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EPA Limits Methane from Oil and Gas Facilities

Re: EPA Limits Methane from Oil and Gas Facilities

Unread postby PeakOiler » Sun 13 Mar 2016, 11:18:29

Thanks, Tanada, for bumping that other thread. I spent about an hour browsing it. Unfortunately there were few posts actually making comparisons between oil and gas facility methane emissions and livestock methane emissions. You made a couple of good posts, The Dude referred us to Wikipedia, and Keith McClary (sic?) referred us to some satellite data acquired in 2004, before the Bakken was developed and the EFS and Barnett Shale was more developed after 2004. Satellite data, however, cannot distinguish methane emissions from multiple sources I would think. For example: What if some of the natural gas and oil wells are located adjacent to ranch lands? From space, the methane plumes would be mixed together.

And somewhere there was a thread or some posts with regard to all the flaring going on in the Bakken.

And can one imagine what the costs would be if every emission source required measurement? Won't happen.

Those satellite data also were acquired before the massive gas leak in California too. There certainly will be variation in emissions from year to year.

Most of that other thread discussed nutrition (e.g., omnivores vs. vegans), and land use, but perhaps I'll continue comments on that thread.
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Re: EPA Limits Methane from Oil and Gas Facilities

Unread postby clif » Sun 13 Mar 2016, 12:15:09

The difference between farting animals of any kind and methane from deep underground is the same as between plant carbon and petroleum carbon.

One is part of the organic carbon cycle of life the other is additional to it from formerly sequestered carbon some millions of years old.

All the carbon released from FOSSIL FUELS is adding to the organic carbon cycle, increasing CO2/CH4 levels in the biosphere. Since the release of formerly sequestered carbon is human driven, cow farts don't figure into that equation.

If we weren't releasing all that formerly sequestered carbon the grass to cow/buffalo farts equation would be equalized within the normal organic carbon cycle.

More important question is how often and for how long duration does said cow fart?

2 sec duration once or twice an hour?

How many cow farts are needed to equal the Aliso Canyon leak, wanna bet there ain't enuf cows/ruminant animals on the planet to come close?

Even add in all human farts probably wouldn't equal that release.

An animal fart isn't the same as a leaky methane connection/gas well or oil well release. cause they don't stop, they release 24/7/365.
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Re: EPA Limits Methane from Oil and Gas Facilities

Unread postby clif » Mon 14 Mar 2016, 10:39:54

what comes off a few well-engineered gas wells?


Until they aren't;

Aliso Canyon leak for example.
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Re: EPA Limits Methane from Oil and Gas Facilities

Unread postby clif » Mon 14 Mar 2016, 20:45:00

La Brea isn't human released fossil fuels, nor any where the levels we are ADDING carbon to what the planet used to have in the biosphere, of which BTW La Brea was part of.

Keep diverting from the simple fact AGW is caused by humans, and is warming the planet faster than almost any time in the planets history.
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Re: EPA Limits Methane from Oil and Gas Facilities

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Mon 14 Mar 2016, 21:28:05

La Brea isn't human released fossil fuels, nor any where the levels we are ADDING carbon to what the planet used to have in the biosphere, of which BTW La Brea was part of.

Keep diverting from the simple fact AGW is caused by humans, and is warming the planet faster than almost any time in the planets history.


the discussion here was about methane which is the smallest (although a strong contributor) by volume of GHGs.

According to the EPA oil and gas activities account for 29% of methane release in the US versus 36% for agriculture (enteric fermentation and manure management). Pretty hard to argue that agriculture isn't important. The other main sources are coal mining and landfills. Hence the argument that it is not sufficient to just measure oil and gas emissions.....a proper background needs to be established from all sources.
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Re: EPA Limits Methane from Oil and Gas Facilities

Unread postby clif » Mon 14 Mar 2016, 22:33:32

Funny you seem to ignore the rest of the planet in your post rockdoc123.

Lots of methane releases outside the good ole US of A, in case you didn't know that little fact.

Probably in Russia, the middle east, Canada, Africa, Indonesia; IE any place HUMANS (they do exist outside the good ole US of A) have drilled for hydrocarbon fuels. Or ship said fuels .....
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Re: EPA Limits Methane from Oil and Gas Facilities

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Mon 14 Mar 2016, 23:27:43

Funny you seem to ignore the rest of the planet in your post rockdoc123.


I am simply staying on topic....this is about the EPA setting limits on methane emissions from oil and gas facilities. Last time I looked the EPA has no mandate anywhere outside of the USA.

Perhaps you are aware of some influence the EPA has outside of the US? I would be more than happy to understand that.
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Re: EPA Limits Methane from Oil and Gas Facilities

Unread postby dohboi » Mon 14 Mar 2016, 23:32:05

Ah, babyrock's back, and still up to his cherry-picking tricks, i see! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Whatever fits your agenda, rock. You have interests to protect, after all! :lol: :lol: :razz: :razz:
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Re: EPA Limits Methane from Oil and Gas Facilities

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Tue 15 Mar 2016, 12:13:42

Ah, babyrock's back, and still up to his cherry-picking tricks, i see! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Whatever fits your agenda, rock. You have interests to protect, after all! :lol: :lol: :razz: :razz:


EPA does not have influence let alone jurisdiction outside of the US, hence the topic of this thread is not relevant to emissions globally. I am not the one cherry picking, I am the one dealing with the relevant dataset.

That being said there are numerous studies on global methane emission balance. The numbers are not much different from the US other than an inclusion for hydrates, the story does not change. The balance was addressed in IPCC AR5 to some detail. NASA spells out the numbers on the GISS site with Coal mining and oil and gas yielding 19%, Enteric fermentation 16%, Rice cultivation 12%, biomass burning 8%, landfills 6%, sewage treatment 5%, animal waste 6%, termites 4%, hydrate 3% and wetlands 22%. In this context agriculture accounts for 33% or just over 1 and a half times the amount of methane emissions from oil and gas and coal.

I suggest that to avoid looking like the fool you seem to be you avoid posting on subjects you clearly know nothing about….better yet read the thread before you make asinine comments
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Re: EPA Limits Methane from Oil and Gas Facilities

Unread postby vox_mundi » Tue 15 Mar 2016, 12:23:46

Soviet collapse might explain mysterious trend in global methane emissions

... To get a global look at methane concentrations before, during, and after the plateau, the team amassed atmospheric methane concentration data from measuring stations from Canada to China to Australia, spanning a period from 1984 through 2015. They also examined previously published methane data from Antarctic ice cores extending back 2000 years to the near present.

From there, they began to construct a model, using the yearly concentration changes to calculate changing emissions. The data also include carbon isotope values for the methane concentrations. Carbon isotopes, atoms of carbon that have different masses, are particularly helpful for identifying methane sources: Different sources have different relative amounts of carbon’s two nonradiogenic isotopes, carbon-13 and carbon-12. Processes like photosynthesis or microbial oxidation serve to “fractionate” the isotopes, increasing the proportion of carbon-12, which then gets translated to the emitted gas. As a result, methane emissions have distinct isotopic values: Methane emitted from any microbially driven source such as wetlands or agriculture have values of about -60‰ (signifying a relatively low ratio of carbon-13 to carbon-12); oil, gas, and coal emissions have an average carbon isotopic value of -37‰; and tree and crop burning averages about -22‰.

Once they had their data, the scientists looked at what might have been behind the plateau. They found a sharp dip in methane concentrations after 1992; that dip corresponded with a decrease in a source with a carbon isotopic value of about -40‰. “That squarely fits the fossil fuel signature,” Schaefer says. The data don’t themselves prove what led to such a dramatic decrease in emissions, but Schaefer’s team had a guess: the collapse of fossil fuel production in the Soviet Union following its 1991 breakup.

So why did methane emissions start to climb again around 2006? Once again, the team ran models to test various inputs and see how they matched global station measurements. This time, the dominant carbon isotopic values in the new inputs were about -60‰, pointing to a microbially driven source rather than fossil fuel inputs. Given the size of the source, the likely culprit was either an increase in wetland emissions or in agricultural production. To figure out which one was ultimately responsible, Schaefer and his team turned to satellite data, which revealed that the largest post-2006 increases in atmospheric methane were occurring in China, India, and Southeast Asia.

That helped narrow down the sources, Schaefer says, because different types of wetlands have different isotopic signatures. While permafrost thawing or boreal wetlands in high latitudes have values of about -60‰, tropical wetlands—such as would be found in those regions—have slightly less negative values, about -52‰. But most tropical wetlands are in the southern hemisphere—not the region identified by the satellite images. That strongly implicated agriculture as the driver for the latest methane increases, the team reports online today in Science.
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Re: EPA Limits Methane from Oil and Gas Facilities

Unread postby dohboi » Tue 15 Mar 2016, 12:27:05

Sorry, not interested in going down the idiotic rabbit holes you take such pleasure in building. Kind of funny that you advise not posting on things one is not knowledgeable in, though. Wasn't it you who was absolutely certain that sea water temperatures could not possibly be warmer below the surface than on the surface, even near the poles??
Total idiocy. Putting you on ignore, so don't expect further feedback from this quarter--life is too short. Bye!
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Re: EPA Limits Methane from Oil and Gas Facilities

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Tue 15 Mar 2016, 16:05:50

Sorry, not interested in going down the idiotic rabbit holes you take such pleasure in building.


rabbit hole?....lets see the title of this thread is EPA limits methane from oil and gas facilities. The discussion has been about the need to understand all sources of methane emissions so that proper baselines can be set. Very simple no rabbit hole. What was posted is the recognized current emissions from various sources and as pointed out oil and gas is not the most significant and indeed agriculture is at least as important. To answer Clif's question, although the discussion is about the EPA and US regulations it was also noted that methane from oil and gas is not the most significant source of emissions globally either. This data comes directly from the EPA, EIA and IPCC.

I am pleased to see you ignore me.....leaves the rest of us at least a few less chances of having to read your uniformed comments.
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Re: EPA Limits Methane from Oil and Gas Facilities

Unread postby Tanada » Wed 16 Mar 2016, 07:45:02

Can we all play nice please? Disagreement is part of life and passionate support of your own position is a wonderful thing, especially when you can back it up with links to a third party fact based website.

However falling back on insults is not a very effective counter argument to anything. Facts and logical argument beat emotional appeals every time.
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Congress to Curtail Methane Monitoring

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Tue 21 Feb 2017, 14:20:28

Congress to Curtail Methane Monitoring

By Peter Fairley
Posted 13 Feb 2017 | 17:00 GMT

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Pilot testing Quanta3's continuous methane monitoring system at a Texas drill pad


Innovation in methane detection is booming amid tightened state and federal standards for oil and gas drillers and targeted research funding. Technology developers, however, may see their market diminished by a regulation-averse Republican Congress and president. Senate Republicans are expected to attempt to complete a first strike against federal methane detection and emissions rules as soon as this week.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas responsible for an estimated one-fifth to one-one quarter of the global warming caused by humans since the Industrial Revolution, and oil and gas production puts more methane in the atmosphere than any other activity in the United States. Global warming, however, is not a moving issue for Republican leaders or President Donald Trump, who reject the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change.

What moves them are complaints from industries that “burdensome" regulations unnecessarily hinder job growth and—in the case of methane rules—domestic oil and gas output. The House of Representatives got the methane deregulation ball rolling on 3 February, voting along party lines to quash U.S. Bureau of Land Management rules designed to prevent more than a third of methane releases from nearly 100,000 oil and gas wells and associated equipment operating on federal and tribal lands.

The House vote is one of the first applications of the hitherto obscure Congressional Review Act of 1996, which gives Congress 60 legislative days to overturn new regulations. If the Senate concurs and President Trump signs, the resulting act will scrap the bureau's ban on methane venting and flaring and its leak-monitoring requirements. It will also restrict the bureau from ever revisiting those mandates.
.... -snip-


Remainder of article is at: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/fossil-fuels/congress-to-curtail-methane-monitoring
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Re: Congress to Curtail Methane Monitoring

Unread postby Tanada » Tue 21 Feb 2017, 15:22:50

The next step is for states like California to institute their own state wide testing and emission requirements. If they can do it for Gasoline formulation and station emissions they can certainly do it for extraction industry emissions.
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Re: Congress to Curtail Methane Monitoring

Unread postby GHung » Tue 21 Feb 2017, 15:25:47

What moves them are complaints from industries that “burdensome" regulations unnecessarily hinder job growth and—in the case of methane rules—domestic oil and gas output.


Seems overproduction and low prices are taking care of that, despite “burdensome" regulations. Anyway, when the arctic methane bomb reaches its full mega-tonnage yield, it won't matter much.

As for what moves Congress, we all know it's campaign contributions; little more.
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Re: Congress to Curtail Methane Monitoring

Unread postby Plantagenet » Tue 21 Feb 2017, 16:07:54

This is catastrophic. It was bad enough that Obama and the Ds settled for no firm limits on CO2 and methane releases in the 2015 Paris Accords but now Trump and the Rs are restricting how much data is collected on methane releases.

The only hope now for any kind of meaningful reduction in Greenhouse Gas production is to have a real climate catastrophe.

I guess that it what it will take to wake people up.

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