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.
@george e. smith-The forcing is much larger on a per mass basis. But there is also several orders of magnitude difference in the amount of methane in the atmosphere compared to CO2. parts per billion versus parts per million. The stating of other gases being “stronger” than CO2 is highly misleading, since it obscures the fact that these gases aren’t equally abundant.
Well I did a search on why ch4 is 20 x co2 and I got about 20 sites that said ch4 is 20x co2, and I found not one that said why. And they all said over 100 years. Hey if it’s 20x bad it is 20x for 20 minutes or 20,000 years. that time frame always grabs me.
Like California’s desert wasteland solar mirror farm can light 140,000 houses per year. so that’s 14 million homes in 100 years, or it can only do 383 houses per day. What the hell does time have to do with it, it’s gigaWatts that counts.
If it is a hydrocarbon based fuel, you can bet the warmists are against it. I am sure it is killing them the US CO2 emissions have been dropping for the last 6 years, largely as a result of switching from coal to nat gas for power gen, which in turn has been fueled by the huge increases in production from shale gas, which of course is nothing but good for the US economy. Link to emissions data :
http://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/carbon/
This inconvenient fact totally gets in the away of their obsession with wind & solar & other “renewables” being the fuel we use to power our lives. I have no doubt that this is the motivation behind this paper – they have to show ALL hydrocarbons are bad, one way or the other, no matter what story they have to make up. This is completely biased “research”, IMHO.
I am in natural gas exploration and development. I am in the process of building the entire operations and infrastructure for the complete build-out of a 100,000 acre field in the Marcellus
Shale play. I can tell you that we have virtually NO loss of methane from any of our wells or gathering lines. We measure it continually throughout operations. And I agree that it would represent money out the window if it were occurring. Also, methane, even at relatively low concentrations at a well site can not be tolerated. We have some sites which have producing wells while we are actively drilling and fracing other wells. We can’t have stray methane at the well heads or in the ambient air. There are a wide range of ignition sources at a well drilling site and we can not afford to have stray gas losses. And it does not all of a sudden get worse once we are done and all wells go into production. The losses are LOW.
What I can say is that in the land areas around natural gas plays there is a lot of loss of methane to the atmosphere by simple evaporation from shallow groundwater into the soil atmosphere and then into the actual atmosphere. We test every drinking water well in the areas surrounding all our well sites and we have found that about 5% of all wells contain methane as a result of natural methane in shallow formations (>100 m < 2,000 m) above our Marcellus target. It might seem small at each location measured, but if one were to take the flux in any averaged square kilometer and multiply that by the area of land above the gas-bearing formations in any area, the loss would be significant.
I can't say too much about losses from gathering and transmission pipelines because I do not work for a mid-stream company. All I know is that our losses from the well heads to the compressor stations are very low to non-existent.
In fossil fuel rich areas, at least in the Appalachian Basin, oil and natural gas are ubiquitous and there are losses to the atmosphere – we have to remember that oil was first discovered in an area of Pennsylvania (Titusville) near a stream name Oil Creek – because oil bubbles up naturally into the stream bed. That is in the west. As you move farther east in the basin, thermal maturity increases and there is more and more natural gas and it leaks to the atmosphere.
I heard someplace that termites are the greatest source of methane in the atmosphere. Does anyone have data on this?
Observations show the IPCC theory is wrong. The founding principles of the IPCC are false.
why Methane is good
http://static.berkeleyearth.org/memos/fugitive-methane-and-greenhouse-warming.pdf
@alex Hamilton
“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.”
This is dangerously misleading, the way it is phrased. Being absorbed and ‘immediately re-emitted” necessarily involves thermalisation with the incoming energy adding to the total received from all sources by the hotter object. Many people make the mistake of confusing heat conduction with radiation, the latter being indiscriminate as to the direction it emits.
Yes, a colder object will not cause the hotter one to gain more energy than it is losing, however it definitely reduces the rate of heat loss. Consider a hot object floating in space. It loses heat according to the standard radiation formula. Place a warm object near the hot one. The rate of heat loss from the hot one will be reduced by exactly the same amount of energy it receives from the warm object.
Please edit any theory that relied on cooler objects not transferring energy to hot ones.
Anthony, my read is that the natural gas vs coal warming potential is based mostly on a dispute over how much methane is leaking IN THE US. I say that because it is well known that methane is a stronger GHG than CO2, but that it doesn’t stay in the atmosphere nearly as long. The US environmental groups that are making a stink about natural gas not being substituted for diesel because the warming is greater with natural gas (which is methane) are doing so because they think that the methane leaks are pretty high. Their arguments are US-centric. Your graph above showing that worldwide methane emissions are less than projected carries no water with groups that think leaks are too big IN THE US, which is the source of only a small percentage of methane emissions from natural and human sources worldwide.
Whether natural gas substituting for diesel emits more GHGs (methane and CO2, with appropriate warming potentials) is true or not depends on several factors, in addition to determining actual leak rates. If methane leaks are due to identifiable issues in the drilling, transmission, and distribution systems, then they could be fixed reasonably quickly. But suppose the leaks are from old oil and gas wells that were sealed many decades ago? Those leaks aren’t from present production, and someone will have to pay for finding and dealing with them, the original companies may no longer be in business. And in any case, those leaks will occur regardless of whether we drill more wells today or not.
I’m not certain we know the division between leaks from abandoned oil and gas wells, vs. from the current usage system, across the US.
Like John says:
Methane is pretty much a non-issue. It has a persistence of a mere 11 years. Furthermore, it chemically abrades, there is no “shove aside” factor like for CO2.
There is a lot of gas emitted in Washington and not all of it is from our Politicians,
Why pick on just the enterprises that contribute to energy production
http://www.npr.org/2014/01/16/262911327/aging-pipes-in-d-c-create-about-6-000-natural-gas-leaks
“The nation’s capital is a pretty old city by American standards. It dates back to the late 18th century. Despite frequent face-lifts, parts of it are wearing out — for example, its underground gas pipelines. New research shows that Washington, D.C., suffers from thousands of leaks of natural gas.
“We drove 1,500 road miles in Washington, D.C., and found about 6,000 leaks,” says Robert Jackson, an ecologist and environmental scientist at Duke University. “That’s roughly four leaks every mile.”
Nathan Phillips looks at methane data plotted on a map of Boston streets on Nov. 17. Data from a mobile methane “sniffer” and a GPS show a real-time display of the gas levels in Google Earth. The orange spike in the center of the screen, on St. Paul Street, indicates methane levels about two or three times above normal levels, Phillips says.
Four leaks per mile is even more than the scientific team found in Boston in 2011, where it did the same thing — drive the streets with a special instrument that detects methane (the main component in natural gas). In fact, the average amount of gas lost to leaks in Washington is more than twice the national average for cities.
Jackson adds that at many sites he measured, the concentration of methane in the air was higher than anything he saw in Boston. And it’s not swamp gas. Jackson’s technique identifies the type of methane by its chemical structure and the presence of ethane and propane with it, forms of gas not usually found with the so-called biogenic methane created by rotting plants, bacteria and the like.
In 12 cases, the gas concentration was potentially explosive. Jackson says he informed the local gas company about those early last year”.
Compressor mechanic and Millwright by trade. A lot of the work I did was at landfills,
most of which were on compressors or ICE’s generating power from the Methane.
Ironically, I worked on a Sullair rotary screw gas compressor inside Manhattan Village, an
exclusive gated community. A crapload of rich liberals living atop a landfill! It just does
not get any better than this!
That graph looks, a lot like this one..
http://papundits.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/models33_thumb.jpg
“””””…..Crispin in Waterloo says:
February 18, 2014 at 7:37 pm
@alex Hamilton
“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.” …..”””””
Helium is NOT a form of “heat”. Hydrogen and Oxygen are NOT forms of “heat”; neither are H2o, CO2 and CH4.
Natural gas is NOT a form of “heat”, nor are petroleum or wood or coal. Soy Beans are NOT a form of “heat”, nor is uranium or iron a form of “heat”.
Many of these things can store “heat” energy, such as H2O, CO2, and CH4, which you can “heat” in an oven, to temporarily store “heat”, but those ones lose heat very rapidly so that is not a good idea.
Some of those things contain other forms of ENERGY that is NOT “heat”, but can be converted, at least partially into “heat” energy by combusting them, for example, soy beans can be burned to provide heat. So can CH4 and hydrogen, which work much better than soy beans, so does natural gas and petroleum, and coal also can be converted partly into heat to access the stored chemical energy in the coal.
Electricity, and magnetism are NOT forms of heat, but electricity can be converted at least partly into “heat” by wasting it in a resistor. Electricity can also be used to create electromagnetic radiation energy, using LEDs; which is another form of energy, that like oil and coal is NOT “heat.
A typical LED source of EM radiation, that is being kept ice cold, by a block of ice, can be fitted to a telescope and beamed at the sun, which is at about 6,000 kelvins, and the radiation will land on the sun anyway.
The sun in turn, beams other forms of electromagnetic radiation energy, which is NOT a form of “heat”, all over the universe, including to the earth. The sun, neither knows, nor cares, whether the places it is sending EM radiant energy to in the universe, are colder, or hotter than the sun; it matters not a jot.
Some of the EM radiant energy it sends to the earth can be collected by semi-conductor diodes of various materials, and converted to electricity, which is NOT a form of “heat”, but can be converted into heat by wasting it.
Petroleum can also be turned into “heat” by wasting it, or it can be turned into plastics which can be used to wrap chunks of coal in to send to people who think electromagnetic radiation is a FORM OF “HEAT”.
It isn’t a form of heat. We get no heat from the sun; we make all of it right here on earth, by wasting the radiant energy the sun gives us.
“””””…..timetochooseagain says:
February 18, 2014 at 6:49 pm
@george e. smith-The forcing is much larger on a per mass basis. But there is also several orders of magnitude difference in the amount of methane in the atmosphere compared to CO2. parts per billion versus parts per million. The stating of other gases being “stronger” than CO2 is highly misleading, since it obscures the fact that these gases aren’t equally abundant……”””””
I’m eager to learn. CO2 has a molecular weight of 44 (I think) and CH4 has a molecular weight of 16 (I think) so on a per molecule basis, ch4 is much less massive than co2 . Yes I get the parts per billion thing. Why don’t the folks who say it is 20x co2, simply show the full set of figures that prove that. They don’t even show the IR absorption spectra of the two of them, or with H2O as well, which is mole wt. 18 (I think), so similar to ch4, but a gazillion times more of in the atmosphere. What is the energy captured per molecule from a 288 K LWIR source ?
Alex Hamilton says:
February 18, 2014 at 5:05 pm
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.
Loving this. My wheelhouse is the moon Titan, with it’s 5% methane atmosphere, methane rain from methane clouds, and pools of liquid C4, some as large as Lake Superior.
It has zero global warming effect. In fact it acts exactly like Alex describes.
In the astronomical community even ersat global warming supporters describe Titan as having an anti-greenhouse effect because of methane.
Titan: Greenhouse and Anti-greenhouse
Consider a hot object floating in space, indeed.
chris donnolley says:
February 18, 2014 at 6:43 pm
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.
Did you have to join,log in, fill out a membership form, send money, pay a fee, subscription to post this?
We do occasionally get “conventional climate change scientists” in here, usually bloviating and spouting the same calamatology, Mosh is an exception though, but this site is freely open to anyone that wants to post.
Your question was?
george e. smith
Why don’t the folks who say it is 20x co2, simply show the full set of figures that prove that.
>>>>>>>>>>
They did, but my link to the paper was two computers ago. Best as can recall, they got to 20x by assuming that CH4 gets oxidized to CO2 and H2O*2. They then add the additional CO2 long term effects to the CH4 short term effects, plus there was some mathematical gymnastics around the H2O being created at altitude where water vapour otherwise would not exist and hence would have more effect than water vapour from evaporation. They wrapped the whole thing up in a mess of charts and graphs claiming “Global Warming Potential” of 20x using all those factors combined.
They actually ended the paper by suggesting that methane might be controlled by putting a tax on pork, beef and milk in order to curb production of methane. Yup, tax the food, that’ll help curb world hunger!
This isn’t the paper I was thinking of, but very similar:
http://www.lmd.jussieu.fr/~obolmd/PDF/2009_Boucher_et_al_ERL.pdf
Crispin is probably not aware of recent papers in physics literature that talk about pseudo scattering of radiation from a colder source when it strikes a warmer target. What I said is now considered correct, and the electromagnetic energy is immediately re-used in that form for part of the Planck emission by the warmer surface. So the warmer surface cools more slowly, but never actually receives additional thermal energy. If it did receive extra thermal energy then it could indeed stay momentarily hotter, even for a few seconds, and it would have no obligation to lose that thermal energy by radiation. For example, if radiation warmed a layer of water below the surface, it might rise and evaporate a few seconds later. The extra energy would not “remember” it came from radiation. Hence there would have been a one way independent process that would have transferred thermal energy from a colder to a warmer body, thus decreasing entropy. This cannot happen, so the radiation is in fact merely pseudo scattered by the surface and immediately comes back out with the same frequencies and intensities, in other words, the same Planck distribution which is in fact a subset of the Planck distribution for the warmer surface.
Does it never occur to anyone that if the natural gas was not extracted 100% would have to leak or there would be a pressure build up till it self ignited as in a diesel engine? In reality there are several known escape points like the one in Russia they ignited expecting it to burn out in days that is still burning several years later, as well as millions more small ones probably . Most bog areas are non stop quietly emitting methane and totally ignored in the climate models just as if the rates were fixed rather than variable as are all other natural sources.
chris donnolley says:
February 18, 2014 at 6:43 pm
“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.”
—-l
Interesting handle. Do you also agree with the claims made here? If not, here is your golden opportunity to voice a dissenting opinion – preferably motivated by reason rather than emotion.
If you are new here and want to be taken seriously, I strongly suggest you read the site policy under the about tab before posting any further comments. You might also want to peruse the archives. Try to avoid vague generalisations.
Reblogged this on planetvoice and commented:
Methane in the gas system is a problem or not? Replacing of coal with natural gas has really climate benefits? Recent studies help us to form new way to thinking about climate change and GHG effect.
Somebody’s feeding too many Tax $ to otherwise unproductive researchers.
The GHG problem is not a problem. Methane oxidizes to CO2 and H2O using up oxygen. Thankfully photosynthesis converts the CO2 and H2O to sugar and Oxygen.