Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Natural Gas Wells Are Increasing & Traveling Far Downwind

By Sheryl Ehrman, et al., Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD, May 01, 2015

PRWEB — Emissions linked to hydraulic fracking can be detected hundreds of miles away in states that forbid or strictly control the practice, according to a new paper published in the journal Atmospheric Environment. The study, conducted at the University of Maryland (UMD), is among the latest data presented in the ongoing debate over frackings long-term effects on the environment.

The team used years worth of hourly measurements from photochemical assessment monitoring stations (PAMS) in the Baltimore, MD, and Washington, DC, areas to identify the sources of organic carbons in the regions air. Starting in 2010, the data didnt seem to make sense.

While theres been an overall decline in non-methane organic carbons and improvement in air quality since 1996, the atmospheric concentration of ethane, one of the components of natural gas, rose 30 percent between 2010 and 2013, says Sheryl Ehrman, professor and chair of UMDs Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the papers corresponding author.

Methane accounts for 80-95 percent of the makeup of natural gas, and it is thought to have a global warming potential roughly 30 times greater than that of carbon dioxide. However, until recently, monitoring it has not been a priority. Ehrman and her team could not acquire enough long-term methane data for the study, so they instead tracked other tracer species (molecules) such as ethane, the second most abundant compound in natural gas, and indicative of emissions associated with natural gas drilling, production, and transport.

Preliminary research revealed that there was nothing happening in Maryland that could account for the steep increase. Maryland does not currently permit fracking, but when Ehrmans team compared the rise in ethane to the extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus shale play in neighboring states, they found a month-to-month correlation. After running a wind rose analysis a tool used by meteorologists to track the wind direction, distribution and speed in a specified area they felt even more confident that Maryland was receiving the tail end of emissions originating from Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio.

Two thirds of the time the Baltimore region was downwind of the Marcellus shale play, Ehrman says.

The question you start to ask yourself is, if ethane levels are going up this much, and its only a small percentage of all natural gas, how much methane and other, more reactive emissions are escaping from these wells? says Ph.D. student Tim Vinciguerra, the papers lead author. Following the fracturing process, the well undergoes completion venting to clear out fluid and debris before production. A substantial amount of hydrocarbons are emitted as a result of this flowback procedure.

And harmful emissions dont necessarily have to come from the well to be a byproduct of fracking, he adds. The diesel engines running the trucks and drilling equipment over long periods of time emit additional pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and larger hydrocarbons that also affect air quality.

Over the course of the project, Ehrmans group ruled out other possible sources of ethane that did not produce enough of the gas to explain the change. These included vehicles, natural gas pipeline losses, and natural gas storage fields in Garrett County, MD, located 155 miles away from the area covered by the study. When the team performed the same ethane analysis for Atlanta, GA, which is located in a region without new and widespread natural gas operations, they did not see the same spike in ethane concentrations.

This study shows the potential contribution of shale gas extraction in Pennsylvania to air quality in downwind states, and the need to consider interstate transport when formulating environmental regulations for particulate matter and ozone control, says R. Subramanian, a research scientist at Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies, whose own research has shown that ethane is a unique marker for methane emissions from the natural gas system. The strong correlation between Marcellus shale gas production and ethane concentrations in Maryland in particular is a very intriguing result.

We’ve seen a statistically significant difference in the air quality on the days the wind passed over areas heavy in natural gas production versus the wind coming from areas with no known production, says Ehrman Group member Alexa Chittams, a Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering sophomore currently performing detailed wind trajectory analyses that could provide quantitative evidence that the ethane in Maryland came from neighboring states. This suggests that areas of natural gas production contributed to the ethane increase trends.

What these results mean to me is that weve got strong indications that its a regional issue, says Ehrman. What we want to do is bring this to peoples attention, advocate for long-term methane monitoring, and promote regional cooperation in monitoring and reducing emissions from natural gas production.

These new findings on natural gas emissions also are consistent with established findings by University of Maryland scientists showing westerly winds can carry power plant emissions and other pollution from states like Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania to the Washington, DC, region and elsewhere on the East Coast of the U.S.

This work was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Maryland Department of the Environment, and NASA.

For More Information on the study:
Timothy Vinciguerra, Simon Yao, Joseph Dadzie, Alexa Chittams, Thomas Deskins, Sheryl Ehrman, and Russell R. Dickerson. 2015. Regional Air Quality Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing and Shale Natural Gas Activity: Evidence from Ambient VOC Observations. Atmospheric Environment 110 (April): 144-150. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2015.03.056

Read the full story here. See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Whither Shale Gas? Certainty and Uncertainty Abound!

Commentary by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemistry Professor & Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

What can be said about projections for natural gas from shale? Other than generally over-estimated, a more accurate statement cannot be made – yet. The first item to consider is the reserve. Perhaps the most accurate figures are available from research done for the Post-Carbon Institute by David Hughes. His article in Nature, one of the two top scientific journals of the world, titled Natural Gas: The Fracking Fallacy, published December 3, 2014, is a further development of the theme and is a classic. It compares estimates by the U. S. Energy Information Agency and smaller, more limited but more detailed estimates. The EIA was found wanting, which was verified by their own publication, cited in the Nature article, published the 14th of October in 2014.

The article by Hughes referred to above is titled “Drilling Deeper“, subtitled “A Reality Check on U. S. Government Forecasts for a Lasting Tight Oil and Shale Gas Boom,” is a further development of the theme. It lists EIA reductions in reserve estimates and gives reasons to doubt they have it correct yet. Page 5 shows graphics of reductions of estimates of one of the Marcellus which estimate has been reduced from 410 Trillion cubic feet to 84 tcf, a factor of 80% by 2011. The same graphic shows reduction of Poland’s shale gas by 99%. The estimate of oil availabe from the Monterey Tight Oil was reduced by 96%.

Hughes survey involves seven tight oil plays and seven shale gas plays, involving 89% of current oil production and 88% current gas production from shale. The primary source of data for this analysis is Drillinginfo, a commercial database of well production data widely used by industry and government, including the EIA. Hughes concludes ” Tight oil production from major plays will peak before 2020. (That’s 5 years.) Also “Shale gas production from the top seven plays will likely peak before 2020.

He makes estimates of production for 2040, based on present drilling methods and without regard for price – essentially what can be, rather than what will be (see more below). His average first year field decline rate for Marcellus is 32% and average 3-year well decline rate is given as 74-82%. See page 11, where all seven fields are listed.

Hughes’ implications for the future of gas are hugely important, i.e. the EIA’s rosy forecasts have led policymakers and the American public to believe a number of false promises:

• · That cheap and abundant natural gas supplies can create a domestic manufacturing resurgence and millions of new jobs over the long term.
• · That abundant domestic oil and natural gas resources justify lifting the oil export ban (imposed 40 years ago after the Arab oil embargo)and fast- tracking approval of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals.
• · That the U.S. can use its newfound energy strength to shift geopolitical trends in our long-term favor.
• · That we can easily limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants as a result of natural gas replacing coal as the primary source of electricity production.

David Hughes report is chosen here because of that author’s expertise and because the analysis is more “fine grained,” it uses data from individual wells.

Hughes deals with the characteristics of individual wells and fields based on them. There are other influences he cannot deal with, however. I shall address some of them here. One is the decline of production as the drilling is forced out of “sweet spots.” These are areas of relatively high production. They were actively sought out at the beginning of production, because they bring the highest return on money and effort invested. That is the way all mineral development is done. It is sometimes expressed as “the easy stuff is taken out first.”

Because of rapid decline of shale wells, new wells must be drilled constantly. How available will the necessary capital be? That depends on the availability and the attitude of potential investors. Availability depends on the general economy. A crash would tighten up investment money. It also depends on the perception of reward (magnitude of profit), which will certainly be declining due to the fact these wells do not last; to increased public opposition and active campaigns of disinvestment from fossil fuels; to the continuing increase in efficiency of solar and wind; and to the inevitability of failures of companies due to low oil prices.

I think fracking will become less popular with the public as time passes by and the devastation it causes becomes better known – that is certainly the trend now, witness the extensive advertising the industry must put out to influence public opinion.

The biggie is how will the price of oil affect the demand for fracked gas. There is a world-wide slowdown in the economy, while the over-production of oil and gas in the U. S. is a factor, but decline in demand, is often forgotten.  Lower growth than expected has occurred in Europe and Asia.

More about this here and here. To paraphrase some college textbooks, “The Author leaves as an exercise for the reader,” the resolution of this video which shows both Senator Shelly Moore Caputo (R – WV) and Martin J. Durban, President of America’s Natural Gas Alliance, saying or implying the reserve estimates are increasing.

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