By Drew Nelson

A raíz de la reforma energética en 2013, la expansión de la industria del gas y del petróleo ha crecido rápidamente. La primera ronda de licitaciones para el arrendamiento de petróleo en aguas profundas mexicanas terminó en diciembre, marcando el inicio para una serie de compañías privadas como:  ExxonMobil y Chevron, por primera vez desde los años treinta. Durante este año se planean arrendamientos adicionales de lugares que se convertirán en nichos para actividades petroleras y de gas, tanto en tierra como mar adentro.

Todo esto sucede mientras México demuestra un notable clima de liderazgo, y mientras los países y las compañías del sector energético alrededor del mundo empiezan a actuar para controlar las emisiones de metano, un contaminante sumamente dañino que en forma rutinaria escapa de la industria mundial del petróleo y el gas. En otras palabras, el auge energético no pudo suceder en un momento más crítico. México está clasificado como el quinto emisor de metano más grande del mundo. Con la ausencia de reglas sólidas para el desarrollo futuro, estas emisiones pueden aumentar a un ritmo constante conforme más producción de petróleo y gas entre en operación como resultado de la reforma energética.

Por otra parte, tener las reglas adecuadas en México antes de que suceda el auge energético tiene sentido – es más inteligente solicitar una industria limpia desde el inicio que tratar de limpiarla años después de su llegada. Al tomar México medidas ahora para implementar regulaciones sólidas que respalden el desarrollo responsable de la energía, ayudará a asegurar protecciones importantes para los ciudadanos y para la creciente economía.

La buena noticia es que las políticas para reducir el metano son increíblemente rentables, y muchas jurisdicciones ya han empezado a desarrollar e implementar regulaciones para encarar a este poderoso contaminante. El reciente progreso en California es un ejemplo de una de las mejores regulaciones para metano producido por petróleo y gas, y es una importante referencia ahora que México busca desarrollar regulaciones similares propias.

La prevención es la base de las Reglas para el Metano en California.

La semana pasada, California finalizó las regulaciones más sólidas en materia de gas y petróleo  para controlar la contaminación por metano en cualquier parte de los EE. UU. uniéndose a otros estados azules y rojos, que siguen actuando (ver aquí, aquí and aquí). Las nuevas reglas de California requieren que las compañías de petróleo y de gas reduzcan las emisiones tanto en las nuevas como en las viejas instalaciones en tierra y mar adentro, con lo cual, ahorrarán millones de dólares por la pérdida de gas cada año.  Esta es la primera gran regulación ambiental emitida desde el inicio del nuevo gobierno de EE.UU., y envía un claro mensaje de que los estados están trazando su propio futuro, mientras los líderes en Washington desmantelan la energía vital y las políticas ambientales que protegen a los estadounidenses.

Fue fundamental en la trayectoria del metano de California el incidente del Cañón Aliso,  una gran fuga de gas  en el Sur de California que llamó la atención mundialmente, ocasionada por una explosión en un pozo en el subsuelo profundo en una instalación de almacenamiento de gas natural. El desastre se convirtió en vivo ejemplo de lo mal que puede ponerse el problema del metano en la industria del petróleo y del gas cuando faltan normas para inspecciones de rutina contra fugas, para el mantenimiento de equipo y para la operación.  Caso concreto: los documentos demostraron que no fue requerida una inspección a las instalaciones para verificar el espesor del entubado o fugas de gas en la superficie aun cuando habían experimentado un creciente número de problemas en la integridad de la estructura en años recientes y era operado sin sistemas de contención secundarios.

El Cañón Aliso– y la respuesta de California a ello – constituyen un ejemplo para México. Es justamente el interés de México asegurar que todas las compañías de petróleo y gas que operan dentro de sus fronteras, cumplan con los mismos estándares ambientales requeridos en otros lugares. Sin políticas consistentes, las compañías pueden explotar las diferencias en las medidas de seguridad nacionales y subnacionales y lesionar la economía y a los ciudadanos mexicanos.

Metano: Un Contaminante Apremiante del Ambiente.

Para apreciar el significado de la situación de México, se tiene que considerar lo que ocurre alrededor del mundo con relación a la ciencia del clima y la política. En marzo, la Organización Meteorológica Mundial  publicó su Informe del Estado del Clima, y las noticias fueron alarmantes. La temperatura global volvió a romper récords otra vez en 2016, mientras se acelera el aumento del nivel del mar. WIRED Magazine concluyó, “hemos sobrepasado nuestro entendimiento del cambio climático y estamos parados verdaderamente en un, “terreno desconocido”.

También hay un mayor entendimiento del papel tan poderoso que juega el metano en el calentamiento global. El metano es un potente gas de efecto invernadero, 80 veces más dañino que el dióxido de carbono en los primeros 20 años en que se asienta en la atmósfera. Los científicos dicen que el metano representa alrededor del 25 por ciento del calentamiento actual y los niveles de emisión están alcanzando su máximo mundial. Globalmente, la industrial del petróleo y del gas está entre los más grandes emisores de metano, ya sea por liberaciones accidentales o intencionales.

Un científico climático de la Universidad Simon Fraser, en Canadá, lo explicó de manera simple: “Necesitamos mitigar ambos [metano y dióxido de carbono] tan pronto como sea posible. No hay soluciones intermedias .”

Esta urgencia tiene un lado positivo. Ya que el metano es tan potente, que reducirlo tendrá un rápido y poderoso impacto en el clima. Por ejemplo, cortar las emisiones mundiales de metano producidas por petróleo y gas en un 45 por ciento para el 2025, tendrá el mismo beneficio a corto plazo que cerrar un tercio de las plantas de carbón a nivel mundial. Además, los análisis han mostrado que reducir las emisiones de metano del sector petrolero y del gas puede conseguirse razonablemente con la tecnología existente.

El Auge de la Energía en México Será el Siguiente Gran Escenario para el Metano.

México ha sido un líder confiable y visible en el cambio climático – aún antes del compromiso del metano realizado el año pasado- y tiene una larga historia de trabajo con los líderes en California, en una gran variedad de iniciativas relacionadas con el medio ambiente y el clima.

Ahora, con el nuevo y sólido modelo para el metano en California, México tiene una gran oportunidad de potenciar su auge energético pendiente para ayudar, en vez de obstaculizar, sus esfuerzos para cumplir su compromiso internacional sobre el metano. Al establecer reglas justas y sensibles para su creciente industria energética, no sólo reforzará el impacto económico de este auge, sino que demostrará una vez más la buena fe en el entorno internacional que ganó en años recientes.

Image source: Wokandapix, Pixabay

By Tim O'Connor

Last week the California Air Resources Board unanimously voted to finalize new regulations to reduce oil and gas methane emissions. This is the first major environmental regulation that has been issued since the new Administration took office, and sends a clear message that states aren’t going to take the new administrations attacks on the environment lying down.

Every signal from the Trump Administration – from pledging to kill the Clean Power Plan, to the recent executive orders that order EPA to begin reversing important climate protections, to the massive proposed budget cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency– indicate that the United States government is keen to undo some of the fundamental environmental protections that are critical to our health and prosperity. And yet, through these signals, California is moving forward with sensible policies that will hold oil and gas companies accountable for their operations, and their pollution.

Unsurprisingly, many see California as an outlier state, and passing the strongest oil and gas regulations in the county to require companies to regularly inspect equipment for gas leaks will undoubtedly feed that narrative.  However, just as they would if passed in other jurisdictions, the state’s efforts to prevent leaks help stop companies from needlessly wasting our energy resources – currently California operators report wasting $50 million of gas every year through their leaky operations.

California is the third-largest producer of oil in the country – meaning its actions are much more than symbolic.  As such, policy makers in oil and gas producing states across the country should take a hard look at the economic and environmental benefits of the state’s newest protections as proof that better environmental outcomes can go hand-in-hand with responsible energy development and economic prosperity. In short, unlike what the Trump Administration would have Americans believe, we don’t have to choose between a healthy economy and a healthy environment, we can and should have both.

In fact the evidence shows that California isn’t an outlier on this issue: several other states have begun to make this point. For example, CARB’s rules come on the heels of similar actions undertaken by a mix of red and blue energy producing states. Colorado, Ohio and Wyoming each have policies that require oil and gas companies to use affordable methods to reduce emissions. Pennsylvania, the nation’s second-largest gas producer, is pursuing similar policies as well.

It’s easy to understand why states are pursuing emission reductions, and why our nation’s elected officials in Congress should resist efforts to backslide on its policies. Cutting oil and gas emissions is one of the most-cost effective ways to, protect air quality, tackle climate change and reduce energy waste. And it can be done by implementing home-grown solutions that are already being deployed right now – solutions that also result in new business opportunities.

California’s ability to double down on climate pollution without sparking economic chaos should send a message that smart environmental protections are what Americans deserve and our economy can easily accommodate.  The Administration can push back, but other policy makers – both in congress and in other states – can and should march forward. The climate data says it needs to be done, the economics show it works out, and the people across the land support and need it.

 

By Ben Ratner

Last November, on the same day the Paris climate agreement took effect, 10 of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, including BG Group, BP, Eni, Pemex, Reliance Industries, Repsol, Saudi Aramco, Shell, Statoil and Total, announced a billion-dollar investment in climate solutions. Together, the member-companies of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) produce 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas and operate in 55 countries.

Their commitment was the beginning sign of a growing and public recognition by the oil and gas industry that tomorrow’s low carbon energy transformation has become today’s new energy imperative.

Right now, the biggest, most pressing climate item for the oil and gas industry is methane. Importantly, OGCI’s announcement included a global focus on reducing methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Far more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year timespan, methane is responsible for about a quarter of the warming we feel today.

Many expect OGCI to direct hundreds of millions of its billion-dollar pledge into addressing methane. Beyond the climate benefits, it’s a smart business investment. The International Energy Agency has said, “the potential for natural gas to play a credible role in the transition to a decarbonized energy system fundamentally depends on minimizing these emissions.” Simply put, methane is an existential threat for an industry and its long term investors banking on natural gas to aid the transition to a lower-carbon energy economy.

Potential is high for OGCI’s methane endeavor to catalyze important breakthroughs. With sets of OGCI members holding joint stakes in nearly 250 natural gas projects worldwide, there is opportunity to catalyze and spread methane emission reductions throughout the whole industry. We stand ready to help OGCI develop innovative solutions and offer the following suggestions as it begins its methane work.

Data Drives Success

Data alone won’t solve the methane challenge. But strong and credible data are essential. In the United States, vast scientific initiatives have greatly improved our understanding of methane leaks, releases and total emissions from oil and gas activity. This scientific understanding helps companies identify reduction opportunities and regulators develop sound, data-based regulations.

Globally, however, methane measurement is much less mature. Filling the gaps to better inform how companies and countries can address this problem in other parts of the world is important, while companies continue to pursue mitigation opportunities. As a future founding member of the UN’s Oil and Gas Methane Science Studies partnership, OGCI is positioned to bolster reliable and transparent methane science worldwide.

Innovation Requires Collaboration

Some of the innovation required to solve the methane challenge will come from collaboration within and among the OGCI companies. But not all of it. Around the world, there are entrepreneurs, scientists and investors that are already tackling methane. In our experience with the Methane Detectors Challenge, we learned that innovation requires early and ongoing collaboration across technology and energy sector lines. Without it, entrepreneurs don’t know what the market needs or wants and energy companies don’t know what technologists can deliver.

Today, there are gaps of information, culture, language and understanding between technology entrepreneurs and the energy companies they are trying to serve. Closing these gaps by supporting technology innovation is a prime opportunity for an industry group like OGCI to support, and OGCI is positioned to do this now that it has set up a smaller investment vehicle with the license to be nimble.

Focus on Prevention and Detection

Preventing methane leaks and finding them quickly are the two most important methane opportunities.

Every leak that is prevented is a leak that doesn’t need to be repaired. Innovation in design, technologies and strategies that prevent emissions at specific and known sources of equipment should be top of mind for OGCI. For example, aerial measurement studies have shown that tanks are significant emission sources, some of which are not properly controlled. Routine methane releases from inefficient or malfunctioning valves are also believed to be a significant source.

An undetected methane leak can leak indefinitely. It’s one reason why periodic detection is so important, and efficient airborne sweeps for large leaks should be investigated. But while routine checks are better than none, they can still allow leaks to persist for months at a time. In the United States alone, studies have shown that 10 percent of leaks are responsible for 80 percent of emissions. Fortunately, next-generation detection technologies are being developed to catch large leaks with the speed we’d expect in the digital age.

Statoil, a Norwegian-based international oil and gas company and OGCI member, is pioneering continuous methane emissions monitoring at a well pad in Texas, and a leading natural gas utility is doing the same in California. These are promising developments, bringing real-time methane monitors to market. Now, the next level of industry leadership from groups such as OCGI are vital to help spur competition in this growing segment and drive unit deployment up and costs down.

Avoiding the wasteful flaring of natural gas in favor of recapturing the fuel is another worthy opportunity to tighten the oil and gas system. There are roughly 16,000 flares worldwide, and some flares burn all day and night. OGCI can galvanize investors and operators to provide the capital and incentives to put entrepreneurs to work turning wasted gas into productive use.

Results Matter

OGCI’s success will be measured by the amount of methane reductions it delivers. Now is the time for OGCI to set a clear path for how it will achieve success with its multi-million dollar methane mitigation endeavor.

EDF’s global goal – reducing oil and gas methane emissions 45 percent by 2025 – coincides with OGCI’s 10-year mandate and is a mark we encourage the group to embrace or exceed. Industry leaders and investors need to manage methane risk so that natural gas is a cleaner, more responsible transition fuel. Governments and their citizens need to know that industry is doing all it can to address the global methane challenge. OGCI is in a unique position to spur innovation that can satisfy both needs.

Image source: John Davidson

By EDF Blogs

By Jeremy Proville and Jonathan Camuzeaux 

Just 60 days into Trump’s presidency, his administration has wasted no time in pursuing efforts to lift oil and gas development restrictions and dismantle a range of environmental protections to push through his “America First Energy Plan.” An agenda that he claims will allow the country to, “take advantage of the estimated $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, especially those on federal lands that the American people own.”

Putting aside the convenient roundness of this number, its sheer size makes the policy sound appealing; but, buyer beware. Behind the smoke and mirrors of this $50 trillion is an industry-commissioned Institute for Energy Research (IER) report that lacks serious economic rigor. The positive projections from lifting oil and gas restrictions come straight from the IER’s advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance. Several economists reviewed the assessment and agreed: “This is not academic research and would never see the light of day in an academic journal.”

Here are six reasons Trump’s plan can't deliver on its promises.

1. No analytical back up for almost $20 trillion of the $50 trillion
Off the bat, it’s clear that President Trump’s plan relies on flawed math. What’s actually estimated in the report is $31.7 trillion, not $50 trillion, based on increased revenue from oil, gas, and coal production over 37 years (this total includes estimated increases in GDP, wages, and tax revenue). The other roughly half of this “$50 trillion” number appears to be conjured out of thin air.

2. Inflated fuel prices

By using inflated oil and gas prices and multiplying the benefits out over 37 years, the author dismisses any volatility or price impacts from changes in supply.

An average oil price of $100 per barrel and of $5.64 per thousand cubic feet of natural gas (Henry Hub spot price) was used to calculate overall benefits. Oil prices are volatile: in the last five years, they reached a high of $111 per barrel and a low of $29 per barrel. They were below $50 a barrel a few days ago. A $5.64 gas price is not outrageous, but gas prices have mostly been below $5 for several years. By using inflated oil and gas prices and multiplying the benefits out over 37 years, the author dismisses any volatility or price impacts from changes in supply. There’s no denying oil and gas prices could go up in the future, but they could also go down, and the modeling in the IER report is inadequate at best when it comes to tackling this issue.

6 Ways President Trump’s Energy Plan Doesn’t Add Up
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3. Technically vs. economically recoverable resources
The IER report is overly optimistic when it comes to the amount of oil and gas that can be viably produced on today’s restricted federal lands. Indeed, the report assumes that recoverable reserves can be exploited to the last drop over the 37-year period based on estimates from a Congressional Budget Office report. A deeper look reveals that these estimates are actually for “technically recoverable resources,” or the amount of oil and gas that can be produced using current technology, industry practice, and geologic knowledge. While these resources are deemed accessible from a technical standpoint, they cannot always be produced profitably. This is an important distinction, as it is the aspect that differentiates technically-recoverable from economically-recoverable resources. The latter is always a smaller subset of what is technically extractable, as illustrated by this diagram from the Energy Information Administration. The IER report ignores basic industry knowledge to present a rosier picture.

The IER report ignores basic industry knowledge to present a rosier picture.

4. Lack of discounting causes overestimations
When economists evaluate the economic benefits of a policy that has impacts well into the future, it is common practice to apply a discount rate to get a sense of their value to society in today’s terms. Discounting is important to account for the simple fact that we generally value present benefits more than future benefits. The IER analysis does not include any discounting and therefore overestimates the true dollar-benefits of lifting oil and gas restrictions. For example, applying a standard 5% discount rate to the $31.7 trillion benefits would reduce the amount to $12.2 trillion.

The IER analysis does not include any discounting and therefore overestimates the true dollar-benefits of lifting oil and gas restrictions.

5. Calculated benefits are not additional to the status quo
The IER report suggests that the $31.7 trillion would be completely new and additional to the current status quo. This is false. One must compare these projections against a future scenario in which the restrictions are not lifted. Currently, the plan doesn’t examine a future in which these oil and gas restrictions remain and still produce large economic benefits, while protecting the environment.

6. No consideration of environmental costs
Another significant failure of IER’s report: even if GDP growth was properly estimated, it would not account for the environmental costs associated with this uptick in oil and gas development and use. This is not something that can be ignored, and any serious analysis would address it.

We know drilling activities can lead to disastrous outcomes that have real environmental and economic impacts. Oil spills like the Deepwater Horizon and Exxon Valdez have demonstrated that tragic events happen and come with a hefty social, environmental and hard dollar price tag. The same can be said for natural gas leaks, including a recent one in Aliso Canyon, California. And of course, there are significant, long-term environmental costs to increased emissions of greenhouse gases including more extreme weather, damages to human health, and food scarcity to name a few.

The real issue is what is being sacrificed if we set down this path: That is, a clean energy future where our country can lead.

The Bottom Line: The $50 Trillion is An Alternative Fact but the Safeguards America will Lose are Real
These factors fundamentally undercut President Trump’s promise that Americans will reap the benefits of a $50 trillion dollar future energy industry. Most importantly, the real issue is what is being sacrificed if we set down this path. That is, a clean energy future where our country can lead the way in innovation and green growth; creating new, long-term industries and high-paying jobs, without losing our bedrock environmental safeguards. If the administration plans to upend hard-fought restrictions that provide Americans with clean air and water, we expect them to provide a substantially more defensible analytical foundation.

This post originally appeared on our Market Forces blog and is the first in an occasional series about the economics of President Trump's Energy Plan.

By EDF Blogs

By Joe Rudek and David Lyon

A new peer-reviewed paper in Environmental Science and Technology suggests that methane emissions from natural gas power plants and oil refineries may be significantly higher than accounted for in current inventories. The report estimates average hourly methane emissions 11 to 90 times higher for refineries, and 21 to 120 times higher for natural gas power plants than those calculated from data provided by facility operators to Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program.

By multiplying total CO2 emitted annually by all US natural gas power plants and refineries (as tallied by EPA) by the methane-to-CO2 emission ratio determined in the study, the authors estimate yearly methane emissions from the nation’s refineries and gas-fired power plants are twenty times higher than currently reported.

The new findings are important, because methane – the main ingredient in natural gas – is a powerful contributor to short term climate change.  Methane lost to the atmosphere is also a waste of a valuable energy resource.

Researchers from Purdue University flew an airborne chemistry laboratory over natural gas-fueled power plants and refineries to measure greenhouse emissions, using a mass balance technique to quantify methane and carbon dioxide emissions at three natural gas power plants and three refineries. Although the results are based on a relatively small number of samples, the findings point out a need for more focus on leak detection and repair efforts.

Surprising Result

Most of the methane emissions were associated not with the CO2 plumes from the combustion stacks, but rather from other parts of the facilities (such as compressors, steam turbines, stream boilers and condensers), which indicates that natural gas is leaking before it is burned to generate power. The combustion stack sources, which the EPA GHG Inventory currently estimates to have only minor emissions, may actually contribute only about ten- to twenty percent of the total methane emissions from the facility.

Reasons for the variation in hourly rates are not known, but there was a strong correlation between power plant operating capacity during the time of measurement (as indicated by hourly EPA Air Markets Program Data) and the methane and CO2 emissions rates measured in this study.

What does this mean for natural gas?

Natural gas has been touted as a cleaner replacement fuel for coal, and is an important tool in moving to a lower-carbon energy mix. Power plants currently use more than one third of natural gas consumed in the US and the volume used is expected to increase as market forces drive the replacement of coal with cheaper natural gas. But if natural gas is going to deliver on its promise, methane emissions due to leaks, venting, and flaring need to be kept to a minimum. Finding and fixing leaks from all points in the oil and gas value chain continue to offer the most bang for the buck in achieving this goal.

Next steps

While the findings are based on a small data set, they do show the potential for significant emissions not recognized in official inventories. Some additional natural gas power plant emission measurements are currently being made by the Purdue researchers who published this report. But more measurements will be needed to understand if the findings are representative of the industry profile.

Those measurements and others would be greatly improved if done in collaboration with industry to correlate emissions with plant operations and possibly with onsite measurements.

Along with the potential of higher emissions shown in this report, comes the potential to reduce waste from natural gas value chain and eliminate more of the dangers from methane pollution. EDF has coordinated a number of studies over the last few years with industry leaders resulting in the measurement of methane emissions from the natural gas supply chain from the well through gathering and processing to distribution. We invite leaders in the power and refinery sectors to collaborate with us and our partners to gather more data and innovate solutions.

 

By Irene Burga

For decades communities in California who live close to oil and gas facilities have reported experiencing unbearable odors of gas, headaches, nausea, respiratory problems, and even cardiac complications as a result of the industry’s emissions. The health impacts of oil and gas pollution were made crystal clear last year after a massive gas leak at a Southern California storage facility led to mass hospitalizations and forced hundreds of families to evacuate their homes.

But massive gas leaks like the one at Aliso Canyon aren’t the only cause for alarm. A string of new reports confirm what many concerned communities have known for years: oil and gas emissions from across the entire supply chain can wreak havoc on our health, and are often higher than experts previously thought.
Toxic chemicals, many sources

One report from the California Air Resource Board (CARB) looked at data collected from 39 different production facilities across the state. Of the 211 different gas leaks recorded, nearly half of them included the cancer-causing chemical benzene. According to the Centers for Disease Control, chronic exposure to this toxic carcinogen can also cause leukemia, blood disorders and reproductive problems. High levels can affect the central nervous system and even lead to death. While it is unclear from the report whether the leaks occurred near residential areas, the frequency at which toxic chemicals were measured is concerning.

This is not solely a problem at production facilities. A separate CARB study focused on emissions from the ponds where drillers store wastewater that comes from oil extraction. According to the report, some California wastewater ponds emit substantial levels of toxic air contaminants like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene. This is problematic  given that California allows some of this wastewater to be directly injected into aquifers that millions of Californians rely on for drinking water.

Emissions are higher than we thought

Not only are researchers finding toxic emissions coming from all segments of the supply chain, they are also measuring emissions at higher levels than previously estimated.

In one recent study, methane emissions from three different refineries were anywhere from 11 to 90 times higher than what had been reported to the federal government.  In another study  the South Coast Air Quality Management District conducted mobile monitoring around six different refineries and crude oil processing facilities in the South Coast air basin in 2016. In the study, they measured smog-forming pollutants at levels that were up to 12 times greater than what refineries reported to local officials. Smog and other types of air pollution reportedly kill more than 5.5 million people a year. These higher-than-expected levels of pollution not only threaten public health, it also verifies that the manner in which emissions have been reported may be inadequate and misleading.

Additionally, a 2017 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study found that methane emissions in California’s Bay Area are approximately twice as high as previously believed. While, not a direct threat to our health, this is particularly troubling news for our climate since methane is responsible for about a quarter of current global warming.

Emissions from transmission and distribution pipelines, as well as natural gas storage facilities, also are higher than previously reported according to a report commissioned by CARB and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). The report finds that methane emissions increased 70% from 2014 to 2015 – most likely due to better reporting requirements and the use of new technology to find gas leaks that had been persisting all along.

Using the data to deliver results through smart regulations

California has made good faith efforts to try to fight dangerous emissions. The state’s signature climate legislation, SB 32 and its predecessor AB 32, aims to reduce 40% of California’s climate pollution by the year 2030, and part of that plan includes recommendations for oil and gas utilities to reduce emissions from leaky pipelines. According to CARB’s Scoping Plan, refineries may also be required to reduce emissions by 20%.

This progress is promising but there is more to do, especially since the impacts of runaway emissions can persist over time. Case in point: months after the Aliso Canyon leak was plugged, researchers detected trace levels of benzene, toluene and xylene in the air. Researchers also found traces of barium in the dust at homes near the leak. When combined, these chemicals may have produced symptoms like headaches, nausea, and nose-bleeds reported months after the incident occurred.

The fact that we continue to find toxic pollutants with such frequency near oil and gas facilities should be an alarm bell to the leaders in Congress who are trying to strip away protections that could directly benefit public health.  It should also signal to CARB and the CPUC the need to finalize strong policies that reduce methane emissions and co-pollutants like benzene from the vast majority of oil and gas facilities and pipelines across the state. We’ve seen the data, now we must put it to work.

 

By Drew Nelson

U.S. states are accelerating steps to reduce oil and gas air pollution. Just last week Ohio – which has a Republican Governor, and Republican-controlled Senate and House – joined the list of states targeting oil and gas emissions with a new methane policy that requires operators to check for leaks at compressor stations four times a year. Showing that it’s not a matter of politics, but smart policy to require oil and gas companies to regularly inspect for and repair leaky equipment.

At the same time, Canada is developing its own requirements to cut oil and gas methane emissions by 45 percent, an effort that some in industry are resisting over concerns of possible U.S. federal policy changes. But Canada needs to keep its eyes on the states where action has taken hold for good reason.

Methane, a powerful pollutant, has emerged as a key energy and environmental challenge.

Natural gas is mostly methane. When it leaks and is vented from thousands of oil and gas facilities, methane loss to the atmosphere is wasted energy that hurts not only businesses but local economies.

Oil and gas operations also release smog-forming pollution that degrades air quality and can impact the health of people living near this development.

Companies in the oil and gas sector are among the largest sources of man-made methane emissions, which are responsible for about 25 percent of today’s warming.

States see clear benefits

Tighter controls for oil and gas emissions are popping up in red and blue states – including California, Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah and Wyoming.

Colorado was the first state to institute methane standards in 2014, and the pay-off has already been seen across the state. A recent industry survey reveals that the majority of companies have found the benefits outweigh the costs of complying with Colorado’s methane regulations.

States are seeing the job creation potential by managing methane emissions. There are hundreds of companies in the U.S. that manufacture products and provide methane mitigation services – and the prospects are growing to put thousands of more people to work.

Individual companies are also realizing the financial upside of controlling their emissions. In Wyoming, for example, one operator was able to boost operational efficiencies and recoup $5 million in what otherwise would have been wasted gas by enhancing leak detection and repair practices.

Will Canada catch up?

Reports find that similar routine leak inspection and maintenance efforts are a low-cost, high-impact opportunity that Canada can use to deliver sizeable methane emission reductions. In 2014 alone, nearly $550 million dollars (CAN) of natural gas (110 billion cubic feet) leaked from Canada’s industry. That’s enough gas to serve all of the households in Montreal every year – a terrible waste.

Right now, the Canadian federal government is developing oil and gas methane standards as part of its Pan-Canadian Climate Framework. And Alberta is working on its own set of methane regulations. Getting these regulations right and following in the steps of several U.S. states that have proven methane regulations are a win-win, will help Canada not only fulfill its climate goals but ensure that oil and gas companies operating in Canada and the states remain on an even playing field.

Consider this: more oil and gas production is covered by existing or pending U.S. state regulations than what the federal Canadian regulations will cover. This is a powerful data point that speaks to the feasibility of addressing oil and gas methane emissions, both politically and technically.

There is enormous upside for Canada to move ahead with strong methane rules. The trend toward action among major oil-and-gas producing states, now including Ohio’s quarterly methane leak inspection requirements, is one more sign that the case for methane regulations is clear. Now it’s time for Canada to show that it won’t be left behind.

By Peter Zalzal

Last Thursday, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt withdrew the agency’s Information Collection Request (“ICR”) for the Oil and Natural Gas Sector, abruptly halting the gathering of information on harmful methane, smog-forming and toxic pollution from these industrial sources.

In announcing the move, Administrator Pruitt hailed the benefits for the oil and gas industry, but notably ignored the interests of everyday Americans right to know about harmful pollution from oil and gas facilities.

Pruitt’s action also stops EPA from obtaining information that can inform future safeguards against this pollution. Even though cost-effective, common-sense best practices and technologies exist to reduce emissions from oil and gas facilities, most existing facilities in this sector are largely exempt from any requirements to control the vast quantities of pollution they emit.

This flawed decision is at odds with the core tenets of the agency Administrator Pruitt is entrusted to lead and inimical to the health and environmental laws he has committed to faithfully execute. Unfortunately, it is also altogether predictable. Indeed this action—which allows oil and gas companies to withhold vital pollution data from thousands of sites across the country— reflects and reinforces concerns raised about Administrator Pruitt’s ability to lead an agency that he has persistently sought to undermine.

1. Pruitt Chooses Secrecy Over Transparency.

EPA has a long bipartisan history of providing data to the public about pollution in their communities. Indeed, during the Reagan Administration, Congress passed the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, which included provisions for EPA to create a publicly-available inventory of toxic chemicals down to the local level. Similarly, President George W. Bush signed a bill requiring EPA to collect and disseminate greenhouse gas emissions data from industrial sources across the country.

By withdrawing the ICR, Administrator Pruitt aims to shield the oil and gas sector from public scrutiny. Unfortunately, his penchant for secrecy with respect the oil and gas sector is familiar. During his controversial Senate confirmation process, Pruitt sought to withhold thousands of emails related to his ties to major energy interests who have donated to his political causes. While a number of those e-mails have been released, many more remain hidden from public view.

In the face of last week’s action by Administrator Pruitt, EDF has submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for all ICR data that has been submitted along with all records related to EPA’s decision to halt data collection.

2. Pruitt Places a Premium on the Views of Industry and Their Allies

In recent years, EPA has undertaken a careful, data-driven process to put in place protections to reduce pollution from the oil and gas sector. Often, EPA undertook such extensive data gathering to address industry concerns. The ICR was the latest data gathering effort, designed to ensure EPA had the full complement of information on existing oil and gas facilities. These existing facilities account for the vast majority of the sector’s pollution in coming years, yet remain largely exempt from any methane pollution control requirements.

To tailor its data request, EPA carried out two rounds of public comments, assessed significant stakeholder feedback, and substantially altered the request in response in order to leverage existing data and use electronic reporting frameworks.

In contrast to this careful and deliberative process, Administrator Pruitt withdrew the ICR with just one paragraph of explanation, just one day after receiving a request to do so from the Texas and Oklahoma Attorneys General and others.

Coincidentally, when Pruitt was Oklahoma Attorney General, he was aligned with the oil and gas industry in legal challenges seeking to undermine EPA’s oil and gas methane standards. It is disappointing, but not surprising, that he did not solicit input or wait to hear from any of the many other stakeholders involved in this process. Pruitt’s decision to withdraw the ICR may likewise raise conflicts of interest and should be closely scrutinized in light of his ethical obligations as administrator of EPA.

The Administrator has taken similar approaches in the past. As Oklahoma AG, for example, Pruitt simply copied and pasted industry requests and sent them to senior government officials under his own official seal.

EPA is legally required to protect the public from harmful pollution from oil and gas facilities. In carrying out that obligation, it is critical that public officials base decisions that affect our health and safety on careful review of the most rigorous scientific information available—and not simply accept, without any deliberation or inquiry, the recommendations of parties that have a vested interest in weakening health protections.

3. Pruitt’s Selective View of States Rights

As reason for withdrawing the ICR, Administrator Pruitt pointed to the request from the Texas Attorney General and the need to, in his words, “strengthen … our partnership with the states.”

But Pruitt’s notion of cooperative federalism bears no resemblance to the collaborative approach that EPA and states have taken to solving air pollution problems over the last four decades. Indeed, the Administrator seems comfortable with states’ rights when those states are seeking to hide emissions information and block clean air safeguards, but opposes states’ rights when they want stronger protections for their citizens.

For instance, large oil and gas producing states like Colorado and California have in place standards to reduce oil and gas sector emissions. Last Thursday, Ohio adopted stronger standards for certain sources. Eleven states – including major energy-producing states like New Mexico and California – have intervened in court to defend the same EPA emission standards for the oil and gas sector that the Texas Attorney General and his allies attacked in their letter. And many states have likewise supported EPA’s information collection request.

The Administrator’s decision ignores these views and undermines stronger state-level partnership. This is the very same disregard for state efforts to reduce pollution that Administrator Pruitt demonstrated when, during his confirmation hearing, he conveyed reservations about California’s longstanding authority to adopt vehicle emissions standards to address the state’s unique air pollution problems. And, over the weekend, additional reports surfaced suggesting that the Administration was planning attacks on California’s authority, which could be initiated as soon as this week.

This concept of states’ rights as a one-way justification to erode clean air protections is both dangerous and inconsistent with the Clean Air Act’s framework.

The underminer

During his confirmation hearing, Administrator Pruitt committed to carrying out EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment using rigorous data.  Unfortunately, with one of his first actions, he chose to undermine both.

By Amanda Johnson

A new report confirms with greater accuracy than ever before that California natural gas utilities are letting huge amounts of their product escape into the atmosphere – about 6.6 billion cubic feet in 2015. That’s more than the amount of gas released during last year’s Aliso Canyon disaster, and over twice the total loss from all of the state’s oil and gas wells.

These huge gas losses are a major environmental problem. Methane – the main ingredient in natural gas – is a potent climate pollutant.  Leaks and other emissions from California utilities in 2015 have the same climate impact as burning more than 1 billion gallons of gasoline.

Where the data comes from and what it means

In 2014 California passed SB 1371, a new law requiring utilities to reduce methane emissions. This new report is based on emissions data collected under that law. 

The report estimates that about 78% of gas leaks occur at four kinds of sources: Customer meter sets; metering and regulating stations; ungraded leaks; and intentional venting.

This data also allows the state to track progress against newly-legislated methane reduction goals like the one included in SB 1383 which sets a target of 40% emissions reductions below 2013 levels.

Changing the way we pay for gas

While the accuracy of the data is better than ever before, the estimates are still conservative because they are based on emissions factors and leak estimates, rather than direct measurements. And the emissions are likely to go up before they go down. That’s because leak detection and quantification technology required under SB 1371 is better equipped at finding leaks – meaning utilities will start accounting for more leaks with each survey.

Based on an average wholesale market price of gas, these loses mean ratepayers are paying approximately $18 million every year for gas that is never delivered.

The issue of what to do about the value of lost gas – and the resulting incentives for additional leak reduction – will be an important conversation. SB 1371 asks the Commission to adjust the amount that utilities can charge customers based on actual leakage volumes, meaning the companies may no longer get paid for gas that leaks from their pipes before it’s delivered to the customer.

Two utilities, two different strategies for reducing gas leaks

While the report reveals troublingly high emissions we also know that California’s two largest gas utilities, PG&E and SoCalGas, are committing to new efforts to reduce methane pollution. Their public filings, however, point to markedly different strategies.

PG&E has already begun implementing most of the practices proposed by CPUC as part of SB 1371. These include modern mobile leak detection equipment, faster leak survey, and a reorganized leak repair processes to bundle and fix leaks faster and more efficiently.

In contrast, SoCalGas – the nation’s largest gas utility, and the company responsible for the Aliso Canyon gas leak – appears to be dragging its feet. The utility argues against the practices recommended by CPUC and embraced by PG&E and other leading utilities, arguing that they are ineffective at finding and helping reduce lost gas.

These differences in utility commitment to reducing emissions may be softened by providing the public with an accurate and transparent report of emissions. Utilities will be more inclined to ensure their actions actually reduce emissions if they are held accountable by the public.

How better transparency can improve emissions reductions efforts

SB 1371 requires the Commission to provide the public with accurate information about the number and severity of gas leaks. The report aggregated the data of all the utilities and storage facilities but did not specify utility-specific statistics. The companies posted some of the data publicly on their websites only after requests by EDF, even though public transparency is required under the law.

Obscuring the origin of emissions is inconsistent with other air pollution and climate change reporting requirements at California Air Resource Board or the EPA. Air pollution data is public, and California ratepayers have a right to see a transparent evaluation of their utilities emissions profile. In the future, the CPUC should show total emissions for individual utilities more clearly, including labeling their share of leaks and emissions in each category.

Only by portraying emissions from individual utilities, instead of industry-wide aggregated data, will transparency requirements be satisfied. Public accountability will also help to ensure utilities stay motivated and continue to reduce their emissions. The Commission should not shy away from showing ratepayers which utilities are achieving the most gains. Not only will these steps give the public and utility ratepayers transparent analysis, it will ensure the utilities know which emissions to prioritize.

Image source: Max Pixel

By Simi George

A new study, jointly conducted by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) – the entity responsible for overseeing much of California’s electric grid – First Solar, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), demonstrates the untapped potential of utility-scale solar. The study shows that utility-scale solar can provide key services needed to ensure electric grid stability and reliability – better known as ancillary services – at levels comparable to conventional, fossil fuel driven resources.

California needs to reduce reliance on natural gas for ancillary services

In CAISO’s market, ancillary services are overwhelmingly provided by natural gas-fired resources, and their share of the pie has been increasing in recent years.

This growing reliance on natural gas for ancillary services merits attention for many reasons.  

• The repercussions of the Aliso Canyon disaster underscore the need to mitigate the risk of overreliance on any one resource for electric reliability needs.

• There are significant environmental benefits to greater participation of clean energy resources in the provision of ancillary services. This is particularly relevant to California, given its ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals.

• Increased participation by clean energy resources in ancillary service markets can increase supply of these services, benefit end users via reduced production costs, and provide additional revenue streams to these resources. Allowing all resources capable of providing ancillary services to compete on an equal footing with conventional resources is a pre-requisite for a competitive market.

As renewables penetration increases, so will the need for ancillary services

The findings of the new CAISO- First Solar-NREL study have significant implications for the integration of all renewables (not just solar) on California’s grid. California’s renewable portfolio standard mandates that at least 50% of electric generation be driven by renewables by 2030. Given their inherent variability, as more renewables come online, grid operators will need additional ancillary services to ensure grid stability.

In particular, we are likely to see steep increases in ramping needs in the afternoon and evening hours, driven by mid-day solar generation. Solar generation in the middle of the day leads to a drop in net electricity demand, followed by a sharp increase in the afternoon/evening, as people come home from work and school, switch on their lights and appliances, and solar generation falls with the setting sun. This is reflected in the “duck curve” (see figure below) which underscores the need for flexible resources, that are capable of quickly responding to sudden fluctuations in renewable output.

Net Load on CAISO System (projected through 2020). Source: CAISO, “What the duck curve tells us about managing a green grid”, 2016

CAISO has an ancillary services scarcity pricing mechanism that is triggered when it is unable to procure the targeted quantity of one or more ancillary services. In 2015, CAISO experienced its first ancillary service scarcity event, signaling a mismatch between the demand and supply of ancillary services.

Next steps

To follow up on the study, CAISO plans to identify barriers to the provision of grid services by renewables and explore incentives to harness this potential. This is a welcome next step. Because of the unique characteristics of clean energy resources, there are challenges to their participation in ancillary services markets. What’s more, these markets were not designed keeping renewable resources in mind.

Studies such as the CAISO-NREL-First Solar joint study demonstrate that renewables can provide essential grid reliability services needed to support the transition to a cleaner grid. Now, the challenge is to develop the market design features that will allow California to harness these capabilities.

Image source: Ken Kistler

By David Lyon

In its draft 2017 GHG inventory, published this week, the EPA estimates methane emissions from the oil and gas industry were lower than their previous estimate in the 2016 inventory.

The vast majority of the decrease comes from methodological changes in how EPA does these estimates and does not represent actual reductions from improved industry practices. We expect to see fluctuation in EPA estimates in future inventories as the agency continues to revise their accounting methods; this inventory should be viewed as the final answer. But, to see the actual trend in emissions, you should compare 2015 emissions to their updated estimate of 2014 emissions, not the estimate from last year’s inventory. EPA estimates a mere 2% reduction in actual emissions, largely attributable to reduced drilling activity and well completions, which is a result of lower oil and gas prices in 2015. This points to the importance of recently enacted regulations, like the EPA NSPS and BLM rule, to drive the much greater reductions needed to minimize waste and the climate impacts of oil and gas.

What about super-emitters?

While the draft inventory represents progress in that EPA is continuing the process of incorporating new data such as the EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, much work remains to be done.  For example, the inventory still largely ignores “super-emitters,” which science has shown to be a major source of emissions. EPA has made an important step by including emissions from the Aliso Canyon blowout, but they exclude other transmission and storage super-emitters, which an EDF/CSU study found to account for almost a quarter of the T&S sector’s emissions. They also have started to account for production super-emitters by including estimates of emissions from stuck dump valves, but the underlying data for this source are flawed and likely greatly underestimate emissions. EPA’s current estimate of production super-emitters only account for 0.2% of production sector emissions.

In contrast, our recent paper in Nature Communications found that super-emitters account for one-third of well pad emissions in the Barnett Shale. Although the science supports some of EPA’s revisions that emissions from individual sources like processing plants have lower emissions than previously estimated, if they had fully accounted for super-emitters, those emissions would have more than offset the paper reductions reflected in the current draft. It is important to see the forest for the trees: emissions may be lower for some sources, but you’re not seeing the true magnitude of total emissions if you ignore the biggest emitters.

What’s next?

In order for EPA to continue their progress in updating the inventory, it is critical that they are allowed to rely on the best science without political interference. We must not be misled by interest groups who claim that the updated inventory is the final answer because it gives the false impression of a large emissions decrease. As a start, EPA should continue collecting data from the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program and Information Collection Request, assure the data is publicly available, and make scientifically supported changes to the GHGRP to increase the accuracy of reported emissions. EPA should also review existing and forthcoming studies that evaluate the contribution of super-emitters and determine the best approach for fully incorporating super-emitters into the inventory.

EPA is accepting comments on the draft inventory until March 17 and plans to release a final inventory by April 15.

By EDF Blogs

By Carol Andress, Director of Legislative Operations, Climate & Air

With legislation flying fast and furious through the Capitol – much of it using new or unusual legal mechanisms – lawmakers today must be doubly mindful of unintended consequences. Case in point: Actions rushed through the House and Senate under an obscure law called the Congressional Review Act (CRA), the details of which can cause deeper, more lasting impact than the simple name implies.

The CRA dates to the 1990s. It says that any rule finalized by a federal agency can be subject to an expedited congressional repeal for 60 legislative days after the agency sends up a copy of the final rule and a report detailing the reasons for its promulgation. Within that window, either chamber can introduce a joint resolution of disapproval – which, if passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the president, effectively voids the rule.

The law sounds simple enough. But it leaves a lot of room for error or mischief.

The CRA enjoys fast-track privileges, allowing a CRA bill to go straight to the floor without committee hearings. A so-called resolution of disapproval can be brought up at any time, with little or no notice. In the Senate, passage requires only a simple majority (51 votes). The measures are not subject to filibuster.

Until January, only one such resolution had ever been passed and signed into law, and the CRA has never been tested in court. But now there are at least 10 different CRA actions moving through the House and Senate. It’s worth a close look at what those measures would really do.

Hands Tied

If the President signs the joint resolution, the agency rule is voided. What’s more, that agency is forever barred from issuing any rule that is “substantially the same” as the as the one voted down. And therein lies the most serious problem.

Because this vague provision has never been clarified by the courts, agencies will almost certainly hesitate to undertake a new rule on the same topic, no matter how serious and well founded the action might be or regardless of new information (this is exactly what happened to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the only agency so far to have a rule disapproved through the CRA).

In short, CRA disapproval is a drastic and extreme legislative move that shouldn’t be undertaken lightly by either political party.

CRA Attack on BLM Waste Rule Defies Logic

Take for example the CRA resolution passed last week by the House of Representatives, which would roll back a Bureau of Land Management rule requiring oil and gas companies operating on millions of acres of federal and tribal land to take cost-effective, common-sense steps to reduce nearly 110 billion cubic feet of taxpayer-owned natural gas they currently waste each year through leaks, venting, or simply burning it off (called flaring).

That gas is worth an estimated $330 million dollars annually — more than $1.5 billion since 2013 — and is enough to supply every home in a city the size of Chicago for a year. Besides squandering a valuable energy resource, the waste generates air pollution affecting the health of millions of Americans.

BLM’s much-needed and long-overdue standards to address this problem took years to craft, and reflect input received in over 300,000 public comments.  Industry lobbyists have glibly suggested that a resolution of disapproval means that rule could somehow be sent back to the agency for a redo. But this is not how the CRA works. Lawmakers in that chamber need to understand this critical difference before they vote.

Waking Up to the Problem

The good news is lawmakers in both houses appear to be increasingly aware of the issues involved with the CRA. A resolution roll back the BLM rule passed the House on a vote of 221-191, with a record 11 Republicans voting no (and three Democrats voting yes).

The bill is could hit the Senate floor at any time. Before they vote, Senators should step back and understand that the CRA resolution offers up an axe in place of the scalpel that many are seeking, and weigh their decision accordingly. We need our lawmakers to stand up for their constituents – American taxpayers – to promote their interests over the needs of the oil and gas lobby.

This post originally appeared on the Climate 411 blog.

Image source: Flickr/k3nna

By Ramon Alvarez, Ph.D.

A new study from the U.S. Department of Energy adds to the large and growing body of research on the problem of methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. Methane is both the main component of natural gas and a powerful climate pollutant – which is why regulators, scientists, and industry all have a vested interest in developing a more complete understanding of how much methane is emitted and from which sources.

Researchers with the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) used a life cycle model to integrate data from several of EDF’s methane studies, and estimated that 7.3 million metric tons of methane were emitted along the natural gas supply chain in 2012. This value is about 10% higher than the corresponding estimate in the 2016 EPA Greenhouse Gas Inventory (GHGI), although the difference was not statistically significant (the NETL confidence interval ranged from -20% to +30% of the central estimate).

The NETL effort provides additional support for the methodological changes that EPA made in the 2016 GHGI that resulted in a 13% increase in estimated emissions from natural gas systems relative to the 2015 GHGI. While the new NETL and revised EPA estimates are reasonably similar, there are important differences in emissions from specific source categories.

The NETL study and 2016 EPA GHGI both show an outsized influence of pneumatic controllers and gathering compressor stations.  The NETL study also highlights “unassigned” emissions sources at production sites, which a recent paper attributes to unintended, unpredictable conditions that lead to large emissions – ‘super-emitters’.  Although EPA has discussed including super-emitters in the GHGI, the 2016 GHGI largely excludes these large sources.

What about emissions from gas-producing oil wells?   

The NETL study serves as a lower-bound estimate of methane emissions from the U.S. natural gas supply chain. If methane emissions from oil wells are also considered, methane emissions from the highly integrated oil and gas industry are certainly higher than those reported in the NETL study. The NETL study is not explicitly accounting for the higher proportional emissions from oil wells, which currently produce about 30-40% of total U.S. natural gas. We know from aircraft measurements of atmospheric methane enhancements in a diversity of geographies that basins with higher proportions of oil-to-gas production exhibit higher proportional methane leak rates. An additional limitation is the study’s exclusion of emissions from condensate tanks at natural gas production sites.  This exclusion arose as a result of life-cycle modeling conventions of applying emissions to specific sources like natural gas and oil, but still results in a quantitative underestimate of overall emissions from the integrated oil and gas supply chain.

What’s next

This is the first time that data from a subset of the studies coordinated by EDF have been integrated to produce a national estimate of the methane emissions from a large portion of the natural gas supply chain, but this study’s narrow focus on natural gas production wells means it does not provide a complete picture of overall methane emissions associated with the production and delivery of natural gas in the U.S. A synthesis that examines a more diverse and complete set of sources of methane emissions across the oil and gas industry is being conducted and the results should be out later this year. That effort will disaggregate emissions down to the basin and county scale in order to examine regional variability in emissions and to enable comparison to published top-down estimates.

Our understanding of oil and gas methane emissions will undoubtedly be strengthened as more scientific research unfolds, but there is one thing NETL’s study makes clear now. It underscores the urgent need to reduce the oil and gas industry’s methane problem, which at current levels, undercut the climate benefits natural gas may have over other fossil fuels.

Image source: Antandrus at English Wikipedia

By Dan Grossman

This post originally appeared on the EDF Voices blog.

Today, lawmakers are using the Congressional Review Act to dismantle common-sense energy policies that can save Americans hundreds of millions of dollars and prevent massive amounts of energy resources from being needlessly wasted.

The targeted policies from the Bureau of Land Management apply to oil and gas companies that operate on 245 million acres of federal and tribal lands. Since 2013, these operators have wasted more than $1.5 billion worth of natural gas that belongs to the American public, with millions in lost royalties as a result.

That comes to more than $1 million every day – hardly what President Trump had in mind when he promised to maximize our natural resources.

Trump also famously campaigned against the “rigged system.” But dismantling policies that prevent private companies from wasting American resources rigs the system in favor of industry and against taxpayers.

Which begs the question, why would Congress take an action that affects our economy and flies in the face of the Trump administration’s explicit goals?

“We’re wasting energy and that is troubling”

Oil and gas operations on public lands cost taxpayers $600 million between 2005 and 2015, according to one report.

Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana, President Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of the Interior, has called this waste “troubling.” But even more more troubling is the fact that his Republican colleagues in Congress are moving to jettison the BLM natural gas waste rule that would directly benefit their constituents.

Rolling back BLM’s standards will now cost taxpayers [PDF] an additional $800 million in lost royalties over the next decade –  money that would be welcome in many states across the West that today face budget shortfalls.

Methane rules have bipartisan support

Dismantling BLM’s policies run counter to the Trump administration’s own energy goals. According to the president’s energy plan, Trump plans to boost American energy production and to use the revenue to fund public infrastructure improvement projects.

BLM’s policies accomplish exactly this. It also explains why the policies have received bipartisan support from conservationists and fiscal conservatives, along with more than 80 percent of Westerners.

So who’s really against the BLM rules? Follow the money.

Oil lobby spent $118 million to fight rules

Last year, oil and gas companies reportedly spent $118 million lobbying against policies that protect the public from unintended consequences from energy development. In fact, the polluter lobby filed a lawsuit against BLM within 30 minutes of the policies being finalized, arguing that regulations are unnecessary as the industry is naturally incentivized not to waste product.

But the massive amount of gas currently being wasted tells a different story, not to mention the fact that the problem can easily be rectified given the affordable and proven technologies on the market today to stop this waste.

Some jurisdictions such as Colorado already require companies to address natural gas waste and operators there say these policies haven’t hurt their bottom line. They’ve also created new jobs: There are already 500 companies that develop, manufacture and sell methane control technologies in the U.S. today.

Using the Congressional Review Act to rescind BLM’s energy policies runs in direct opposition to the very ideals that Republican leaders claim to support. It’s a blunt, misplaced effort that undermines American taxpayers, threatens our energy security and causes irreparable damage to the environment.

By Irene Burga

This week, California’s Air Resource Board (ARB) released a strong and likely final draft of new regulations that will reduce methane pollution from new and existing oil and gas facilities across California.

Methane essentially is natural gas — wasting it is tantamount to wasting an energy resource. California producers report losing about 75,000 metric tons of methane every year, while nationally companies on publicly owned lands reportedly waste more than $1 million worth of natural gas every day. Alongside methane, oil and gas facilities also emit a list of toxic pollution like hydrogen sulfide, toluene, xylene, and benzene, all of which can be harmful to public health.

The new California rules mirror successful efforts in Colorado and Wyoming, where regulators understand that reducing methane emissions prevents resource waste, improves economic outcomes and reduces air pollution. Similarly, last year the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued federal standards for new oil and gas facilities based on those state policies, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wrote a similar policy for oil and gas companies operating on federal or tribal lands.

But now those federal rules are in the crosshairs. The House of Representatives will vote this week on a bill to roll back the BLM standards, which are designed to reduce an estimated $330 million worth of natural gas that is wasted on public lands each year through leaks, intentional venting, and flaring. A similar attempt on the EPA rules is expected.

The attack on federal standards makes state rules all the more critical to the safe oversight of oil and gas activity around the nation.

Take Action: Send a message to California and the nation that you support efforts to cut methane pollution.

National Rollbacks Undermine California’s Efforts to Protect Communities

While California is the nation’s third largest oil producer, it’s also a major energy consumer, importing more than half of the oil and 90% of the gas required to meet the state’s energy needs. Even though passing California’s rules will reduce regional pollution and prevent our resources from being wasted, federal back-peddling will mean the large volumes of oil and gas California imports will have a bigger environmental footprint, and this can have an adverse impact on some of our most vulnerable communities.

For example, recent reports find that the Latino communities that make up approximately 40% of California’s population are often more adversely impacted by the industry’s emissions, which can increase smog levels and thus increase the frequency and severity of respiratory diseases and asthma attacks.

Across the country nearly 1.8 million Latinos live within half a mile of an oil or gas facility, and higher poverty levels and relatively lower rates of health insurance mean the health threats from air pollution, translate into a bigger health burden on Latino communities.

National Standards Can Create a Safety Net for All Communities

California rules should provide a moment of relief and celebration for those concerned with improving air quality, and stopping the unnecessary waste of our energy. But the stakes could not be higher for the rest of our nation.

Across the U.S, the oil and gas industry emits more methane pollution than any other sector. If Congress succeeds with its rollback plans, states may be left with little option other than to regulate at their own behest, which could lead to disparities that don’t protect all Americans equally.

This is why institutions are mobilizing to educate Congressional leaders of the danger and shortsightedness of federal oil and gas rollbacks.  All communities deserve to be protected. By supporting CARB’s efforts, we can send a message to national leaders that communities here and across the country demand equal protections from this pollution.

Smart policies that reduce methane and other harmful oil and gas pollutants are exactly what California and the nation needs. Join EDF and thousands of others who are urging California and Congress to stand up for standards that ensure all American have access to a healthy economy and a healthy environment.

By Andrew Williams

Pennsylvania is the nation’s second largest producer of natural gas, yet the state’s gas industry is guilty of leaking massive quantities of methane – essentially the gas itself – into the atmosphere. Fortunately, the state’s Department of Environmental Protection is taking steps to ensure Pennsylvania is leading on energy, not on air pollution. Here are five reasons why state leaders are moving forward to address invisible, yet harmful, methane emissions.

1) It saves money. Pennsylvania companies report leaking approximately $20 million worth of natural gas into the atmosphere every year. Policies that reduce pollution can deliver more dollars to the local economy.

2) It saves energy. Methane is natural gas – the same energy source we use to power about 1/3 of our nation’s electricity. Conserving this gas helps conserve an important domestic energy resource.

3) It creates jobs. Many of the companies that focus on reducing emissions are based right here in Pennsylvania. By requiring more operators to use these tools and services, we can create more high quality jobs in the manufacturing, technology and service industries.

4) It improves health. Methane is often leaked with other types of harmful pollution that can worsen air quality and cause respiratory problems and lung disease.

5) It’s good for the climate. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas responsible for roughly 25% of current global warming – reducing it can help slow the record-breaking heat we have experienced over the last 3 years.

INFOGRAPHIC: Get a closer look at Pennsylvania's methane problem
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At a time when our nation’s clean air and water protections are under threat, it’s encouraging to see Pennsylvania leaders take real steps to move ahead with affordable, effective policies that can conserve energy, help the economy, and clean the air – proving that we don’t have to choose between a healthy economy and a healthy environment. We can have both.

By Tim O'Connor

As he settles into his final two years as California’s longest-serving Governor, Jerry Brown has limited time to finalize his energy and climate policy legacy. Meanwhile, with a new crop of state legislators and two new appointees at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), California has a fresh set of actors who will be actively questioning the way things are — and the way things should be.

While there are a lot of economic sectors that will be under the microscope for the next two years, for natural gas policy, these five key opportunities will likely have the most relevance.

1) Respond to the Aliso Canyon disaster with true reforms

As we’ve written previously, the disaster at Aliso Canyon revealed that the state is dangerously dependent on natural gas. We’ve also seen that gas and electric markets have been designed to stifle economic signals that would otherwise spur investment and development of alternatives to gas for meeting reliability needs. In fact, evidence suggests we are increasing our reliance on natural gas as a backstop, as the state increases its renewable energy output.

How the state responds to Aliso Canyon — whether true market reforms result, or whether the facility is bullet-proofed against future well failures and allowed to reopen without larger changes — will be a critical test for the state and the direction of natural gas policy. In 2017, the CPUC will have active proceedings on this issue – expect a wide variety of energy companies, from natural gas utilities to clean energy providers, to have a seat at the table.

2) Hold electric utilities accountable to procure alternatives to natural gas

As required by the landmark 2015 legislation SB 350 – a bill to move the state towards a 50% renewable portfolio standard –  the CPUC and regulated electric utilities must develop first-ever Integrated Resource Plans (IRPs) detailing how each utility will reliably meet customers’ needs while cutting carbon and growing clean energy.

This year, the CPUC will set the standards for how those IRP plans are to be written and the utilities will begin the task of planning their investment decisions and laying them out in their written plans. These plans, and the long-term investment trajectories laid out within them, will lay the foundation for the next decade of investments in clean energy and natural gas power plants.

Municipalities like San Diego and utilities like LADWP have begun to look at transitioning to a 100% renewable electric system, setting an ambitious high-water mark. Coupled with this, prominent lawmakers are also talking about whether California as a state can achieve a fully carbon-free energy system. However, no observer to the IRP process would expect any of the regulated utilities to come close to that. At the same time, it will be up to the CPUC to hold underperforming utilities accountable.

While gas and electric market reforms are a key part of the solution to bring more renewable energy sources into the mix, so too is ensuring that utilities plan and actually pursue investments in clean energy solutions. This is where the CPUC comes in. The agency, and its new commissioners must ensure the utility IRP’s are strong on clean energy tools like energy storage, demand response, and next generation renewableand don’t default — as they’ve done for years — to investments in large stationary natural gas power plants.

3) Tough standards to control methane leaks and enhance infrastructure integrity

In 2015, California started separate rulemakings at CARB and the CPUC to require reductions of methane pollution, the primary component of natural gas, from the state’s vast oil and gas infrastructure. In 2016, the state’s oil and gas agency (DOGGR) also started rulemakings to improve the integrity of oil and gas wells, thus preventing infrastructure failures that can result in water and air pollution.

These rules are scheduled for adoption in 2017 (CARB) and 2018 (CPUC and DOGGR) and will mandate that oil and gas producers, and natural gas utilities, do a better job finding and fixing leaks, while also implementing new standards to prevent leaks from occurring in the first place.

These updates are nothing if not sensible, but oil and gas producers and some natural gas utilities have already pushed back hard. Agency responses to sky-is-falling or misleading arguments will be key to protecting families and the environment going forward. The environmental and public health community, as well as the collection of businesses engaged in methane mitigation and well integrity, must make their voices heard so agencies hear the massive support for protective oil and gas regulations.

4) Get serious on agricultural and waste emissions

While oil and gas infrastructure represents the largest source of methane pollution in the United States, agricultural and waste sectors are also major sources. However, by capturing and using these emissions, they can also have an impact on decarbonizing the natural gas system, too.

As detailed in several analyses and a CARB-written Short Lived Climate Pollutant Plan (as required by a 2016 bill SB 1383), a massive investment of private and public capital is being planned for technology necessary to delivering clean biogas (also called renewable natural gas)  into the energy system.

Since California uses so much natural gas (for power generation, heating and cooling, transportation fuel, etc.) there won’t be enough biogas production to replace all, or even half of it. However, if done correctly, investments in biogas technology can reduce methane while also creating construction and operation jobs that are essential to revitalizing California’s economy – particularly in more rural, economically depressed regions.

How CARB gives guidance and directs investment into biogas facilities will be key to the state’s overall effort, but whatever happens, investments must be undertaken with close coordination between scientists, local communities and long-term infrastructure planners to prevent unwanted side effects.

5) Extend the state’s cap-and-trade program and Low Carbon Fuel Standard

California has been a leader in establishing long-term market signals for investment and innovation that have already yielded carbon reductions and diversification of our transportation fuel system. In addition, the California legislature and CARB have already begun the process of laying out the future of the state’s marquee cap-and-trade program, and discussions are under way about extending the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS).

Both programs establish a price on pollution, and both affect natural gas emissions. Cap-and-trade requires the surrender of emissions allowances for the combustion of natural gas in power plants, homes, businesses and vehicles; creating an incentive to use carbon free sources of energy to accomplish the same output. The LCFS, on the other hand, focuses on transportation sector emissions and requires the use of low carbon fuels across the state’s transportation system – creating incentives to switch away from gasoline and diesel toward fuels like natural gas and renewable natural gas.

By extending the state’s cap-and-trade program, California will ensure the climate pollution is not emitted without a price, creating lasting market signals to invest and deploy lower carbon resources across the energy system. Extending the LCFS will drive increasing investments in alternative fuel and vehicle technology capable of displacing gasoline and diesel fuels thereby cutting carbon from the most polluting sector of the California economy. Negotiations over both programs are expected in the state legislature this year and can have dramatic consequences for years to come.

While the landscape over the next two years will undoubtedly include several other initiatives that will affect the future of natural gas in California, these five are likely to have the largest impact. How the state moves forward on its commitment to protecting the environment by changing the status quo, will have profound impact on its ability to combat climate change and protect the public health.

By Tim O'Connor

After months of speculation, the California agency in charge of setting standards for oil and gas operations (“DOGGR”) this week announced a pair of meetings to take public comment on the reopening of the Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage Facility.

This development stems from legislation passed in 2016 (SB 380), and is expected to be among the final steps before Southern California Gas Corporation (SoCalGas) is allowed to restart limited use of the facility. So, while it’s critical for the state to get its decisions right for safety and near-term electric reliability related to Aliso, to fully comply with SB 380, the decisions being made also need to take into account the larger issues facing California today.

Don’t compromise on public health and safety

Multiple state policies – including SB 380, Governor Brown’s Aliso Canyon executive order, and upcoming DOGGR regulations — carry mandates to prevent gas storage facilities from posing a public danger and repeating the massive four-month health and safety crisis that occurred between late 2015 and early 2016.

In parallel with those efforts, throughout 2016 DOGGR carried out a lengthy process involving numerous state agencies, experts from the national labs and oil and gas industry, and public input to create a comprehensive well inspection and facility reopening protocol. This protocol  requires all 114 wells on the Aliso Canyon site to either be fully tested and/or retrofitted, or be taken out of operation (results of all tests are available on the DOGGR webpage).

DOGGR and the state’s Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) also ordered a full root cause analysis to be performed – something that commonly follows major accidents and releases. But now SoCalGas is petitioning DOGGR  to allow for reinjection into Aliso Canyon before this analysis is fully completed.

Since that root cause analysis may yield important information on what went wrong and what health and safety protections the field should be subjected to going forward, it would be prudent for any decision DOGGR makes allowing reinjection into the facility to act only on a temporary basis until both the final analysis and permanent gas storage safety regulations are complete.

Southern California must also focus on long-term energy reliability and climate goals

In addition to protecting public safety, SB 380 signaled a preference for “minimizing or eliminating use of” the facility so long as the region can maintain energy and electric reliability and affordability of energy service. Therefore, if DOGGR determines that Aliso Canyon should reopen because it does not pose a safety risk, it should therefore only do so on a limited basis because this decision involves much more than near-term safety.

There is no denying that Aliso Canyon highlighted California’s heavy reliance on natural gas for electric reliability, even if there is an active conversation on “how” reliant the region actually is on this particular facility. Case in point: Since the facility was taken offline, state agencies have developed two action plans to reduce the risk of energy outages, and SoCalGas issued an official advisory warning of potential energy shortages in December.

But even if the reliability plans have alleviated some of the short term risk associated with limited gas availability from Aliso, they don’t address the long-term needs of the region: changing the overall direction away from dependence of natural gas for reliability purposes, or meeting energy and environmental policy goals for integration of renewables while also reducing greenhouse gases.

One key example of the need to focus on climate and reliability goals in the context of Aliso Canyon is the most recent Integrated Resource Plan for Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). While the utility is currently on the path to achieve 50% renewable energy by 2030, it also forecasts a 30-40% jump in natural gas use for power generation in 2025. As stated by LADWP, this jump in gas use is due to the need to build and operate new natural gas power plants (as old ones are taken offline) to balance the increasing volumes of renewable energy on the system.

LADWP Integrated Resource Plan Natural Gas Use Projections based on different renewable penetration %

What the gas demand forecast in LADWP exemplifies is that under the current system, natural gas power plants will be needed as utilities pursue higher renewable energy targets. This is because gas and electric markets have been designed to prevent economic signals which incent the widespread investment and development of alternatives to gas for meeting reliability needs. This doesn’t mean the region should just maintain facilities like Aliso, but rather needs to shift towards a system with more diverse energy sources and fair market opportunities for cost-effective clean resources. (Notably, with the passage of a new resolution in Los Angeles to study a pathway towards 100% renewable energy and away from gas dependence, the city seems to understand the task before it.) After all, since combustion of natural gas releases greenhouse gases, this projected jump in gas use undermines the progress of the utility, which has cut overall greenhouse gas emissions by 23% since 1990.

Heavy Reliance on Natural Gas is a Statewide Issue Too

What LADWP’s gas forecast demonstrates is that bulletproofing Aliso Canyon from future well failures won’t remedy the fundamental problem of heavy reliance on natural gas for balancing the electric system. However, looking at the Aliso Canyon situation in the larger context, it’s easy to see this isn’t just a Southern California problem.

A piece of evidence that highlights the state’s heavy reliance on natural gas for balancing the electric system can be seen deeply embedded on page 145 of a report issued by California’s grid operator (CAISO) in 2015. On it, CAISO shows that nearly 98% of the energy availability from sources sitting in non-spinning stand-by mode in 2015 (power generators that sit in the off position but which are able to be turned on quickly) were natural gas power plants – with negligible contributions from alternatives.

What the CAISO graph shows is that natural gas is a key part of managing the current power system in California, and will continue to be so as the state ramps up renewable energy generation in the years to come.

Post Aliso Canyon: the CPUC, CAISO and other state agencies have launched new efforts to study  natural gas storage. They have also started  to study and create new market opportunities for alternatives to gas, and have started evaluating  how the energy system reliability value that gas provides can be met with alternatives. However, with over a year since the state’s largest gas leak shed light on a much larger problem, a lot of open questions remain unanswered. An important solution to this will be the conclusion of ongoing and new public rulemaking proceedings at the CPUC – however EDF will write about that topic in the future.

What’s next?

In complying with SB 380, DOGGR, the CPUC and the state must recognize that even if the Aliso Canyon facility has satisfied initial inspection requirements, the disaster set in motion numerous actions that evaluate the use of natural gas storage in California and the needed integration of other resources. As a result, to comply with the preference for minimizing or eliminating use of Aliso Canyon going forward, any decision to reopen the facility should only be temporary and California must work diligently to alleviate the state’s heavy reliance on natural gas. See EDF’s letter to DOGGR and the CPUC on this topic.

By Daniel Zavala-Araiza

As part of our landmark 16-study series and ongoing work in measuring methane emissions, we previously published a paper that compared and reconciled top-down (airborne-based measurements ) with bottom-up (emissions inventory, using ground-based measurements) emissions.

This paper found that 1% of natural gas production sites accounted for 44% of total emissions from all sites, or 10% of sites 80% of emissions; emission estimates were based on facility-wide (site-based) measurements. Sites or equipment that produce disproportionate shares of total emissions are often called “super-emitters”. A big question that remained was what caused some sites to become a super-emitter; this remained a “black box” without additional knowledge about which components or operational conditions within a site could trigger the high-emissions.

In a paper published today in Nature Communications, we zero-in or “open the black boxes” to understand and characterize super-emitters. We look at the emissions from all the equipment and operations present at production sites, and ask which ones could produce emissions at a magnitude and frequency indicative of the expected super-emitting behavior.

Crucially, this new paper compares site-based emission estimates to component-by-component aggregations of sources of emissions from production sites. We find that this new component-based emissions estimate is significantly lower (one third) than the site-based estimate previously reported in the Barnett synthesis study (where this site-based estimate agreed with the flyover estimate).

It’s important to note that while the study took place in the Barnett because of the rich data sets available, this behavior is expected across the US (and even internationally).

By examining this discrepancy, here are three things we learned about methane waste:

1. Component-based estimates do not explain enough high-emitting sites. From this we learn that some components or activities at production sites are causing wasteful emissions that are not accounted for in current emission inventories. The insufficient contribution from the components or operations that can produce high emission rates when operating “as designed” is indicative of the existence of abnormal process conditions (such as malfunctions or equipment issues) that create pathways for substantial unintended emissions of produced gas.
2. Routine operating conditions do not explain high-emitting sites. We can now hypothesize that not only is gas escaping, but when and from which sites is constantly changing.
3. And frequent, or continuous, site-level monitoring is required to help us find and reduce waste from super-emitters.

Further Discussion

Because our new work tells us that super-emitter sites are characterized by abnormal behavior that is unlikely to persist indefinitely, we expect that different sites will be in the high-emitting group at different points in time. Industry claims that most super-emitters are sites with liquid unloadings or tank flashing, but these routine operating conditions do not explain the number of high emitting sites at any moment in time. Our new work tells us that these emissions are coming from unintended malfunctions throughout natural gas development and production.

Additionally, the EPA’s Inventory, which is based on component-level emissions data, is significantly lower than actual methane emissions, due to the omission of super-emitter data from production sites.

Specific sites could be affected by abnormal conditions resulting in their being a super-emitting site at varying points in time. As a consequence, rather than looking to control emissions from a few sites, minimizing emissions requires monitoring approaches that enable efficient and timely responses to the unpredictable nature of when and where a super-emitter will be located.

Current standards for intermittent methane leak detection and repair will continue to miss many of these super-emitting sites. We must have an effective program to continuously monitor for methane waste.

By EDF Blogs

By Joe Rudek and Jason Mathers

Many commercial fleet operators have considered switching their fleet vehicles from diesel to natural gas to take advantage of the growing abundance of natural gas and reduced emissions. Natural gas trucks have the potential to reduce nitrogen oxides emissions (NOx) from freight trucks and buses.

Yet, adopting the emission reduction technologies and practices needed to curb the methane escaping during the production, transport and delivery of natural gas is critical to unlock the full environmental potential of these vehicles. Methane, the main component of natural gas, is a potent greenhouse gas released to the atmosphere at every step from production wells to the vehicle fuel tanks. Even small amounts of methane emitted across the natural gas supply chain can undermine the climate benefit of fuel-switching vehicles to natural gas for some period of time, as EDF research has shown.

A newly published scientific study, led by researchers with West Virginia University at the Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emissions, measured methane emissions from heavy-duty natural gas-powered vehicles and refueling stations, and is greatly expanding what we know about emissions from natural gas-fueled vehicles. The study is the first project in EDF’s coordinated methane research series to analyze where and by how much methane emissions occur during natural gas end uses.

The WVU study found that emissions from the vehicle tailpipe and engine crankcase were the highest methane sources, representing roughly 30 and 39% (respectively) of total pump to wheels (PTW) emissions. Fortunately, engines with closed crankcases have recently been certified by EPA, avoiding the single largest source of methane emissions from these vehicles.

Fueling station methane emissions were reported to be relatively low, representing about 12% of total PTW emissions. WVU researchers based the fueling station emission estimates on the assumption that liquefied natural gas (LNG) stations have sufficient sales volume to effectively manage boil off gases, or the fuel lost as vapors when the LNG heats above its boiling point. Without alternative methods to manage boil off gas, low sales volume risks large methane releases.

Eleven industry groups participated in the WVU study – The American Gas Association, Chart, Clean Energy, Cummins, Cummins Westport, International Council on Clean Transportation, PepsiCo, Shell, Volvo Group, Waste Management, and Westport Innovations – and provided researchers with important insights. Their active involvement and determination to go where the science led them in reducing truck methane emissions greatly strengthened the study.

Measurements from the WVU study are helping to further our understanding of the climate impact of natural gas vehicles. This paper, along with other analyses, provides both industry and policymakers new insights to target technology improvements, and identify best practices for minimizing emissions. But pairing vehicle data with lifecycle emissions of methane across the entire supply chain remains essential to fully assess how natural gas trucks perform, from a climate perspective, relative to diesel trucks.

While only about 3 percent of heavy duty trucks run on natural gas today, some analysts suggest their market share could reach as high as 50 percent over the next two decades if high oil and diesel prices return. Meanwhile, investments in natural gas-powered utility vehicles and transit buses are growing, with 11 percent of such vehicles already running on natural gas.

As interest in natural gas vehicles grows, the time to get ahead of this methane supply chain leakage problem is now, before the industry hits a major growth spurt. Reducing methane leaks upstream of the vehicles themselves will be a key determinate in whether a shift in fuels will result in a positive or negative benefit for the climate.

Image source: Flickr/TruckPR