Bishop Hill Quality data
Apr 12, 2011 Energy The New York Times seems to want to head up the fightback against shale gas, publishing a rather uncritical article about a forthcoming paper about whether gas really is better than coal.
Cornell University researchers say that natural gas pried from shale formations is dirtier than coal in the short term, rather than cleaner, and "comparable" in the long term. That finding -- fiercely disputed by the gas industry -- undermines the widely stated belief that gas is twice as "clean" as coal in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. The gas industry has promoted that concept as a way for electric utilities to prepare for climate change regulations by switching from coal-fired plants to gas.
There is a link to the preprint of the paper, which finds that the root of shale gas's problems in leakage of methane during the production process. I particularly liked their description of where they got their methane leakage figures from:
Between 0.6% and 3.2% of the life-time production of gas from wells is emitted as methane during the flow-back period (Table 1)... However, we note that the data used in Table 1 are not well documented, with many values based on PowerPoint slides from EPA-sponsored workshops.
The source of the Table 1 figures for quantity of methane emitted at the Haynesville site - the highest in the table - is a paper by Eckhardt et al (2009). Oddly, this paper doesn't appear in the list of references. Can anyone identify likely candidates?
Bishop Hill
Thanks to a reader for pointing me to this. The company discussed produce oil well data and have an Eckhardt on their books.
Reader Comments (23)
>twice as "clean" as coal in terms of greenhouse gas emissions
That sounds a bit glib. No doubt the chemistry is simpler, but the carbon conversion must be similar, surely?
Not on the beach, Bish?
James P:
AFAIK It's simply the ratio of H to C. Methan is 4:1, Ethane is 3:1 , Benzene is 1:1 etc. and polycyclic aromatics have a lower ratio of H to C.
Eckhardt et al.: Could someone be confusing S. Eckhardt (of the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Kjeller, Norway), with Michael T. Eckhart (of the American Council on Renewable Energy)? Eckhart, as President of ACORE, made many PowerPoint presentations, I warrant.
Exactly where do these people think they'll be able to hide when energy bills skyrocket and there isn't enough supply to meet demand?
Rod - thanks. You can see why I flunked chemistry.. :-(
"where do these people think they'll be able to hide"
In the dark.
"Between 0.6% and 3.2% of the life-time production of gas from wells is emitted as methane"
Um, isn't methane a by-product of oil production, too? Isn't that what you see blazing away from the flare stacks? Pots and kettles...
"isn't methane a by-product of oil production, too? Isn't that what you see blazing away from the flare stacks?" Yes, but having been flared it is no longer methane. It adopts the trivially small greenhouse propensity of CO2 rather than the humoungus, stellar, amazing, unbelievable greenhouse propensity of CH4.
Then we should not feel so bad when it turns out that coal is what we are going to use. At least until the greens give us enough space to develop advanced nuclear power.
The use of coal so far, it should be admitted, when burned in clean and modern power plants pollutes little. And as we can see after ~150 years of heavy use except for the fevered claims of AGW hysterics, benefits far more than it hurts.
"Cornell University researchers say that natural gas pried from shale formations is dirtier than coal in the short term, rather than cleaner, and "comparable" in the long term".
"new research released by EPA shows that natural gas production could be 25 percent cleaner than coal, or less, rather than twice as clean
Okay, which is it, dirtier or cleaner? I guess it depends on the NYT copy editor, who put "dirtier" at the top of the article and buried "cleaner" at the very bottom.
Any methane spillage from drilling operations is surely dwarfed by natural geological emissions escaping from buried organic sedimentary basins of the world. The following paper outlines these seepages and is very critical of the IPCC for ignoring them.
http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/reports/reprints/Kvenvolden_MPG22.pdf
But doesn't methane have a pretty short half-life in the atmosphere, about 7-10 years? So any GW effects are entirely transient. Hardly bedwetting stuff.
Does anyone know what the half-life of CO2 in the atmosphere is?
Not to mention cow farting and pig pissing.
Wow. This whole shale gas thing snuck up on the NY Times. In their quest to destory capitalism in the USA they weren't paying attention and boom ... vast quantities of cheap home grown NG tot he rescue of the poor and middle class.
How will they snear at the plebe's from their private jets if the plebes car is running on 1.25 per gasoline gallon equivalnet?
Re: O'Geary
According to my calculations CO2 has an even shorter half life of 2.25 years
If the pre industrial amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is 2500Gt (320ppm).
If the pre industrial annual natural emissions of CO2 from all sources is 770Gt
If CO2 removal from the atmosphere behaves in a half-life fashion.
Then the half life of CO2 in the atmosphere must be 2.25 years. It can not be anything else.
When you burn coal, does it not emit radiation?
Does shale gas?
As a local I will give a bit of background to explain why I am suspicious of any Cornell University research regarding shale gas. Cornell is located about 45 miles from the Village of Marcellus, namesake for the shale gas formation in the NE US. As a result, there are extensive plans to drill for this gas in the vicinity of the ivory towers of Cornell University.
While State and Federal regulatory agencies as well as industry can never guarantee zero risks from hydro-fracking or avoid all possible inconveniences (truck traffic and aesthetic impacts come to mind), I am confident that strong regulations can be developed that provide benefits that out-weigh serious risks and impacts. Plans are for the New York regulations to come out later this year. However, there seems to be a growing local sentiment to permanently ban hydro-fracking in this area before the rules are even proposed and the Cornell researchers referred to in the article have been very prominent in the local debate.
To me this is a classic “Not in my backyard” response. Abundant and relatively cheap energy is a primary driver of our way of life. Permanently eschewing a local source of energy even when strong protective regulations are in place is only a credible position for these folks if they stop using energy derived from drilling or mining someplace else. Unless they get off the electrical grid and give up their cars for public transit then their position is hypocritical in the extreme.
This has a very good summary of the limitations of that Cornell study. The Cornell professors reminds me of the old saying; Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.
http://www.energyindepth.org/2011/04/five-things-to-know-about-the-cornell-shale-study/
From the report:
In other words: LUG gas is not necessarily leaked gas. Unfortunately, Howarth, et al. base this entire section of their paper on the notion that natural gas that’s considered “lost and accounted for” in a pipeline accounting context is natural gas that’s simply leaked into the atmosphere in a practical one. The reality, as detailed in the very article they cite in their study (but ignored), is in fact quite different. It’s an accounting issue.
Table 1. has an Haynesville well emitting 680,000 cu metres/day of methane during flow-back.
This monstrous dragon is a theoretical flow rate obtained during a test through chokes that limits the actual flow rate, the maximum flow rate of 680,00 cu/m/d is then calculated by maths.
The flow-back is carried out to remove the fluids used in fracking the well, the flow rate during this has to be very carefully controlled to avoid damaging the well, its the gas pressure that pushes the fracking fluid back to the surface.
If the flowrate of fluid and gas is too high cavitation will occur, damaging chokes and valves leading to loss of control.
The flowback fluid and gas is separated at a water/gas separator, at a small landrig site, this separator will be quite small and only able to deal with a relatively low flow rate. The gas is then sent to the flare stack to be burnt, producing CO2 and water.
View some of these flares, they are wimps. Imagine the size of a flare burning 680,000 cu/m/day !
The Howarth paper is called:-
Methane and the Greenhouse-Gas Footprint of Natural Gas from Shale Formations.
They are definitely talking about methane being released during the flow-back period and “fugative methane emission during well completion.”
Thought experiment. The explosive level of methane in air is only 5% methane 95% air. It is a still day and a cloud of 680,000 cubic meters methane has risen above to site, mixing with lots of air. A spark. A big bang. A Howarth fart perhaps?
The safety regulations in the USA are weak compared to Europe but even so, a drill site in both places is considered a hazardous area where explosive atmosphere should be absent when drilling activities are being performed. (have worked years in each place)
If there is “fugative methane emission” then gas alarms sound, indicator lights show where the gas has been detected, drilling activities will be shut down if the level is considered too high.
This is nonsense. The problem with shale gas is not carbon dioxide or pipeline leaks. It is terrible economics, which is the reason why Aubrey McClendon, the pioneer of the latest shale energy hype, is now talking about his companies plans to transition to shale liquids.
there are many options but the problem is the monopoly that petroleum has that they are avoiding studies in other fuel possibilities. The happened before with viagra but right now we have Generic Viagra
The source of the Table 1 figures for quantity of methane emitted at the Haynesville site - the highest in the table - is a paper by Eckhardt et al (2009). Oddly, this paper doesn't appear in the list of references. Can anyone identify likely candidates?
The source of the Table 1 figures for quantity of methane emitted at the Haynesville site - the highest in the table - is a paper by Eckhardt et al (2009). Oddly, this paper doesn't appear in the list of references. Can anyone identify likely candidates?