be useful to have access to flying cars (think of the traffic one could avoid), Californians are seeing increased access to something more practical: electric vehicles (EVs).

In order to meet the state’s greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goals, emissions from transportation – the sector most responsible for harmful pollution – need to be addressed. Enter Governor Brown’s zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate, which aims to build enough infrastructure statewide to support one million clean vehicles by 2020, and put 1.5 million ZEVs on the road by 2025. With this executive order, we have a much better chance of ensuring a low-carbon future and effectively combatting climate change in California. Read More »

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Infrared Camera Reveals Huge, Wafting Cloud of Methane over California’s Aliso Canyon

Methane pollution from the oil and gas industry is a serious problem for our climate and communities, but it’s one most people aren’t even aware of. That’s because, while methane is a powerful pollutant, it is colorless, odorless and invisible to the naked eye.

But residents of Southern California’s Porter Ranch neighborhood had their eyes opened wide to the methane problem when a natural gas storage well in nearby Aliso Canyon ruptured and created a massive leak right next to their homes – an incident detected by residents in October from the putrid smell of mercaptan, an additive utilities use to more easily detect natural gas leaks.

Natural gas is made mostly of methane, and when it is released unburned, it has a warming power over 84 times that of carbon dioxide over 20 years. So, leaking or intentionally emitting unburned natural gas – which happens not just through malfunctions but often during routine production and transportation of oil and gas – can do major climate damage. The California Air Resources Board estimates that Aliso Canyon is pumping out methane at about 50,000 kg per hour, or about 62 million standard cubic feet, per day – that’s the same 20-year greenhouse gas impact as the daily emissions from 7 million cars.

Now, on day 48 in a very uncertain timeline of the one of the largest U.S. natural gas leaks ever recorded, infrared cameras are giving us a true glimpse at the size of this man-made methane volcano. Looking at side-by-side images of Aliso Canyon taken on Dec. 9 using an everyday camera and one equipped with infrared technology reveals just how blind we are to this kind of pollution:

Aliso canyon 2 Read More »

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Caution: Future Market Need for Natural Gas Pipelines is Smaller than You Think

alaska-67304_1920Like a racer facing a caution flag warning of hazards ahead, America’s natural gas pipeline developers are seeing signs that their business plans aren’t tracking with the future. Mistakes in this race carry price tags in the billions, and could leave ratepayers (in other words, the public) footing the bill for decades to come.

Two recent developments in particular – a report from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office and a rate case at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) – show that the economics for new natural gas pipeline capacity to supply power plants are not as compelling or sustainable as the conventional wisdom would have you believe.

Together, the AG report and the FERC case provide a strong counterpoint to those now rushing to create excessive new pipeline capacity.  They suggest that many pipelines will lose customers and money as lower cost alternatives outcompete them, and long before investor expectations are met and their financing is paid off. The question is whether policymakers and pipeline developers will slow down and consider the dangers, or continue to plow ahead. Read More »

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The World Has A Methane Problem – But We Can Solve It

As I write this, a massive methane leak from a ruptured natural gas storage facility in California is causing, every day, as much climate damage over the next 20 years as seven million cars on the road.

And as the climate talks here in Paris continued over the weekend, The Washington Post noted an increased focus on short-lived climate pollutants such as methane. This focus is an absolute necessity: If we want to solve climate change, we have no choice but to tackle methane emissions.

According to data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, methane pollution is responsible for 25 percent of the warming our planet is experiencing today. It has this incredible impact because it’s 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over the short term.

The largest industrial source of methane emissions is the oil and gas industry, and their environmental impact is staggering: A short-term climate impact equivalent to 40 percent of global coal combustion. That’s a lot of potential benefit to the climate, if we can make significant reductions.

That math is why the danger of unchecked methane pollution also offers us such an opportunity. Read More »

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New Study Finds Oil & Gas Methane Emissions in the Barnett Shale Almost Twice What Official Estimates Suggest

BarnettSynthesisKeyFindings2A new scientific study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, coordinated by EDF, reports findings from the most comprehensive examination of regional methane emissions completed to date. Focused on Texas’ Barnett Shale – one of the nation’s major oil-and-gas-producing regions – the study uses a new, more accurate way to determine the total amount of methane escaping into the atmosphere from the region’s oil and gas production, processing and transportation.

The result is that methane emissions in the Barnett Shale are 90 percent higher than EPA’s inventory data would suggest.

This is just one of several recent studies showing a pattern of underestimating methane emissions in locations across the country. One big reason is that conventional inventories typically fail to accurately account for very large, unpredictable emissions from leaks, malfunctions or other problems. In the Barnett study, these were the source of a large share of total emissions.

Why Methane Matters

The higher emissions rate and the agreement among measurement methods represent an important step forward in our understanding of what it will take to mitigate those emissions. Methane is the main ingredient in natural gas, and a highly potent greenhouse gas, with over 80 times the 20-year warming power of carbon dioxide.

When methane leaks, the climate impact of using natural gas increases. In the case of Barnett Shale gas, based on emissions identified in the study, the climate impact is 50 percent higher over 20 years as compared to the use of natural gas in the absence of any emissions. Read More »

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Recycling Wastewater from Oil and Gas Wells Poses Challenges

15636034581_6f13aaccfc_zEach year, the oil and gas industry produces more than 800 billion gallons of wastewater. Coupling the massive volumes of wastewater generated over the life of the well and the millions of gallons of water needed to hydraulically fracture each well, it’s easy to see that oil and gas exploration and production is just as much a water issue as it is an energy issue.

With growing frequency, this huge volume of oil and gas wastewater – which contains hundreds of chemicals resulting from operations as well as underground water that is usually heavily laden with salt and naturally-occurring pollutants – is being recycled, and some groups are pushing for mandatory recycling policies. Sounds great. After all, recycling is good for the environment, right? Read More »

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