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Page added on April 17, 2014
Is Natural Gas No Better than Coal?
A new study by scientists from Purdue and Cornell suggests that the methane emissions from shale gas could be much higher than previously thought. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at fugitive methane emissions in Pennsylvania by flying an airplane over drilling sites and collecting samples. What they found was a bit unnerving.
“It is particularly noteworthy that large emissions were measured for wells in the drilling phase — in some cases 100 to 1,000 times greater than the inventory estimates,” said Purdue chemistry professor Paul Shepson. “This indicates that there are processes occurring — such as emissions from coal seams during the drilling process — that are not captured in the inventory development process.” The study measured 2 to 14 grams of methane per second per square kilometer over active drilling sites during a two day period. During the fracking process, operators at times drill through coal beds in order to get to gas, and methane can escape as a result. The wells leaking the most amount of methane, according to the study’s results, were in the middle of the drilling phase.
The results are troubling because natural gas has been trumpeted for its supposed emissions benefits when compared to coal. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change notes that hydraulic fracturing has been “an important reason for a reduction in GHG emissions in the United States.” But it then goes on to say that more research is needed to understand the extent to which methane is escaping during the drilling process. The key threshold that scientists agree upon is 3.2% – if less than that amount of methane is being emitted than natural gas maintains its advantage over coal. The problem is that the latest Purdue/Cornell study pegs the fugitive rate at somewhere between 2.3% and 17.3%. Much hinges on the exact rate of methane leakage, but different studies have thus far produced very different results. Clearly, more study is needed, but the evidence at least suggests that there is a possibility that natural gas is no better for the climate than coal.
Not that greenhouse gas emissions are at the forefront of politician’s minds, particularly in Pennsylvania where the Purdue/Cornell study was conducted. Even the Democratic candidates in this year’s gubernatorial election in Pennsylvania are falling over each other to tout their plans to bring fracking riches to the state.
That makes the federal government’s next steps on methane all the more pivotal. The EPA has rules coming into effect in 2015 that will govern new fracking sites. The so-called “green completion” rules will require operators beginning in January 2015 to capture methane that they have until now been flaring during the flowback phase. These rules are already likely leading to lower emissions as companies begin to comply with the rules ahead of next year’s deadline. The White House is considering further action on methane, which would target other places along the supply chain, and has instructed EPA to study the matter. The Obama administration will decide later this year if it wants to pursue tougher regulation.
But the Purdue/Cornell study also suggests that the EPA does not have even the basic data from which to regulate. If methane emissions are escaping at a rate that deviates sharply from what EPA believes, forthcoming rules may not be appropriately calibrated. However, with the White House directing the EPA to study the matter more closely, it is possible that it also comes to the conclusion that methane is leaking into the atmosphere at a higher rate than it previously thought. If that occurs, it would be more likely that the Obama administration decides to take tougher action on methane before the President’s term is up in late 2016.
By Nicholas Cunningham of Oilprice.com
10 Comments on "Is Natural Gas No Better than Coal?"
Makati1 on Thu, 17th Apr 2014 11:17 am
We will regulate ourselves into our own graves. Greed…
meld on Thu, 17th Apr 2014 11:24 am
methane hydrates next!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27021610
I can see it now. “it’s our moral duty to mine these methane hydrates before global warming releases them naturally!” and “we can replace the methane hydrates with co2! at the bottom of the sea it’s immoral NOT to mine these new reserves!” ETC ETC ETC…
The number one signature of human kind is solving problems by creating new and much worse ones. F*cking stupid stupid idiots.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Thu, 17th Apr 2014 11:29 am
I love the fossil fuel industry lobby effort at presenting “Gas” the Clean Energy”. I don’t know about you but it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. You don’t see the clean coal commercials anymore do you. We were supposed to have the transition to carbon capture of coal emissions. What the commercials failed to relate is there were no proven technologies nor the money to do it. Kind of like mining asteroids a technological “Sci-Fi” thriller. This whole gas deal is much the same. Not only do you need to look at the gas drilling losses but you have to look at all drilling losses. You have to look at all distribution losses. It is when you see the totality of the losses then you realize a potent AGW gas is escaping into the atmosphere. So it comes back to the predicament of our complex energy intensive lives. If we want to reduce emissions enough to make a difference then we have to eliminate “ALL” other activity besides agriculture for example. Or in other words we need a 10 fold reduction in population because there is no way to reduce emissions without a corresponding reduction in population. The whole gas issue is irrelevant in any case because of the shear volume of methane escaping into the atmosphere from the warming northern regions. We have set a process in motion that will be unstoppable very soon if not already. So in a sense we may already be doomed. So why all the talk of AGW mitigation efforts if we are already doomed. Maybe we need to look at adaptation efforts now. Kind of like post cancer operations with the cancer remaining. You change the approach.
rockman on Thu, 17th Apr 2014 12:07 pm
Not that NG wells can’t leak…most do to some extent. The question is to what extent. Obviously regardless of environmental concerns there’s a strong monetary incentive for a company to prevent leaks. Consider their max estimate of 17%. A well producing 1,000 mcf per day (a relatively small well) would lose 62,000 mcf during just one year. At current NG prices that is a loss of about $280,000 for just that one year. Assume just a short 5 year life to this well that adds up to about $1.4 million in lost income. And remember: this is a small well. The last well I drilled is producing 7,000 mcfpd. Over 5 years that would represent a loss of almost $10 million. Why would I suffer that level of loss if I could avoid it? I can completely replace every piece of production equipment and pipeline fittings on that well for less than $300,000. But why would I replace all the equipment instead of just finding the leak and fixing it for probably now more than a few $thousand…or a good bit less? All my production hands carry methane detectors and routinely check the system. And again the primary motivation isn’t to protect the environment. It’s monetary: blowing up production facilities (and production foremen) is an expensive proposition. LOL.
And there’s a rather serious flaw in their study: you cannot use airborne detection to ID well leakage. Not that you can’t measure the methane in the air but from thousands of feet above the ground you can’t tell if it’s coming from a well or the ground. But how can NG just be leaking from the ground? Easily…it always does. Wanna guess what equipment they used to measure the methane? I would be willing to bet they used one of the oil patch service companies that have been running such surveys for decades. Yes: this is a very old exploration method employed for a very long time. I’ve used a variety of other methods (including satellite images) to identify NATURAL surface leaks of hydrocarbons. I won’t go into the details of how this almost always happens above an oil/NG field. But if you want to check it out go search “hydrocarbon chimney effect”. You’ll find ads like that Sky Hunter, a Canadian service company advertising their “Airborne Hydrocarbon Sensing System”. And you find lengthy tech articles on the subject.
So you can imagine how shocked I was to hear that they found airborne indications of hydrocarbons above oil/NG fields. LOL. Actually I would have been suspicious if they had not. So now ask yourself an important question: if they wanted to find out if some wells were leaking NG why didn’t they just buy a methane detector for a $1,000 and go directly to the production facility and check instead of spending probably hundreds of $thousands on airborne surveys? And don’t try to argue that they don’t have access: every state and federal oil/NG regulatory agency has complete access to every production site WITHOUT WARRANT OR CAUSE. And they can also grant access to anyone they wish.
So if the folks running these surveys know anything at all about oil/NG production you would imagine they also understand the potential for natural seepage of hydrocarbons above a reservoir and how that has to be eliminated from the analysis. So do you consider these folks to be incompetent in which case you might not trust any results they publish? Or, if you have a conspiratorial slant, do you think they knew the potential for false positive due to natural leakage? You decide.
Yes: methane leaks occur throughout the entire drilling, production, transportation, local distribution and consumption cycle. I recall previous studies that indicated the vast majority of NG leakage is from the homes of residential consumers. Not that each one leaks a lot individually but collectively from many tens of millions of leaks. Similar to the millions of gallons of oil that are leaked onto the roads and drive ways in this country. Just a drop or two at a time from your ICE engine but when added up for a 100+ million vehicles it is a lot.
So each can decide: do you think the oil patch intentionally loses $billions every year to easily detected and cheaply repaired leaks at the well head? The oil patch is like every other commercial operation: if it’s going to cost a lot to fix a small problem and they can skim by without doing there’s motivation to ignore it. But when the problem is losing companies huge amounts or revenue and can be easily and cheaply fixed what would expect them to do? A little common sense folks: if you had a leaking water pipe in your home would you spend $20 to fix or sit back and watch it do $thousands in damage to your home? The situation is no different to NG production facilities leaking: there’s no financial advantage for the oil patch to allow large volumes of methane to escape.
J-Gav on Thu, 17th Apr 2014 4:56 pm
Not saying that the methane leaks studied are entirely insignificant, nor that efforts shouldn’t be made to quantify them – just that the bigger problem with CH4 lies in the Arctic and (un)permafrost regions of Canada and Siberia, where steady increases in the methane being spewed into the atmosphere have been proven.
synapsid on Thu, 17th Apr 2014 8:27 pm
Seven of the well pads, representing about 1% of the wells checked, contributed 4 to 30% of the methane detected in the study.
I’ve wondered for years how much NG is lost from the whole transport/distribution/domestic use system. That’s important baseline information, along with what they’re looking at from the fossil-fuel industry.
rockman on Thu, 17th Apr 2014 8:50 pm
Syn – Which makes you wonder about natural seepage focused in those areas. In one area I drilled in Texas you could map the surface cut of a very deep fault. There were hundreds of shallow NG reservoirs charged by methane leaking up this fault from about 35,000′ down. There were a few spots along the surface trace of the fault were you could see the bubbles in quiet little ponds. The legends is that’s why drillers started poking holes in the areal the than 70 years ago. Which is feasible given how’s many oil fields (including Col. Drake’s in PA) were discovered thanks to surface seeps. If oil seeping to the surface isn’t that rate howuch more common would NG seeps given that it migrates so much easier than viscous oil.
synapsid on Fri, 18th Apr 2014 4:19 am
rockman,
We see evidence of natural seeps right here in the central Puget Lowland. Eocene coal is found in the Cascade foothills from Seattle southward, and Flaming Geyser State Park is not far from the former coal-mining town of Black Diamond. I’m guessing that the methane that fed the flame (vandals destroyed the vent years ago) is coal-bed methane.
You’d have felt right at home here in the Eocene, rockman. It was the Gulf Coast but with volcanoes thanks to the plate sinking beneath us.
synapsid on Fri, 18th Apr 2014 4:30 am
Addition to above:
I just googled the state park and it looks like the vent was uncovered and the flame relit.
Hope so. I haven’t been there for decades.
Kenz300 on Sat, 19th Apr 2014 9:03 am
Climate Change is real….. it will impact each of us…..
Years of Living Dangerously Premiere Full Episode – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brvhCnYvxQQ