[Econ101]

The thing is diemos there is far more than enough to go around. To get your share you have to work. You can get less than your share by not working. I have always found work - leveraging the 4 factors of production - to be preferable to the other.

[kuidaskassikaeb]

If this is a vote. I would vote for natural gas being cleaner than coal even with all the fracking problems.

Natural gas, because it is in the gas phase, is much easier to clean up. No mercury emmisions. We are having an autism epidemic probably caused by coal. The top link is to an article tracing autism rates to distance from power plants.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 120953.htm

Natural gas doesn't make ash. Fly ash is the number one toxic waste problem in the country. The link describes the ash pond spill that destroyed that town in whereever it was.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/TV ... ash_spillt

Natural gas is much cleaner burning leading to less particulates. So less asthma and lung cancer.

http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technol ... bills.html

Natural gas doesn't produce acid mine drainage. And fracking doesn't even come close to mountaintop removal for land destruction.

Even if they are basically the same for global warming. Leaks can always be plugged, and if you switch from thermal to fuel cell generation of electricity, natural gas could have a much lower carbon footprint. Natural gas could actually be the clean energy source it claims to be, even if it isn't now.

[Graeme]

Wishful Thinking About Natural Gas: Why Fossil Fuels Can’t Solve the Problems Created by Fossil Fuels

Albert Einstein is rumored to have said that one cannot solve a problem with the same thinking that led to it. Yet this is precisely what we are now trying to do with climate change policy. The Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, many environmental groups, and the oil and gas industry all tell us that the way to solve the problem created by fossil fuels is with more fossils fuels. We can do this, they claim, by using more natural gas, which is touted as a “clean” fuel — even a “green” fuel.

Like most misleading arguments, this one starts from a kernel of truth.

That truth is basic chemistry: when you burn natural gas, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) produced is, other things being equal, much less than when you burn an equivalent amount of coal or oil. It can be as much as 50% less compared with coal, and 20% to 30% less compared with diesel fuel, gasoline, or home heating oil. When it comes to a greenhouse gas (GHG) heading for the atmosphere, that’s a substantial difference. It means that if you replace oil or coal with gas without otherwise increasing your energy usage, you can significantly reduce your short-term carbon footprint.

Replacing coal gives you other benefits as well, such as reducing the sulfate pollution that causes acid rain, particulate emissions that cause lung disease, and mercury that causes brain damage. And if less coal is mined, then occupational death and disease can be reduced in coal miners and the destruction caused by damaging forms of mining, including the removal, in some parts of the country, of entire mountains can be reduced or halted.


As a result, gas leaks are a cause for enormous concern, because any methane that reaches the atmosphere unburned contributes to global warming more than the same amount of CO2. How much more? This is a question that has caused considerable angst in the climate science community, because it depends on how you calculate it. Scientists have developed the concept of “Global Warming Potential” (GWP) to try to answer this question.

The argument is complicated because while CH4 warms the planet far more than CO2, it stays in the atmosphere for much less time. A typical molecule of CO2 remains in the atmosphere about 10 times longer than a molecule of CH4. In their Fifth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that the GWP for methane is 34 times that of CO2 over the span of 100 years. However, when the time frame is changed to 20 years, the GWP increases to 86!

Most calculations of the impact of methane leakage use the 100-year time frame, which makes sense if you are worried about the cumulative impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the world as a whole, but not — many scientists have started to argue — if you are worried about currently unfolding impacts on the biosphere. After all, many species may go extinct well before we reach that 100-year mark. It also does not make sense if you are worried that we are quickly approaching irreversible tipping points in the climate system, including rapid ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.


Sometimes you can fight fire with fire, but the evidence suggests that this isn’t one of those times. Under current conditions, the increased availability and decreased price of natural gas are likely to lead to an increase in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Preliminary data from 2013 suggest that that is already occurring. And global emissions are, of course, continuing to increase as well.

nakedcapitalism

IG’s office recommends EPA begin regulating LDC methane emissions

The US Environmental Protection Agency, which does not regulate methane emissions from natural gas local distribution companies (LDC), should start working with the US Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to address the problem, EPA’s inspector general’s office said in a July 25 report.

Such pipeline leaks led to the loss of more than $192 million of gas during 2011, a cost that was passed on to consumers, in addition to their potential environmental impacts, according to Erica Hauck, a program manager in the EPA IG office’s Program Evaluation Office.

“Additionally, EPA has not partnered with [PHMSA], which regulates pipeline safety, to control methane leaks; nor has EPA developed a strategy to address barriers that inhibit the mitigation of methane leaks in the natural gas distribution sector,” she said.

EPA already has a voluntary program to address methane leaks across the gas industry, Natural Gas STAR, but its efforts have produced limited results from LDCs, Hauck said. “This is due largely to financial and policy barriers, including disincentives for [LDCs] to repair nonhazardous leaks,” she indicated.
Hauk said investigators also found that uncertainties in EPA’s emissions factors for the gas LDCs raise questions about the accuracy of reported methane emissions. “In our view, effective methane reduction strategies may be difficult to develop without better estimates of methane emissions for this sector,” she said.
In addition to recommending that EPA work with PHMSA to start addressing LDCs’ methane emission from both an environmental and a safety standpoint, the report said EPA should:

• Develop and implement a strategy to address the financial and policy barriers to repairing methane leaks from LDCs’ pipelines.

• Establish annual performance goals for reducing methane emissions from gas distribution pipelines through its voluntary programs, and report annually on the agency’s progress in meeting these goals.
• Annually assess whether performance goals are being met and, if not, determine whether changes are needed, including whether regulating LDC pipelines’ methane emissions would appropriate under the Clean Air Act.

• Review data from existing and ongoing studies to determine whether it can be used to verify and update existing emission factors. “If not, EPA should proactively identify opportunities to work with the research community to obtain the needed data,” Hauck said.

ogj

[Graeme]

Natural gas usage will have little effect on CO2 emissions, UCI-led study finds

Abundant supplies of natural gas will do little to reduce harmful U.S. emissions causing climate change, according to researchers at UC Irvine, Stanford University, and the nonprofit organization Near Zero. They found that inexpensive gas boosts electricity consumption and hinders expansion of cleaner energy sources, such as wind and solar.

The study results, which appear Sept. 24 in the journal Environmental Research Letters, are based on modeling the effect of high and low gas supplies on the U.S. power sector. Coal-fired plants, the nation's largest source of power, also produce vast quantities of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas polluting the Earth's atmosphere. Recently proposed rules by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rely heavily on the substitution of natural gas for coal to lower carbon emissions by 2030.

"In our results, abundant natural gas does not significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions. This is true even if no methane leaks during production and shipping," said lead author Christine Shearer, a postdoctoral scholar in Earth system science at UC Irvine.

Previous studies have focused on the risk of natural gas – composed primarily of methane – leaking into the atmosphere from wells and pipelines. But the new work shows that even if no methane escapes, the overall climate benefits of gas are likely to be small because its use delays the widespread construction of low-carbon energy facilities, such as solar arrays. Analyzing a range of climate policies, the researchers found that high gas usage could actually boost cumulative emissions between 2013 and 2055 by 5 percent – and, at most, trim them by 9 percent.

"Natural gas has been presented as a bridge to a low-carbon future, but what we see is that it's actually a major detour. We find that the only effective paths to reducing greenhouse gases are a regulatory cap or a carbon tax," Shearer said.

She and her co-authors conclude that greater use of gas is a poor strategy for clearing the atmosphere.

eurekalert

[Graeme]

Natural Gas Offers Little Benefit in Fight against Global Warming

Natural gas will not be a bridge fuel to a post-carbon future in the absence of an overarching climate change policy, according to a study published yesterday in the journal Nature.

That's because the fuel is likely to displace low-carbon renewable energy sources as well as coal from the energy mix, the study finds. So the net impact on global warming of using abundant supplies of natural gas would be rather small, said Haewon McJeon, a scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and lead author of the paper.

"You have some reduction in emissions, but not by much," McJeon said.

The question is important given that the United States has become the biggest natural gas producer in the world. With the advent of new techniques like hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling, energy companies have unlocked vast new reserves in shale reservoirs. The Obama administration has supported the gas industry, even as low prices have prompted utilities to switch from coal to gas for electricity generation.

The switch is generally considered beneficial for the climate since gas emits only half as much carbon dioxide in the power plant as coal. Carbon emissions in the United States are already falling, and some observers have lauded the fuel's benefits over coal.

But the recent emissions reductions could be a red herring. The Nature study finds that abundant use of gas by nations would hardly make a dent in warming by 2050. In order for gas to be a "bridge fuel" to a future of solar, wind and other renewables, a comprehensive climate change policy needs to be in place, McJeon said.

"We cannot solely rely on abundant gas to solve the climate change problem," he said. "The climate change problem requires a climate change solution. Abundant gas could be great for any number of things, but it is not going to solve the climate change problem."

scientificamerican

grist

theguardian

[Subjectivist]

Natural gas will not be a bridge fuel to a post-carbon future in the absence of an overarching climate change policy, according to a study published yesterday in the journal Nature.

That's because the fuel is likely to displace low-carbon renewable energy sources as well as coal from the energy mix, the study finds. So the net impact on global warming of using abundant supplies of natural gas would be rather small, said Haewon McJeon, a scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and lead author of the paper.

"You have some reduction in emissions, but not by much," McJeon said.

more at the link,
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... A_Facebook

[Graeme]

Natural Gas: Abundance of Supply and Debate

Natural gas is the Rorschach test of energy policy. Depending on one’s point of view, it can be either an essential tool for meeting the challenge of climate change or another dirty fossil fuel that will speed the planet down the path to calamitous warming.

President Obama is in the first camp. He sang the praises of natural gas in his State of the Union address in January, saying, “If extracted safely, it’s the bridge fuel that can power our economy with less of the carbon pollution that causes climate change.” But many environmental activists have denounced shale drilling because of the potential health risks that were cited by Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York last week when he announced a ban on hydraulic fracturing in the state.

They also say that the growing use of plentiful natural gas is accelerating climate change and sapping the urgency to promote energy efficiency and developing renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. “It’s time to stop searching for a bridge and simply take the leap,” Bill McKibben, an environmental campaigner, said earlier this year.

Because burning natural gas produces about half the planet-heating carbon dioxide than coal does for the same energy output, many energy experts suggest that natural gas has an important role to play in reducing carbon emissions. But in the debate over natural gas, nearly every fact is contested, including the amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, that escapes into the atmosphere while the gas is being drilled and transported. There is little doubt, however, that the abundant natural gas unearthed by hydraulic fracturing (also known as fracking) and other drilling technologies have transformed the energy economy. Natural gas now produces 27 percent of the electricity generated in the United States, and the percentage is rising. The plentiful oil and gas from the drilling boom has reduced America’s dependence on foreign oil to levels not seen in decades, and has contributed to falling oil prices.

But recent studies suggest the effects of relying on natural gas and expanding its use will provide no lasting benefit to the environment compared with burning coal unless policies are enacted to hasten the adoption of renewable technologies — to make the bridge a short one.

nytimes

[Tanada]

Methane leaks are garnering more attention as a threat to the climate, more into at link below the quote.

he methane that leaks from 40,000 gas wells near the desert trading post of Cuba, New Mexico, may be colourless and odourless, but it’s not invisible. It can be seen from space.

Satellites that sweep over the north of the energy-rich state can spot the gas as it escapes from drilling rigs, compressors and a pipeline snaking across the badlands. In the air it forms a giant plume: a permanent methane cloud, so vast that scientists questioned their own data when they first studied it three years ago. “We couldn’t be sure that the signal was real,” said Nasa researcher Christian Frankenberg.

The United States’ biggest methane “hot spot”, verified by Nasa and University of Michigan scientists in October, is only the most dramatic example of what scientists describe as a $2bn leak problem: the loss of methane from energy production sites across the country. When oil, gas or coal are taken from the ground, a little methane – the main ingredient in natural gas – often escapes along with it, drifting into the atmosphere where it contributes to the warming of the Earth.

Methane accounts for about 9% of US greenhouse gas emissions, and the biggest single source of it – nearly 30% – is the oil and gas industry, US government figures show. All told, oil and gas producers lose 8m metric tons of methane a year, enough to provide power to every household in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia.

As early as this month, the Obama administration will announce new measures to shrink New Mexico’s methane cloud while cracking down nationally on a phenomenon that officials say wastes taxpayer revenue and contributes to climate change. The details are not publicly known, but already a fight is shaping up between the White House and industry supporters in Congress over how intrusive the restrictions will be.

Republican leaders who take control of the Senate this month have vowed to block measures that they say could throttle domestic energy production at a time when plummeting oil prices are cutting deeply into company profits. Industry officials say they have a strong financial incentive to curb leaks, and companies are moving rapidly to upgrade their equipment.

But environmentalists say relatively modest government restrictions [PDF] on gas leaks could reap substantial rewards for taxpayers and the planet. Because methane is such a powerful greenhouse gas – with more than 80 times more heat-trapping potency per pound than carbon dioxide over the short-term – the leaks must be controlled if the US is to have any chance of meeting its goals for cutting emissions responsible for climate change, said David Doniger, who heads the climate policy programme at the US Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

“This is the most significant, most cost-effective thing the administration can do to tackle climate change pollution that it hasn’t already committed to do,” Doniger said.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/04/leaking-methane-gas-plume-us

[ROCKMAN]

FYI I looked at every report on the subject and there has yet to be any evidence showing any significant amount of methane from any particular well. Which is very easy to do: all my production hands periodically walk every one of my production systems with an inexpensive handheld methane detector.

Which isn't to say the atmospheric methane seen by NASA or anyone else isn't there. The question is the source: producing well or Mother Earth? I have no doubt that many who are pointing fingers understand the situation but are glad to take advantage of the ignorance of the general public. A bit like blaming hospitals for the cause of most illnesses since there’s such a high concentration of sick people there. As noted:

"Hydrocarbon microseepage detection has been used as an exploration tool since the first publication of the phenomenon in 1929 by Laubmeyer in Germany and by Sokolov in the Soviet Union in 1932. Since this time, all of the major oil companies and many independent oil & gas companies have used Hydrocarbon microseepage detection. As with seismic and other geophysical methods, technological advancements in the microseep industry have made it more of a reliable tool for the explorationist.

Publications such as "Hydrocarbon Migration And Its Near-surface Expression" published by the American Association of Petroleum Geologist, Memoir 66, detail hydrocarbon microseepage as a strong tool in finding hydrocarbon accumulations. Contributions by Conoco Inc., Pennzoil, Exxon, Phillips, and Shell show the attention the major oil companies give to hydrocarbon microseepage in their exploration programs. Many large oil and gas fields have been discovered using one geochemical technology alone or with other geophysical sciences. The majority of the fields in the Tannehill trend of Dickens, King, & Knox counties of Texas (>50 million barrels of oil) have been discovered using single geochemical tools alone. The Lonesome Dove field of Concho Co. Texas is a large field found using geochemical methods.”

IOW areas with significant oil/NG accumulations have been leaking hydrocarbons to the atmosphere for millions of years and continue to do so today. In fact it is estimated that the vast majority of hydrocarbons generated in the earth have leaked to the surface and atmosphere. It would be very easy for state agencies to shut down any NG production simply by testing the well site directly: too much leaking methane: shut the well in. Not sure about other states but both Texas and La regulators have the right to do so without a warrant and can shut down any well they feel is harmful.

So a simple question: if those NM wells are leaking so much methane why aren't those well heads being tested directly with the offenders shut in? Much of the land in that area is BLM acreage leased from the feds. Why haven’t the feds authorized testing at the well heads to confirm the leaks if this is such a critical issue? Unlike NASA it would exactly be rocket science. LOL.

[Tanada]

FYI I looked at every report on the subject and there has yet to be any evidence showing any significant amount of methane from any particular well. Which is very easy to do: all my production hands periodically walk every one of my production systems with an inexpensive handheld methane detector.

Which isn't to say the atmospheric methane seen by NASA or anyone else isn't there. The question is the source: producing well or Mother Earth? I have no doubt that many who are pointing fingers understand the situation but are glad to take advantage of the ignorance of the general public. A bit like blaming hospitals for the cause of most illnesses since there’s such a high concentration of sick people there. As noted:

"Hydrocarbon microseepage detection has been used as an exploration tool since the first publication of the phenomenon in 1929 by Laubmeyer in Germany and by Sokolov in the Soviet Union in 1932. Since this time, all of the major oil companies and many independent oil & gas companies have used Hydrocarbon microseepage detection. As with seismic and other geophysical methods, technological advancements in the microseep industry have made it more of a reliable tool for the explorationist.

Publications such as "Hydrocarbon Migration And Its Near-surface Expression" published by the American Association of Petroleum Geologist, Memoir 66, detail hydrocarbon microseepage as a strong tool in finding hydrocarbon accumulations. Contributions by Conoco Inc., Pennzoil, Exxon, Phillips, and Shell show the attention the major oil companies give to hydrocarbon microseepage in their exploration programs. Many large oil and gas fields have been discovered using one geochemical technology alone or with other geophysical sciences. The majority of the fields in the Tannehill trend of Dickens, King, & Knox counties of Texas (>50 million barrels of oil) have been discovered using single geochemical tools alone. The Lonesome Dove field of Concho Co. Texas is a large field found using geochemical methods.”

IOW areas with significant oil/NG accumulations have been leaking hydrocarbons to the atmosphere for millions of years and continue to do so today. In fact it is estimated that the vast majority of hydrocarbons generated in the earth have leaked to the surface and atmosphere. It would be very easy for state agencies to shut down any NG production simply by testing the well site directly: too much leaking methane: shut the well in. Not sure about other states but both Texas and La regulators have the right to do so without a warrant and can shut down any well they feel is harmful.

So a simple question: if those NM wells are leaking so much methane why aren't those well heads being tested directly with the offenders shut in? Much of the land in that area is BLM acreage leased from the feds. Why haven’t the feds authorized testing at the well heads to confirm the leaks if this is such a critical issue? Unlike NASA it would exactly be rocket science. LOL.

Okay you tell me, Why? The next time I understand why the government does what it does in the way it does it at the time it does it will be the first.

[ROCKMAN]

T - The funny thing is that many years ago NASA itself was trying to get the oil patch to pay to use it's satellites to hunt for oil/NG using the microseepage model.