Energy Exchange

Selected tag(s): Gas storage

New report offers insights to improve environmental integrity and safety of underground gas storage facilities

By EDF Blogs / Published: May 15, 2020

For more than a century, the United States has been storing vast amounts of natural gas in large, underground storage facilities. Underground gas storage is an essential tool for providing reliable natural gas supply, but these facilities must be rigorously designed, maintained and managed to minimize potential failures that can significantly impact our health and environment. This was made abundantly clear in 2015 when a failure at an underground gas storage facility in Southern California sent massive amounts of methane and other toxic chemicals into the air for months on end, resulting in the largest gas leak in modern history.

U.S. UGS regulatory programs and practices continue to improve, drawing on recent lessons learned, and that has important implications for other countries looking to develop and enhance their own gas storage programs.

Posted in Methane, Natural Gas / Also tagged China | Comments are closed

How oil & gas states did (and did not) protect land and water in 2018

By EDF Blogs / Published: January 10, 2019

By Adam Peltz & Nichole Saunders

Keeping an eye on what happens with domestic oil and gas regulation is a bit like herding cats. We’ve seen encouraging progress on air quality issues related to oil and gas, but an equally critical front that’s seen major action is protection of our land and water resources.

More than 30 states actively regulate oil and gas development but their practices and rules vary significantly. Add the recent attention around industry’s impact on local communities – from earthquakes and the risk of spills to increased traffic and local air pollution – and it’s easy to miss the big trends that dominated regulatory agendas in 2018.

EDF devotes a significant amount of time tracking this activity, and 2018 was a busy year. Over a dozen states completed rule updates and other types of improvements this year on a variety of topics.

Here are the big things we saw in 2018.

Posted in Aliso Canyon, California, Colorado, Methane, Natural Gas, New York, Ohio, produced water, State, Texas, Wyoming / Also tagged New Mexico, Pennsylvania, produced water, Water, well integrity | Comments are closed

California sets new standards for natural gas storage sites

By Adam Peltz / Published: July 11, 2018

Data visualization shows the methane plume from the Aliso Canyon gas leak in red.

Three years ago, a blowout at the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility forced thousands of nearby families to evacuate their homes and leaked over 100,000 tons of methane and other harmful pollutants into the atmosphere. The facility’s operator, Southern California Gas, wasn’t prepared for the scope or scale of the disaster that unfolded over four months.

The disaster demonstrated the risks of under-regulated natural gas storage sites, as well as the importance of not being over-reliant on natural gas. Regulators in California and across the country realized the need for better oversight and management.

As a result, California’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) recently finalized new rules for managing the risky, industrial enterprise of underground gas storage. These rules are a foray into an underdeveloped policy space, and are the product of collaboration with stakeholders including national laboratories, the environmental community, and the federal government.

Posted in Aliso Canyon, California, General, Methane, Natural Gas / Tagged Gas storage | Comments are closed

Looking to the States to Improve Natural Gas Storage Policies

By Adam Peltz / Published: February 21, 2017

Stories about gas storage rarely make headlines, but the fact is there are hundreds of underground natural gas storage facilities peppered across the country, and when something goes wrong, the impacts can be devastating. For example, in 2015 a leak at the Aliso Canyon storage facility in Southern California ended up displacing thousands from their homes and was considered one of the biggest environmental disasters in modern U.S. history.

Historically, state agencies have been responsible for regulating these facilities – resulting in a patchwork of protections. But after Aliso Canyon, the federal government stepped in to provide uniform safety standards applicable across the country. Read More »

Posted in General / Tagged Gas storage | Comments are closed

Smart Policies to Stop Disastrous Natural Gas Leaks

By Adam Peltz / Published: August 29, 2016

Infrared footage reveals massive methane emissions from a gas storage facility in California’s Aliso Canyon

Last fall, a massive leak from a natural gas storage facility in California’s Aliso Canyon released nearly 100,000 tons of methane pollution into the atmosphere — the largest uncombusted release of this potent greenhouse gas in U.S. history, and seen by many as the industry’s worst environmental disaster since the BP oil spill.

Facilities like Aliso Canyon inject gas pumped in from elsewhere and withdraw it when needed for electric production or heating. Aliso Canyon is the largest field of its kind west of the Mississippi River. There are around 400 such facilities across the U.S., about 14 in California. Until recently, regulatory oversight of these facilities has been uneven at best.

The exact cause of the Aliso Canyon incident is still being investigated, but all signs point to a problem in the aging, corroded casing of one of over a hundred individual wells at the sprawling site. Neither the utility’s maintenance programs nor the state’s lax enforcement of 1980s-era policies were sufficient to prevent this disaster. But now that’s about to change. Read More »

Posted in Aliso Canyon, California, Climate, Methane, Natural Gas / Also tagged PHMSA | Comments are closed