https://thetyee.ca/News/2020/02/21/Fossil-Fuel-Industry-Far-Greater-Methane-Threat-Study-Finds/
[links in online article]
New Study Finds Far Greater Methane Threat from Fossil Fuel Industry
The gas plays a powerful role in driving up global temperatures.
Andrew Nikiforuk 21 Feb 2020 | TheTyee.ca
A new study published in Nature may have ended a long scientific debate
about the key source of rising methane levels in the atmosphere.
It found that methane emissions from human activities — mainly fossil
fuels — are probably 25 to 40 per cent higher than previously estimated,
while natural sources of methane emissions are up to 90 per cent lower
than previously estimated.
In plain English, that means the fossil fuel industry is having a much
greater impact on climate destabilization than previously thought.
Methane, the main chemical constituent of natural gas, is a much more
potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in the short term. Although
methane dissipates faster than carbon dioxide, it has 80 times the
climate warming impact over a 20-year timespan.
Every day, the oil and gas industry burns or releases methane by design,
often as an unwanted byproduct of oil production, or leaks it accidently
through faulty or aging equipment — a form of chronic spillage known as
“fugitive emissions.”
Methane also escapes while industry strips a number of impurities and
contaminants from natural gas gathered in gas fields, including hydrogen
sulfide and carbon dioxide.
For years the fossil fuel industry has claimed that natural gas is a
clean fuel that will serve as bridge to a renewable future, but recent
studies show leakage rates are highly underestimated, thereby
challenging that claim.
Industry and many researchers have long suspected that the volume of
methane coming from natural geological fractures and seeps in the ground
was almost as significant as that from industry.
But the landmark Nature study, based on analysis of air bubbles trapped
in Greenland ice core samples from before and after the Industrial
Revolution, found that’s probably not true.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, methane in the atmosphere primarily
came from biological sources such as swamps, rice paddies and livestock.
But around 1870, when the British Empire intensified coal consumption by
ships, trains and manufacturing, more methane began to come from the
fossil emissions of an energy-hungry civilization.
“We’ve identified a gigantic discrepancy that shows the industry needs
to, at the very least, improve their monitoring,” Benjamin Hmiel, a
researcher at the University of Rochester and the study’s lead author
told the New York Times.
“If these emissions are truly coming from oil, gas extraction,
production use, the industry isn’t even reporting or seeing that right now.”
The study’s implications for governments currently subsidizing the
fossil fuel industry or committed to slowing climate change are dramatic.
“Placing stricter methane emission regulations on the fossil fuel
industry will have the potential to reduce future global warming to a
larger extent than previously thought,” said Hmiel.
Robert Howarth, a Cornell University professor who has studied the
global methane issue for years, told The Tyee that the study’s findings
are significant.
Most models of methane emissions have assumed a large proportion come
from natural leaks from rock formations unrelated to energy industry
activity.
“This new paper makes us reassess that,” he said, indicating that fossil
fuel emissions represent a much larger slice of the global methane pie
than previously calculated.
“This new estimate for fossil fuels is more in line with what I and many
others have been independently estimating for emissions from fossil
fuels, but some scientists were skeptical of our results,” said Howarth.
The new estimate for methane from fossil fuels aligns with studies done
by Howarth and others that found that industry has underestimated its
contribution to methane leakage into the atmosphere.
Howarth’s most recent research suggests that one-third of the increase
in all global methane emissions since 2000 is due to shale gas
development in North America.
Anthony Ingraffea, also at Cornell University and an expert on the
impacts of fracking, said the Nature study added more weight to his own
research that found shale gas wells leaking as much as six per cent of
the gas being produced.
The research reveals “an emerging truth,” Ingraffea said. “The
uncountable, and unaccounted for, bubbles of methane spewing from
hundreds of thousands of active and abandoned oil and gas wells, and now
from processing and transporting facilities, are largely responsible for
the rapid rise in atmospheric methane concentration.
“And that rise is accelerating climate change, and controlling it is the
only rheostat we have to slow warming in the next decade.”
Canadian scientists currently estimate that methane leaks and releases
from the oil and gas industry compose the largest single source of
methane in the country, accounting for over 40 per cent of total
emissions in 2017.
But given the findings of the Nature study, that figure probably
underestimates the problem. Under-reporting and underestimating methane
pollution have become a persistent theme for the fossil fuel industry.
Throughout North America, studies have highlighted a growing discrepancy
between official industry and government tallies of methane leakage
versus what scientists have measured in the field with airplane
monitoring and satellites, or on the ground with infrared cameras.
In 2018, for example, Stanford scientists calculated that methane
emissions from 400 wells in six different U.S. gas fields were 60 per
cent higher than estimates made by the Environmental Protection Agency.
As a result, the researchers estimated that the methane leakage rate for
the industry was not 1.4 per cent a year, as estimated by the EPA, but
2.3 per cent. That means the U.S. shale gas industry now leaks enough
methane every year to heat 10 million homes.
The same problem has been found in Canada’s oil and gas industry,
including the oilsands.
In 2018, Canadian researchers measured methane being released in the
atmosphere over Alberta’s bitumen mines by airplane.
They found five large open-pit mines were spewing up to 19 tonnes of
methane an hour into the atmosphere, or 50 per cent more methane than
industry and federal estimates.
In 2017, airplane measurements of methane over the Alberta-Saskatchewan
border found levels three times higher than were being reported to
regulators.
“This is an issue that people haven’t paid enough attention to, and
these emissions are a lot greater than we thought,” said Carleton
professor Matthew Johnson at the time.
Researchers also found the same underestimation in Saskatchewan’s Bakken
shale oil wells, where the measurement of a number of wells found they
were leaking much more methane than estimates predicted.
For years now climate scientists have argued that limiting methane
emissions is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to slow the rate of
climate change.
A 2015 study, for example, found that inexpensive methane reduction
options could reduce global temperatures by 0.25 degrees Celsius by 2050.
But given the low price of methane in North American markets due to
oversupply caused by fracking, indebted companies and utilities have
little economic incentive to spend money to plug leaking wells and
distribution pipelines. The climate benefits are large, but the
financial savings are small, according to a University of Michigan paper.
The industrial-era flood of methane into the atmosphere first began with
coal mining. It then accelerated with oil drilling, which often released
methane as a waste byproduct.
Then came the development of a natural gas industry in the 1950s. That
industry now leaks methane from well to furnace.
The fracking of shale gas in North America has added another spike of
methane to the atmosphere.
Although identifying methane leaks and repairing them is fairly
straightforward, a recent study in Environmental Research Letters
illustrates the scale and complexity of the problem now facing
government and energy regulators.
It reported finding 969 leaks and 686 vents (or intentional releases)
from 36 sites consisting of 30 well pads and six processing plants owned
only by one company, Seventh Generation.
Seventh Generation, which operates in northwest Alberta, participated in
the study because it wants to market its methane as cleaner (with less
leakage) than its competitors.
Researchers spotted the leaks using special infrared camera that capture
methane clouds the eye can’t see.
After the leaks were identified, researchers did additional surveys and
found 90 per cent were successfully fixed. But they also discovered that
“fugitive emissions reduced by only 22 per cent because of new leaks
that occurred between the surveys.”
Given these findings, it’s imperative that energy regulators demand that
industry perform frequent, effective, and low-cost leak detection and
repair surveys to target new leaks, added the researchers.
That rarely happens now in Canada.
According to the International Energy Agency, global energy consumption
in 2018 grew at nearly twice the average rate of growth since 2010.
Methane accounted for nearly 45 per cent of that growth in total energy
demand.
Fatih Birol, the executive director of the IEA, believes that natural
gas can replace coal-fired plants in some jurisdictions.
But he admits the fuel “faces its own challenges, including remaining
price competitive in emerging markets and reducing methane emissions
along the natural gas supply chain.”
========================
Sidebar
REDUCING METHANE IN BC
Canada’s plan to reduce methane emissions by 45 per cent by 2025 doesn’t
apply to emissions in Alberta or British Columbia, because these
petro-provinces have their own policies.
But neither province has rules as comprehensive as the new federal
regulations, says the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based energy think
tank often funded by the industry.
And that means both provinces will fail to reduce methane emissions as
needed.
Although B.C.’s 2019 legislation has many good elements compared to the
federal legislation, it also has some glaring weaknesses.
For example, it does require more inspections of gas plants and better
standards for pneumatic devices. These gadgets act as pressure
regulators and frequently bleed methane into the air.
But according to the Pembina Institute, B.C. doesn’t set adequate limits
on tank venting, a common source of methane pollution.
B.C. also doesn’t mandate regular leak repair and detection protocols,
which is the only proven way to cut down emissions at oil and gas sites
over time.
In addition, B.C.’s rules do not require industry to use high-efficiency
flares and combusters to burn off excess methane from active wells.
B.C.’s rules also don’t allow for the use of new or emerging
technologies that might make methane detection easier and cheaper, says
the Pembina Institute.
Lastly, B.C.’s rules do not commit to annual and transparent reporting
on compliance.
The province’s Oil and Gas Commission, for example, has not issued a
report on flaring, a major source of methane emissions, since 2013. And
it stopped reporting on the volume of methane vented by the industry in
2012.
The Pembina Institute also found that “Alberta’s rules will fail to meet
the province’s 45 per cent oil and gas methane reduction target.”
— Andrew Nikiforuk
=====================================
To subscribe, unsubscribe, turn vacation mode on or off,
or carry out other user-actions for this list, visit
https://www.freelists.org/list/keiths-list
Note: new climate change website is now in pre-launch
Visit https://www.10n10.ca/e/index.shtml