Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumAir sampling reveals high emissions from gas field (NG "might not be much better than coal")
Methane leaks during production may offset climate benefits of natural gas.When US government scientists began sampling the air from a tower north of Denver, Colorado, they expected urban smog but not strong whiffs of what looked like natural gas. They eventually linked the mysterious pollution to a nearby natural-gas field, and their investigation has now produced the first hard evidence that the cleanest-burning fossil fuel might not be much better than coal when it comes to climate change.
Led by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Colorado, Boulder, the study estimates that natural-gas producers in an area known as the Denver-Julesburg Basin are losing about 4% of their gas to the atmosphere not including additional losses in the pipeline and distribution system. This is more than double the official inventory, but roughly in line with estimates made in 2011 that have been challenged by industry. And because methane is some 25 times more efficient than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere, releases of that magnitude could effectively offset the environmental edge that natural gas is said to enjoy over other fossil fuels.
The results come as a natural-gas boom hits the United States, driven by a technology known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, that can crack open hard shale formations and release the natural gas trapped inside. Environmentalists are worried about effects such as water pollution, but the US government is enthusiastic about fracking. In his State of the Union address last week, US President Barack Obama touted natural gas as the key to boosting domestic energy production.
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)he is a corporate tool
Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)Just waiting to happen. We should stop all fracking.
Dead_Parrot
(14,478 posts)...already happening.
NickB79
(19,246 posts)That one blue spot over central Europe clearly proves that all that red means nothing on that map
eppur_se_muova
(36,263 posts)Blow up a stable formation so it leaks gas willy-nilly, and then expect the gas to ONLY end up where you want it ? American business operates on wishful thinking as if it were some sort of natural law -- at least as long as they can get away with it. The EPA needs to say "it's been too long already".
kristopher
(29,798 posts)We should get their recommendations for rule making shortly thereafter.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)Its great to get some actual numbers from the field, says Robert Howarth, a Cornell researcher whose team raised concerns about methane emissions from shale-gas drilling in a pair of papers, one published in April last year and another last month (R. W. Howarth et al. Clim. Change Lett. 106, 679690; 2011; R. W. Howarth et al. Clim. Change in the press). Im not looking for vindication here, but {the NOAA} numbers are coming in very close to ours, maybe a little higher, he says.
Dead_Parrot
(14,478 posts)I still reckon the rice paddies out-do it, but...
txlibdem
(6,183 posts)And the rice paddies have most likely been there for hundreds (if not thousands) of years and the Fracking natural gas wells are new to the scene and growing in number.
This OP is just one more reason why we need to 1. Despise President Ronald Reagan for killing President Carter's Energy Plan (1979) and 2. Begin a national effort on the scale of the Moon Missions or WWII to end the use of all fossil fuels asap.
Dead_Parrot
(14,478 posts)Whether the overall acreage is growing or not I have no idea, but with the booming population it seems possible.
edit: You could look for a methane-only Seuss effect to see what % of the methane is fossil, I guess...