Wednesday
Aug142013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill A review of gas well emissions
Aug 14, 2013 Energy: gas Writing at The Energy Collective blog, Steve Everley reviews the scientific evidence to support the idea that gas wells produce significant leaks of fugitive methane and finds that it is vastly outweighed by evidence that they don't.
- Cornell Univ.: “Using more reasonable leakage rates and bases of comparison, shale gas has a GHG footprint that is half and perhaps a third that of coal.”
- Univ. of Maryland: “GHG impacts of shale gas are…only 56% that of coal.… [A]rguments that shale gas is more polluting than coal are largely unjustified.”
- Carnegie Mellon Univ.: “Natural gas from the Marcellus shale has generally lower life cycle GHG emissions than coal for production of electricity in the absence of any effective carbon capture and storage processes, by 20-50% depending upon plant efficiencies and natural gas emissions variability.”
- *NOTE: Study partially funded by the Sierra Club
- Mass. Institute of Technology: “Although fugitive emissions from the overall natural gas sector are a proper concern, it is incorrect to suggest that shale gas-related hydraulic fracturing has substantially altered the overall GHG intensityof natural gas production.”
- *NOTE: Coauthor is a lead author of the forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report for the IPCC
- National Energy Technology Laboratory (U.S. DOE): “Natural gas-fired baseload power production has life cycle greenhouse gas emissions 42 to 53 percent lower than those for coal-fired baseload electricity, after accounting for a wide range of variability and compared across different assumptions of climate impact timing.”
- Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis/NREL: “Based on analysis of more than 16,000 sources of air-pollutant emissions reported in a state inventory of upstream and midstream natural gas industry, life cycle greenhouse gas emissions associated with electricity generated from Barnett Shale gas extracted in 2009 were found to be very similar to conventional natural gas and less than half those of coal-fired electricity generation.”
- AEA Technology (for the European Commission): “In our analysis, emissions from shale gas generation are significantly lower (41% to 49%) than emissions from electricity generated from coal. This is on the basis of methane having a 100 year GWP of 25. This finding is consistent [with] most other studies into the GHG emissions arising from shale gas.”
- Worldwatch Institute: “[W]e conclude that on average, U.S. natural gas-fired electricity generation still emitted 47 percent less GHGs than coal from source to use using the IPCC’s 100-year global warming potential for methane of 25.”
- The Breakthrough Institute: “The climate benefits of natural gas are real and are significant. Recent lifecycle assessments studies confirm that natural gas has just half as much global warming potential as coal.”
Reader Comments (17)
Well, fancy that!
Who could possibly think otherwise?
What happens is that someone from the WWF or friends of the earth get on TV or radio and mention that "one study has found....". The interviewer is never informed enough to counter. Why or how the WWF got so activist is beyond me and why we would ask their opinion on energy use is even more barmy. As for friends of the earth, do they not remember all the excessive trumpeting they did about the previously phony scare of acid rain? Or is it just that the media don't remember it?
Ironically most, if not all, animals like plants and humans will benefit from moderate warming, while all the pessimistic speculation is based on 0.5 degrees a century of warming, either linearly rising or reaching a peak and probably all natural. If they really were friends of the earth then they'd welcome it.
What makes "significant" leaks significant?
The "battle" about fracking in the USA is over...if there ever was one. What we are seeing over here is a political battle about energy policy and anti-capitalism.
The lessons we must learn from our opponents are:
a) use this list of papers and call it a 97% consensus.
b) accuse anyone who says different of being in the pay of Big Green.
It will be a shoddy tactic, but a lot of Guardian readers will be convinced.
It is disturbing to me that there can be so much argument about what, to me, would appear to be verifiable facts. The un-falsifiable theory of catastrophic man-made global warming is something one can justifiably have a good argument about. Arguments against fracking seem to boil down to: "We just do not want you to do it. So there."
Sometimes, on a lovely Wednesday morning like this one, hunched over the keyboard and reading the blogs and the guff in the Grun, I feel old and tired and I think I need to take up a more healthy interest.
Well done the Bish and all you more active bloggers and readers here who do so much for so little reward. I really think you have made and are making a huge difference and that it really matters. Bravo!
Greenies have been trying to keep ahead of the debunking of their scares. All we've got to do is sit back and watch their disaster unfold when they'll stop running.
JamesG says "... phony scare of acid rain?" I'm not sure that's a good example. I'm old enough to remember views of Scandinavian forests and lakes that looked pretty devastated to me.
In a fracking operation gas is the main product and has a value – therefore there is a commercial imperative by the operating company to reduce and minimise any losses occurring through fugitive emissions or flaring.
Ian_UK
So am I, Ian, but it was a phony scare story for all that.The underlying argument had a grain of truth in it and as usual with Fiends of the Earth they built a plausible case on the back of that. I seem to remember the Norwegians ended up apologising for blaming the rest of Europe (the Brits especially, as ever) for something that never really happened and wasn't our fault anyway.
On a related topic the Daily Telegraph reports that the CofE diocese of Blackburn is telling Anglicans that fracking threatens God's creation! The headline says "glorious" creation (which is a concept I would agree with); later in the article it says "fragile" creation.
If I were an omnipotent Being that had created the universe simply by clicking my fingers I think I would have done better than create something "fragile", frankly!
The acid rain scare was another environmental movement scare story that grew considerable legs. As usual, when the scare was found to be untrue and in fact the rain forests were flourishing, the media failed to report the facts with such alacrity as they had reported the scare. Hence Ian's lack of knowledge of the whole story.
There must be another reason why it is simply bad bad bad.
Just give me a minute.
Thank-you for this informative post - however, it is a pity that this wasn't out yesterday...
According to "The Wright Stuff" on Channel 5 yesterday, during a segment on fracking, the "Shale Gas creates 20% more greenhouse gas emissions than coal" message was being banded about several times.
OK it's only The Wright Stuff but then that attracts an audience of between 500,000 and 700,000 viewers every day
Strangely my email to the show with some real facts was not read out... funny that!
One thing that has long puzzled me is the exposition that, while water and methane are far more effective greenhouse gasses than CO2, they are too transient in the atmosphere to have an effect. What happens to the small amount of heat trapped by these flighty molecules when they leave? Does it just disappear when the vapour becomes rain (or the methane becomes… well, whatever)? Or do they sidle up to the nearest CO2 molecule and hand it over (“’ere, mate. ’ave this. I no longer wannit. Careful. It’s ’ot”)?
(Dang. Somehow, I now have a picture in my head of CO2 molecules in Raybans and pimp-mobiles, surrounded by minders and dodgy molecules clamouring for attention.)
I do not understand why there should be emissions . During the drilling various diameters of steel casing are installed. Grout-liquid cement is pumped from the base of the casing around the outside- the annulus . The grout is left to set. Various geophysical logs test the integrity of the grout. The casing can be pressure tested. Air is pumped into the steel casing and gas tight seal with pressure metre is inserted. If the pressure stays constant over several hours , the grout seal is good, if it leaks the grouting is inadequate.A blow out preventer stops massive and dangerous leaks of gas during drilling. Allowing gas to leak during drilling and abstraction is health hazard, potentially causing a fire or an explosion.High levels of hydrogen sulphide are toxic.
If wells do leak, then this suggests poor and dangerous workmanship and is matter for the Health and Safety executive .
Any construction site can cause H and S and/or environmental problems but these can be identified and prevented from occurring.
Large numbers of people turning up at a location can cause the following
1. Need for toilets and treatment of sewage.
2. Damage to grass and vegeation.
3. Car accidents.
4. Litter.
5. Need for first aid.
Basically, the organisers of the protest need to undertake the same Hand S procedures as they would for music , sporting , or carnival event.
"while water and methane are far more effective greenhouse gasses than CO2, they are too transient in the atmosphere to have an effect."
This has puzzled me too.
_Those_ water molecules might spend a short period in the atmosphere, but they'll be immediately replaced by others, this is the whole basis of the water cycle.
What has the transition time to do with it?
[Snip: You've said this plenty of times before. Take it to the discussion board if you want to see if anyone wants to play again]
"What happens to the small amount of heat trapped by these flighty molecules when they leave?"
GHG don't "trap" heat they work more like insulation that cause thermal IR radiation to escape to space from a higher altitude. If you have two blankets and remove one, do you lie awake the rest of the night trying to figure out where the heat went?
"Does it just disappear when the vapour becomes rain "
As a matter of fact, yes. When the vapour condenses the heat of vapourization is liberated, and since this happens at high altitude this heat escapes to space much easier than at ground level. Vapourization and convection is a very effective mechanism for moving heat away from the ground.
Tty – okay. So, why all the fuss about GHG when they are so effective at removing excess heat from the surface to radiate harmlessly into space?
You don’t suspect that we are being sold a crock of sh….oddy products?