Wind Turbines in West Virginia

Bridge to the Future of Renewables not Natural Gas

Opinion Editorial by S. Thomas Bond, Morgantown Dominion Post, August 28, 2016

Carbon dioxide emissions from natural gas are projected to exceed emissions from coal by 10 percent this year, accdording to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.  (EIA). Last year, natural gas use was 81 percent highter than coal, although its emissions were nearly equal.

“Another contributing factor to lower carbon intensity is inceased consumption of fuels that produce no carbon dioxide, such as nuclear-powered electricity and renewable energy,” the EIA said.

Of course, gas has several problems, among them the venting of methane, a much more serious short-time greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide; production of huge quantities of wastes, which is an environmental problem, and which requires a great deal of energy to handle; the destruction of aquifers; and its health effects on workers and people living near fracking gas wells.

Recent research by Oil Change International (a research, communications and advocacy organization focused on exposing the true costs of fossil fuels) shows that if all the proposed new pipelines in Appalachia to fire boilers for electricity generation and serve other consumers are completed, it will be impossible for the U. S. to meet its climate goals.  There are 19 pipeline projects proposed to get gas out of the Marcellus and Utica shale regions.

It is obvious the old saw used by gas executives that “natural gas is a bridge to the future” really isn’t what they have in mind.  They don’t intend to make way of renewables, in spite of the language.  They want an era of carbon burning dominated by gas to use of the known reserves.  What we are seeing is business as usual, with no real consideration of impacts on climate.

Flooding in the South – 31 inches of rain in a week, more than a “once in a thousand years” flood in that area – due to warmer ocean termperatures, which cause more water evaporation.

Forest fires in the West are due to warmer air, causing draught.  At the same time, it is reducing food production in many areas.

The ocean level is rising, something the U. S. military is preparing for at coastal bases.  The real estate company Zillow predicts 1.9 million homes will be lost by 2100 and cause a $882 billion loss. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has told the states if they do no climate planning they will get no money from it.

All over the world, glaciers are melting.  The winter snow pack in lower elevations is less.  This threatens the water supply of many areas in the West and around the world. Permafrost is melting; Arctic coasts are sloughing off into the ocean.  Species like alligators and mosquitoes and many plants are moving north, flowers are blooming earlier in the springtime; birds are nesting earlier, and many formerly cooperative species have lost the connection.

But in Florida it is illegal for state officials to talk about sea level rise.  On the other hand, Massachusetts is encouraging offshore wind projects by legislation; has banned electricity rate hikes to fund gas pipeline projects – a court considers if speculating with ratepayers’ money, speculation that is more appropriately the responsibility of investors.  That state’s highest court has also rejected public subsidies of fossil fuels.  Maybe it has something to do with the high educational level of the population of the state.

I live about two miles from a truck stop. In years past, I have seen several of the huge propellers for a wind turbine go through there in a month.  Then the Pennsylvania Legislature made it more difficult to establish windpower; and now they are few and far between.  This amounts to a kind of subsidy for fossil fuels, too.

So what is the status of renewables? The United States in 2015 built more solar electrical generation capacity than gas generation capacity, according to a recent article in Fortune, and also in the first quarter of 2016 according to another source.

Yes, they have had subsidies, but so have fossil fuels, huge subsidies and a lot of favorable legislation for them and the utilities that burn carbon to produce electricity.

With much of solar the utility is eliminated, and no long wires, no second big business to take its share.  Kansas will have enough wind power to meet its needs in a few years.

Sure, fossil fuels are still far ahead of renewables, but that is going to change at an exponential rate if it is not stifled. Subsidies are going to the wrong kind of industry.

Talking about climate change, Paul Krugman got it right in his August 22 column: “We face a clear and present danger, but we have the knowledge to deal with that danger: The problem is politics ….”

 S. Tom Bond is a retired chemistry professor and a member of the Mountain Lakes Preservation Alliance, who lives near Jane Lew, Lewis County, WV. 

Solar Ferry Boat of the Future

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

Questions on Gas Industry – EDF Methane Leakage Study

.
Note: David Allen et al. of the University of Texas have a paper in the most recent Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences entitled “Measurements of methane emissions at natural gas production sites in the United States.” Professor Howarth, along with R. Santoro and A. Ingraffea had published “Methane and the greenhouse gas footprint of natural gas from shale formation” in Climate Change at 106:679-690 back in 2011.  

This excerpt of the Press Release from Professor Howarth is as follows:

A major call from our April 2011 paper was for direct measurements of methane emissions by independent scientists. Amazingly, few such studies had been conducted over the preceding decades, and most of the extremely-limited available information was coming from industry sources, usually unverified and undocumented. I am delighted to report that many scientists have taken up the challenge of measuring methane emissions in the short time since our paper came out 29 months ago.

The EDF and industry-funded study by David Allen and colleagues is one of these new studies. So far, I have only seen the preprint of their paper to be published soon, and I have not had access to any of the supporting on-line documents. But with that qualifier, I believe Allen et al. have done a fine job of characterizing emissions in the sites they have studied. Their conclusion is that upstream emissions are low, 0.42% of natural gas production (lower than we estimated for shale gas back in our April 2011 paper, and towards the low end of what we estimated for conventional natural gas).

This is good news. It suggests that the oil and gas industry – when sufficiently motivated – can produce natural gas with modestly low emissions. There are a couple of caveats, however.

First, this study is based only on evaluation of sites and times chosen by industry. The Environmental Defense Fund over the past year has repeatedly stated that only by working with industry could they and the Allen et al. team have access necessary to make their measurements. So this study must be viewed as a best-case scenario. Perhaps when industry is motivated, methane emissions can be kept to this relatively low level.

Second, many other scientists have proven over the past 2 years that you can measure methane emissions from gas development without industry cooperation, for instance by using aircraft to fly over operations. Many studies have now been published, and many more presented at national scientific meetings, on methane emissions using techniques which capture the emissions at regional scales and do not require industry permission to sample. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) laboratory in Boulder, CO, has been a very important player in this work, but other labs including many academic institutions have also been pursuing this line of research. All of these studies are reporting upstream emission estimates that are 10- to 20-fold higher than those reported in this new paper by the Allen and colleagues. Most of these other estimates from NOAA and independent non-industry funded academics are in fact at the upper end of what we estimated in our April 2011 paper, or far higher. This should be truly alarming to anyone concerned about global climate change.

How can we explain this huge discrepancy? My take at the moment – again without access to the data sources and analysis behind the Allen et al. paper – is that the gas industry can produce gas with relatively low emissions, but they very often do not do so. They do better when they know they are being carefully watched. When measurements are made at sites the industry chooses and at times the industry allows, emissions are lower than the norm. But the norm may well be 10-fold or more higher, based on the other accumulating research by NOAA and other independent researchers.

A critical point: Allen and colleagues reported massive amounts of methane flared at the time right after shale gas wells were fracked.  Flaring means the gas was burned, not vented to the atmosphere as methane.  Were that gas vented as methane without flaring, the total emissions picture would have been far, far greater.  Do the sites studied by Allen et al. with industry cooperation reflect the general practice?  Will EPA rules promulgated over the past year or so to require flaring and not venting in the future be enforceable, given that venting is invisible, and flaring often draws community criticisms because of jet-like noise and flames extending hundreds of feet into the air for days?  Unless society is willing to fund efforts to measure emissions at every well completion, a very expensive proposition, what is to keep less environmentally responsible companies from failing to follow the EPA rules and simply vent this invisible and incredibly climate-destructive methane gas?

Finally, methane emissions from upstream at the well sites is only part of the problem.  Methane is also emitted as gas moves to consumers, and again new studies are indicating these emissions may be even larger than the 1.4 to 3.6% of lifetime well production we estimated in our April 2011 paper.

 Professor Robert Howarth, Ph.D., Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University

See also:  www.FrackCheckWV.net