There’s a lot of hullabaloo recently about Natural Gas being too leaky to be a good substitute for coal. The claim is based on the fact that methane has a much larger GHG potential than carbon dioxide. But, the study those claims are based on can be interpreted two ways. I tend to think that the leak issue might be overblown, because if you are a producer, leaks mean money literally going into thin air. There’s a high incentive to fix leaks. Abandoned oil and gas wells, cited in the study, would of course be an exception.
The other reason is the IPCC, which produced this graph in the AR5 draft showing that methane just isn’t cooperating with models, and measurements are out of bounds with projections. Methane just doesn’t seem to be much of a problem:
From The National Renewable Energy Laboratory:
JISEA News: Study on Methane Emissions from Natural Gas Systems Indicates New Priorities
Study findings published in Policy Forum of Journal Science
A new study published in the journal Science says that the total impact of switching to natural gas depends heavily on leakage of methane (CH4) during the natural gas life cycle, and suggests that more can be done to reduce methane emissions and to improve measurement tools which help inform policy choices.
Published in the February 14 issue of Science, the study, “Methane Leaks from North American Natural Gas Systems,” presents a first effort to systematically compare North American emissions estimates at scales ranging from device-level to continental atmospheric studies. Because natural gas emits less carbon dioxide during combustion than other fossil fuels, it has been looked to as a ‘bridge’ fuel to a lower carbon energy system.
“With this study and our larger body of work focusing on natural gas and our transforming energy economy, we offer policymakers and investors a solid analytical foundation for decision making,” said Doug Arent, executive director of the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) and a co-author to the study. “While we found that official inventories tend to under-estimate total methane leakage, leakage rates are unlikely to be high enough to undermine the climate benefits of gas versus coal.”
The article was organized by Novim with funding from the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation and led by Stanford University’s Adam Brandt. It was co-written by researchers from Stanford University, JISEA, Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), University of Michigan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, University of Calgary, U.S. State Department, Harvard University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Santa Barbara, and the Environmental Defense Fund.
“Recent life cycle assessments generally agree that replacing coal with natural gas has climate benefits,” said Garvin Heath, a senior scientist at the NREL and a lead author of the report. “Our findings show that natural gas can be a bridge to a sustainable energy future, but that bridge must be traversed carefully. Current evidence suggests leakages may be larger than official estimates, so diligence will be required to ensure that leakage rates are actually low enough to achieve sustainability goals.”
Among other key findings of the research:
• Official inventories of methane leakage consistently underestimate actual leakage.
• Evidence at multiple scales suggests that the natural gas and oil sectors are important contributors.
• Independent experiments suggest that a small number of “super-emitters” could be responsible for a large fraction of leakage.
• Recent regional atmospheric studies with very high emissions rates are unlikely to be representative of typical natural gas system leakage rates.
• Hydraulic fracturing is not likely to be a substantial emissions source, relative to current national totals.
• Abandoned oil and gas wells appear to be a significant source of current emissions.
• Emissions inventories can be improved in ways that make them a more essential tool for policymaking.
JISEA is operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC on behalf of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the University of Colorado – Boulder, the Colorado School of Mines, the Colorado State University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Stanford University.
We must study world wide flatulance. I’m sure NASA can launch a Satelite to figure it out. Sorry Latin America and Eastern Europe. I have a feeling you will be ostracized.
But…But… What about the COWS?
I know, I know, ” Don’t have a cow, man”…
What is the point of this hot air study? Methane leaks from man’s systems is minuscule. Even if it’s large it has helped to keep the global surface temps flat for over 16 years. Move along, nothing to see here. / sarc and zero worry
I thought methane was a short lived GHG.
Try filling the gap between dual glazed windows with methane. Just as when water vapour gets into that gap the insulating effect is reduced, so too does any radiating (so-called greenhouse) gas reduce the insulating because it expedites the transfer of heat across the gap. Likewise it expedites, rather than hinders, the escape of thermal energy up through the troposphere and out to space.
If the gap between the panes is filled with dry air (as it usually is) or, better still, with non-radiating argon, then heat only transfers by molecular collisions, and this conduction-like process (which physicists call diffusion) is a relatively slow process as you can observe as you wait for heat to diffuse across a room from a convection heater on the other side. But of course radiated energy travels at the speed of light across the gap. But radiation only ever causes thermal energy to transfer from warmer to cooler regions. If it goes the other way, its electromagnetic energy is not converted to thermal energy and it is immediately re-emitted in a process physicists call pseudo scattering, because it looks the same as random scattering. So don’t worry about methane.
Do leaks even make a blip on the global rate of natural emmisions (swamp gas, methane hydrates, etc)?
OT
National Geographic TV had on a deal with geologist and their study of the U.S. rocky mountains.
Also one just before on volcanos and things on the molten rock 20 to 30 miles down most of the time yet up near surface to cause the volcanos and things like Yellowstone Park.
The study in the rocky mountan deal had some info on the hot springs there having single cell life forms whose DNA is very, very close to that of the single cell life froms fround in the mid ocean vents discovered. Question from that , is there interconnections between oceans and land masses and land mass aquafiers we do not know any thing of yet.
Now the thing is how much do we know of how much heat there is from this under foot heat, how does it move around the globe, does this movement of heat and things going on under foot but now seen have any effect on how the weather works.
Seems we have little or no data from any study on this in corleation to climate.
Not my field for sure, but it just seems the whole thing we live on is interconnected in ways we have little knowledge of.
Obviously, we should abandon natural gas because it leaks occasionally.
Everyone with natural gas heating, industrial uses, and electricity generation will have to switch to solar, wind or manure.
You know, instead of fighting against these obviously outrageous false claims, maybe we should just exaggerate it even further and push for the even more ridiculous solutions. Because this is what these studies are really saying.
In the Real World®, hydrocarbons break down far faster than these “experts” predict. Recall the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, where the oil was predicted to make the gulf uninhabitable for the next century (or more, these idiots imply that the oil will remain there for the rest of eternity, which is quite the residence time indeed!).
I appreciate, as well as anyone, that if you want to start a Model T, you have to crank (& crank & crank), but silly predictions of absurdly long residence times for volatile organic compounds, coupled with insane & unpossible long-term effects can’t even be effectively mocked anymore, they’re so overdone & meaningless. It’s like making fun of grandmas who knit ugly sweaters, or airline food.
Methane operates in the same narrow long-wave spectrum as Nitrous Oxide. This band is close to saturation. It is also at a point in the spectrum where long-wave energy is half that of the much wider band where CO2 operates.
See:
http://www.climatedata.info/Forcing/Emissions/introduction.html
Small lakes in the area of Washington State where I live often have bubbles rising out of the bottom muck and floating lazily to the surface. Many of them are combustible (I’ve lit them afire…) so they must be methane or a near relative. This was also true in the area of Wisconsin where I grew up. Are they created out of rotting matter embedded in the lake bottom… or are they rising out of old coal seams or natural gas seeps that underlie these various parts south east of Seattle? A local state park is called ‘Flaming Geyser’ because of a natural gas seep that burned for many years. The village of Black Diamond is named for the local coal mining of yore. There used to be viable coal mines in this area… and there would be today, if local and state agencies didn’t make it prohibitively difficult to permit and operate them at a profit.
As this area of ‘natural’ natural gas leaks is also somewhat urbanized, how would you use general ‘air’ trace gas sampling methods to discern the ‘natural’ natural gas leakage from the ‘bad man’ natural gas leakage?! How would you discern methane generated by cows or wet wood termites, both of which are in significant supply around here also?
Methinks there are tooooo many leaks in this trial balloon to even raise their petard…. let alone keep it ahoist!
Much more natural gas leaks from ocean floor seeping than what humans release accidentally.
In reply to;
Col Mosby says:
February 18, 2014 at 5:05 pm
I thought methane was a short lived GHG.
William: The CH4 molecule does have a short lifetime in the atmosphere 9 years. The level of CH4 in the atmosphere will therefore drop rapidly if the CH4 sources are reduced.
The IPCC estimated that 26% of the CH4 in the atmosphere was due to the oil industry, 25% due to farm animals, and 16% due to cultivation of rice. The oil industry has been working to reduce CH4 emissions (CH4 is flared rather than vented to the atmosphere and better sealing techniques are used.) so much of the increase is maybe due to increases from other sources.
http://www.atmosresearch.com/NCGG2a%202002.pdf
“Methane has an atmospheric lifetime of 8.9±0.6 based on analyses of methyl chloroform and good knowledge of the loss rate with OH (Prinn et al., 1995). This is lower than the previous estimate of 10 years (WMO, 1991, 1995).
In contrast to the numerous sources of methane, there are only one major and two minor sinks for tropospheric methane. Reaction with the hydroxyl radical (OH) is responsible for the removal of approximately 500 TgCH4/yr (almost 90% of the total sink), making the concentration of OH the most important determinant of the rate at which methane is destroyed.
OH is formed from the photodissociation of tropospheric ozone and water vapour.”
I remember a Nat Gas Leak study in 2012 or 2013 where they naively assumed the difference between gas at the well head and gas sold to customers was “Leaked”. Most of that difference, however was gas consumed by pipeline compression and pumping.
Does anyone know whether this study has accounted for “consumed in operation” losses?
Just saw this on Youtube. If only Pauline Kael was available to round out the panel. I’m depressed.
The results of the most recent research supports the assertion that oil industry emission of CH4 is decreasing.
http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/global/pdf/pep/Kirschke2013_3DecadesMethane.pdf
“Although uncertainties in emission trends do not allow definitive conclusions to be drawn, we show that the observed stabilization of methane levels between 1999 and 2006 can potentially be explained by decreasing-to-stable fossil fuel emissions, combined with stable-to-increasing microbial emissions. We show that a rise in natural wetland emissions and fossil fuel emissions probably accounts for the renewed increase in global methane levels after 2006, although the relative contribution of these two sources remains uncertain.”
“Overall, the three plausible scenarios, among many other possible source compositions matching global decadal changes, suggest that a decrease in fossil fuel CH4 emissions is a more likely explanation for the stability of global CH4 emissions between 1990 and 2005 than a reduction in microbial CH4 emissions. An actual decrease in rice paddy emissions may have been surpassed by an increase in other microbial emissions (natural wetlands, animals, landfills and waste) as found by ecosystem models combined with the EDGAR4.2 inventory. Considering the significant uncertainties reported in a recent isotope study59 for the 1990–2005 period, decreasing-to-stable fossil fuel emissions, combined with stable-to-increasing total microbial emissions, would reconcile the atmospheric ethane trends with the 13C-CH4 trends, at least for one 13C-CH4 data set59.”
Natural gas and oil leaks were how the great oil/gas fields of the past were discovered. These leaks had been going on for millions of years at a high and consistent rate. It was only after the fields were drilled up and the reservoir bottom hole pressures dropped that the leaks abated.
Given the fact that methane is 20X as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2, true believers in CAGW (Bill McKibben, et al.) should be clamoring for governments worldwide to capture methane from unstable deposits (like permafrost and hydrate deposits), and convert it to much less dangerous CO2. Capturing and burning natural gas (~95%+ methane) not only reduces its global warming potential, it provides cheap, clean energy. Additionally, empirical data from the last 17+ years shows CO2 is much more benign than previously believed. Climate model projections conclusively demonstrate that global temperatures simply do NOT correlate with CO2 levels.
The silence/failure of these groups to advocate this truly ‘planet saving’ solution exposes their hypocrisy and/or their ignorance. It also shows that their goal is not to prevent methane releases to the atmosphere, it is to completely outlaw the production and use of all hydrocarbon fuels.
Sweet Old Bob says:
February 18, 2014 at 4:58 pm
But…But… What about the COWS?
I know, I know, ” Don’t have a cow, man”…
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But the cow is so tasty and delicious.
What are the most numerous large animal species on the earth?
The ones we raise for food. If you really want to preserve an endangered species, convince people that it tastes good.
Why do the experts try to make it sound like natural gas and methane gas are two different things ?when natural gas is made up of 70 to 90% methane.
Do a search on “Why is methane 20X as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2?”
It’s an interesting answer.
Thanks, Anthony! I just gave a classroom lecture on this topic, this is a very interesting graphic on methane contributions:
http://epa.gov/climatechange/images/ghgemissions/gases-methane.png
Enteric fermentation (cow belches and farts) plus manure management actually exceed emissions from natural gas & petroleum systems!! Worldwide, methane emissions from rice paddy agriculture is a huge slice of the total, good luck doing something about that.
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=10382
Can’t for the life of me see how methane can be the monster ghg they claim. Yes the shorter wavelength photons are more energetic, but there’s fewer of them. So I don’t see how they get it to be 20 times as bad as CO2.
The 288 K spectrum peak is 10.1 microns, so the 1% short end is 5.05 microns, and the ppm is very small.
Not much solar at 6 microns, so very little solar warming from CH4 (atmospheric warming). If it get’s too much, then we can just burn the atmosphere for fuel.
I don’t see any views here that disagree with your claims. You challenge conventional climate change science, but do you allow those scientists the opportunity to respond? If not, then I cannot see how this can be a serious nor honest scientific site that deserves to be taken seriously.
People really should demand an explanation for why the Methane increases have been so much less than projected. This is part of the reason why models consistently predict too much warming. It seems like a blatant and bogus way to pump up projections of future warming to be more alarming.