Natural Gas May Not Be ‘Clean’ Energy Source : NPR

Natural Gas May Not Be ‘Clean’ Energy Source : NPR.

More Reasons to Question Whether Gas Is Cleaner Than Coal – ProPublica

More Reasons to Question Whether Gas Is Cleaner Than Coal – ProPublica.

More Reasons to Question Whether Gas Is Cleaner Than Coal

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An drilling rig Ray, N.D. (Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images)

In January, a ProPublica investigation found that large amounts of “fugitive” emissions were left out of common comparisons between coal and gas and that if these emissions were counted the advantages of natural gas dwindled. Our report found that the Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions estimates from hydraulic fracturing in shale formations were 9,000 times higher than the agency had previously estimated. We also quoted Robert Howarth, a Cornell University professor, saying that he would soon release research that showed that the emissions from gas were even worse.

More details of Howarth’s research, which is reportedly scheduled to be published in the journal Climatic Change, were released by The Hill and The New York Times this week. Howarth’s conclusion — that shale gas production is actually far dirtier than coal in terms of greenhouse gas emissions — is attracting national attention.

Howarth’s findings are based in part on the EPA’s revelation that far more gas escapes into the atmosphere in production fields than was previously known, and on a mathematical tweaking of the intensity of methane gas’ effect on the atmosphere. Howarth, whose figures for total emissions exceed even the EPA’s revised estimates, calculates the impact of methane in the atmosphere over a 20-year period, saying the urgent need to address short-term climate change justifies that calculation. Over 20 years, methane is considered 72 times as powerful as carbon dioxide in its effects on climate change. Using that approach, Howarth concludes that gas may be between 20 and 100 percent dirtier than coal.

The EPA uses a different factor, calculating methane’s effect on the atmosphere over 100 years, in part because the gas degrades over time. Using the 100-year time frame, methane’s potency is diminished by about one third. ProPublica used this calculation in January and determined that in some cases — where an old and inefficient power plant was used to burn the gas, for example — natural gas may hold a 25 percent advantage over coal throughout its lifecycle, far less than the 50 percent advantage generally touted.

Howarth’s calculations erase even that small advantage though. When he used the 100-year measure, he concluded that the greenhouse gas emissions footprint of coal and gas were equal.

There’s plenty of parsing left to do here before clear answers emerge about exactly how natural gas stacks up. But one thing is increasingly certain: Without sustained efforts to shut off and capture leaked emissions in the gas production fields, whatever advantages natural gas does present will be diminished.

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BBC News – Shale gas ‘worse than coal’ for climate

BBC News – Shale gas ‘worse than coal’ for climate.

12 April 2011 Last updated at 13:10 ET

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Shale gas ‘worse than coal’ for climate

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

Gas is a natural by-product of shale rock

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The new kid on the energy block, shale gas, may be worse in climate change terms than coal, a study concludes.

Drawn from rock through a controversial “fracking” process, some hail the gas as a “stepping stone” to a low-carbon future and a route to energy security.

But US researchers found that shale gas wells leak substantial amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

This makes its climate impact worse than conventional gas, they say – and probably worse than coal as well.

“Compared to coal, the footprint of shale gas is at least 20% greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon, and is comparable over 100 years,” they write in a paper to be published shortly in the journal Climatic Change.

“We have produced the first comprehensive analysis of the greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas,” said lead author Robert Howarth from Cornell University in Ithaca, US.

“We have used the best available data [and] the conclusion is that shale gas may indeed be quite damaging to global warming, quite likely as bad or worse than coal,” he told BBC News.

Short-term fix?

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We should not proceed to view shale gas as a ‘transitional fuel’ to be used over the next few decades to replace other fossil fuels”

Robert Howarth Cornell University

Greenhouse gas emissions from shale gas are predominantly down to two things: carbon dioxide produced when the gas is burned, and methane that leaks out while the well is being exploited.

Figures from the US government and industry indicate that at least a third more methane leaks from shale gas extraction than from conventional wells – and perhaps more than twice as much.

Extracting the gas involves a complex sequence of processes including drilling down and then sideways along a shale bed, cracking the rock with hydraulic pressure or explosions (fracking), placing plugs in the shaft and then “drilling out” these plugs.

Coal, by contrast, is associated with a much smaller methane release during mining; but burning it produces about twice as much CO2 as burning natural gas.

Molecule for molecule, methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2; but it lasts for a much shorter time in the atmosphere.

Figures from this research team indicate that over a 20-year period, the net warming impact of using shale gas is worse than coal – and, perhaps more surprisingly, that conventional gas may be worse than coal as well.

Over a 100-year timeframe, conventional gas is almost certainly better than coal – but shale gas could be worse.

The precise numbers depend most on leakage rates. Dr Howarth’s group used “best practice” estimates; in the real world, therefore, the leakage and the climate impact could be even worse.

“No-one knows for sure to what extent industry uses best practices; and unfortunately, at least in the US, industry does not want government or the public to know,” he said.

Some communities see shale gas as a route to local riches, as well as energy independence

“The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed rules that would require industry to report methane emissions, but several companies have sued the EPA to try to prevent such reporting.”

With greenhouse gas emissions resuming their rise as societies emerge from recession, and with growth in fossil fuel use expanding at a faster absolute rate than renewables, some analysts and even climate campaigners have seized on the option of expanding gas use as a “transitional fuel” on the way from high-carbon coal-burning to low-carbon alternatives.

The new US analysis suggests this may not be a sensible strategy, given that the total carbon footprint appears bigger – especially if the gas comes from shale formations.

Current projections suggest that within 25 years, half of the US natural gas output will come from shale, while many other countries are also pursuing the technology.

The first trial fracking in the UK took place last month, in Lancashire.

Euan Nisbet, a geologist who runs several methane monitoring and research programmes from Royal Holloway, University of London, suggested the detailed balance might vary between geological formations.

“By trying to evaluate the greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas extraction, Howarth and his team are asking important questions about this new bonanza,” he said.

“I suspect the debate on this will be long, and the answers will be different for each shale gas formation; but it is important that we tackle this debate.”

“We also need to be very careful to account fully for the greenhouse footprint of conventional gas piped over long distances, for instance in the import of Asian gas to Europe, or Norwegian gas to the UK. The energy choices are not easy.”

The UK Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is preparing to issue more fracking licences around the country, and a spokesman said it would “closely monitor developments and consider the need for additional research to improve our understanding of the implications for policy”.

Robert Howarth, however, was less equivocal.

“We should not proceed to view shale gas as a ‘transitional fuel’ to be used over the next few decades to replace other fossil fuels, but rather work harder to move towards truly green renewable fuels as quickly as possible, such as wind and solar.”

The Truth About Climate Change, Still Inconvenient – NYTimes.com

The Truth About Climate Change, Still Inconvenient – NYTimes.com.

The Truth, Still Inconvenient

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: April 3, 2011

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Paul Krugman

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Blog: The Conscience of a Liberal

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• Andrew D. Revkin: Republicans Get Inconvenient Replies at Climate Hearing (March 31, 2011)

But the joke actually ended up being on the Republicans, when one of the two actual scientists they invited to testify went off script.

Prof. Richard Muller of Berkeley, a physicist who has gotten into the climate skeptic game, has been leading the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, an effort partially financed by none other than the Koch foundation. And climate deniers — who claim that researchers at NASA and other groups analyzing climate trends have massaged and distorted the data — had been hoping that the Berkeley project would conclude that global warming is a myth.

Instead, however, Professor Muller reported that his group’s preliminary results find a global warming trend “very similar to that reported by the prior groups.”

The deniers’ response was both predictable and revealing; more on that shortly. But first, let’s talk a bit more about that list of witnesses, which raised the same question I and others have had about a number of committee hearings held since the G.O.P. retook control of the House — namely, where do they find these people?

My favorite, still, was Ron Paul’s first hearing on monetary policy, in which the lead witness was someone best known for writing a book denouncing Abraham Lincoln as a “horrific tyrant” — and for advocating a new secessionist movement as the appropriate response to the “new American fascialistic state.”

The ringers (i.e., nonscientists) at last week’s hearing weren’t of quite the same caliber, but their prepared testimony still had some memorable moments. One was the lawyer’s declaration that the E.P.A. can’t declare that greenhouse gas emissions are a health threat, because these emissions have been rising for a century, but public health has improved over the same period. I am not making this up.

Oh, and the marketing professor, in providing a list of past cases of “analogies to the alarm over dangerous manmade global warming” — presumably intended to show why we should ignore the worriers — included problems such as acid rain and the ozone hole that have been contained precisely thanks to environmental regulation.

But back to Professor Muller. His climate-skeptic credentials are pretty strong: he has denounced both Al Gore and my colleague Tom Friedman as “exaggerators,” and he has participated in a number of attacks on climate research, including the witch hunt over innocuous e-mails from British climate researchers. Not surprisingly, then, climate deniers had high hopes that his new project would support their case.

You can guess what happened when those hopes were dashed.

Just a few weeks ago Anthony Watts, who runs a prominent climate denialist Web site, praised the Berkeley project and piously declared himself “prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong.” But never mind: once he knew that Professor Muller was going to present those preliminary results, Mr. Watts dismissed the hearing as “post normal science political theater.” And one of the regular contributors on his site dismissed Professor Muller as “a man driven by a very serious agenda.”

Of course, it’s actually the climate deniers who have the agenda, and nobody who’s been following this discussion believed for a moment that they would accept a result confirming global warming. But it’s worth stepping back for a moment and thinking not just about the science here, but about the morality.

For years now, large numbers of prominent scientists have been warning, with increasing urgency, that if we continue with business as usual, the results will be very bad, perhaps catastrophic. They could be wrong. But if you’re going to assert that they are in fact wrong, you have a moral responsibility to approach the topic with high seriousness and an open mind. After all, if the scientists are right, you’ll be doing a great deal of damage.

But what we had, instead of high seriousness, was a farce: a supposedly crucial hearing stacked with people who had no business being there and instant ostracism for a climate skeptic who was actually willing to change his mind in the face of evidence. As I said, no surprise: as Upton Sinclair pointed out long ago, it’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

But it’s terrifying to realize that this kind of cynical careerism — for that’s what it is — has probably ensured that we won’t do anything about climate change until catastrophe is already upon us.

So on second thought, I was wrong when I said that the joke was on the G.O.P.; actually, the joke is on the human race.