Fracking's Contribution to Greenhouse Gases Worse than Estimated

The argument for burning gas instead of coal goes something like this: burning gas is “cleaner” because it emits less carbon dioxide than oil or coal – even though methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas.

So if you can keep the gas you drill from escaping before it is burned as fuel, you might have an advantage. The problem is that gas escapes – from wells, pipelines, compressors. A couple years ago the federal Environmental Protection Agency had estimated that 0.8 percent to 1.6 percent of natural gas production escapes, on a national average.

Then last year the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) published a paper finding that as long as escaping methane was less than 3.2 percent of lifetime production, natural gas would be better than coal for electrical production.  According to EDF, 3.2 percent is the “threshold”;  methane emissions above that level would eliminate the justification for using gas as a “transition fuel” to replace coal for electricity generation.

Now, new research shows that more – much more – methane is escaping from gas production than thought. Studies by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Utah’s Uintah Basin showed that up to 12 percent of the gas produced could be going into the atmosphere instead of the pipeline. The basin serves about 6,000 wells and accounts for about one percent of the nation’s gas production.

A research team from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) flew over the basin at about 1,000 feet, gathering air samples and taking readings over a period of several weeks. They used a “mass balance” technique which follows an air mass at it moves into a region and then flows out of that area. During their Feb. 3 testing they found that the area leaked 60 tons of gas an hour. Some days it was far greater.

It’s not just the wells that are leaking; methane could potentially be leaking from processing plants, pipelines, and compressors. The problem with all this leaky methane is that it contributes to smog – and Utah has smog levels that rival Los Angeles on its worst days. An EPA report concluded that the oil and gas industry was responsible for about 99 percent of the volatile organic compounds found in the basin which, when mixed with sunlight, creates ground level ozone. The smog was so bad at times that the Salt Lake City airport has had to divert flights.

Add up the studies and you get a picture that shows drilling pollutes the air people breathe, creates smog, and adds a higher-than-predicted burden of greenhouse gases to our atmosphere. Now US Fish and Wildlife Service say drilling is contributing to the loss of two plant species. The agency is asking for federal protection for two rare plant species, Graham’s beardtongue and White River beardtongue and is asking for them to be listed under the Endangered Species Act.

According to US Fish & Wildlife, both plants are endemic to the Uintah Basin and over the past few years their range has been reduced by oil and gas development, invasive species and grazing. The plants grow where oil shale deposits that are rich in calcium carbonate touch the surface.

Fracking and Excessive Greenhouse Gases

Tara gas field, Queensland Australia

Ninety-four hundred miles (give or take) from the Marcellus gas fields folks are worried about the same things: the air they breathe and the water they drink. Farmers in Queensland, Australia have already noticed the water table dropping – not to mention the piles of junk left behind by drilling operators.

Now, residents near Australia’s biggest coal seam gas field can add one more worry to their list: excess greenhouse gases. When researchers from Southern Cross University took mobile air testing equipment to the Tara gas field near Condamine in Queensland, they discovered that the air has more than  three times the level of toxic gases than expected – at least based on the industry's claim that leakage from the wellheads is "negligible."

At sites within a few miles of the Tara field wellheads, methane was measured   as high as 6.89 parts per million, compared with a normal background level of about 2 parts per million, the air test results showed.

Add to that a growing number of health concerns. One physician (with the New South Wales chapter of Doctors for the Environment) told the press of increasing complaints of rashes, nausea, headaches and nose bleeds among people living close to the Tara gas fields.

In unsurprising comments to the press, industry representatives calls the study awaiting peer review “incomplete” and “lacking rigor” and claim the scientists are biased against the gas industry.Read more here.

EPA Proposes Air Pollution Standards for Oil & Gas Production

Natural gas is touted as a “cleaner, greener” fuel. But drilling, producing and transporting gas from well to market puts a tremendous amount of pollutants into the air. Volatile organic chemicals (VOCs), diesel fumes, particulates, and fugitive methane emissions contribute to smog, ground level ozone and climate change.

For the past year Cornell scientists Robert Howarth, Tony Ingraffea and Renee Santoro have warned that emissions from shale gas development are much higher than conventional drilling and likely to aggravate global warming. Their peer-reviewed research was published in Climate ChangeLetters this April, and just last month they released a new report that looks at the indirect emissions of carbondioxide from Marcellus shale development.

Since last year, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been taking a harder look at air pollution resulting from oil and gas drilling operations. Today the EPA proposed updated standards - issued in response to a court order – that would rely on cost-effective existing technologies to reduce emissions. EPA believes these standards would help improve operators’ ability to capture and sell methane currently leaking into the air as “fugitive emissions” and result in more efficient operations while reducing air pollution.

Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation noted that the proposed standards will help ensure responsible production of domestic energy. “Reducing these emissions will help cut toxic pollution that can increase cancer risks and smog that can cause asthma attacks and premature death - all while giving these operators additional product to bring to market,” she stated in a press release.

The updated standards would cut volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from several types of processes and equipment, including a 95 percent reduction in VOCs emitted during the completion of new and modified hydraulically fractured wells. Technologies referred to as “green completions” already exist that allow companies to capture gas that currently escapes to the air.

According to the EPA, domestic gas production is growing, with more than 25,000 new and existing wells fractured or re-fractured each year. The proposed VOC reductions will help reduce ozone and reduce methane, which EPA labels “a potent greenhouse gas”.  Not only that, upgrading storage tanks and other equipment could save the industry tens of millions of dollars each year, says EPA.

EPA is required to take final action by Feb. 28, 2012. As part of the public comment period, EPA will hold three public hearings, in the Dallas, Denver and Pittsburgh areas. Details on the hearings will be announced soon at http://epa.gov/airquality/oilandgas

Stop the SGEIS - I want to get off....

Nearly two weeks ago NY Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton sent a letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo asking him to temporarily halt the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) process. Her reason:  The SGEIS is flawed and inherently inadequate. There are too many issues - including cumulative impacts, wastewater treatment and disposal, and health issues – that were excluded from the initial scoping document.

“We need to fix it,” Lifton said. She wants the governor to pause the SGEIS process for 30 days to allow the public to comment. Sixty-three of her colleagues from both houses and both sides of the aisle have added their signatures to the letter – but so far, no response from the guv.

Since the SGEIS process began, a lot of information has come to light. Lifton ticked off items that concern her:

• Given the increased salts and other pollutants that have ended up in Pennsylvania streams, we need increased state and federal oversight in wastewater disposal.
• Given new data on methane emissions from gas drilling and production, we need to consider the entire life cycle of unconventional drilling.
• Given that conventional drilling in NY has not brought increased economic benefit to those counties, when compared to non-drilling areas, we need to have better economic studies.
• Given that public health concerns were given short shrift in the original scoping document, they need to be covered more fully.

Add to Lifton’s list one more item: concern that landowners trying to buy or sell their leased properties may not be able to obtain financing. This week Walter Hang (of Toxics Targeting) sent his own letter to the governor asking that Cuomo expand the SGEIS to include leasing and property concerns.

“Gas leasing could have potentially catastrophic impacts on mortgage lending and real estate values throughout the Marcellus Shale formation,” Hang says. He cited a recent memo circulating from within the residential mortgage lending department at Tompkins County Trust. Items of concern included: 

• Drilling might reduce property value. That has already happened in other states, especially in neighborhoods where water has been contaminated.
• Neither FHA nor HUD will finance property where there is surface and/or subsurface activity within 300 feet of a structure or property line. Activity within 200 feet prevents most other conventional financing.
• Whether drilling qualifies as a “commercial venture” and thus would void title insurance.

Given the number of emerging concerns - things that were intentionally excluded from consideration in the SGEIS - asking for a time out to gather comments and extend the scope is not an unreasonable request.