By Colin Leyden

In new footage captured just weeks ago, an ominous cloud of what looks like black smoke seeps from a pump jack deep in the heart of a Texas oil field. But there are no fire trucks rushing to the scene. No first responders in hazmat suits scrambling to uncover the source of this relentless dark cloud. This is because that black smoke depicted is actually methane, an invisible but dangerous climate pollutant.

If this scene looks familiar, it’s because not long ago, footage of a major methane gas leak in Southern California also made international headlines. That leak has since been plugged, but as the new infrared footage released today reveals, every single day methane continues to leak in massive quantities from oil and gas facilities across the country and here in Texas.

This is a big problem — methane is responsible for about a quarter of today’s global warming, a statistic that’s hard to ignore coming off the hottest year on record. Not only that, methane escapes with other harmful pollutants that impact health and air quality. It doesn’t take a doctor to understand that the more harmful pollutants we pump into the atmosphere, the more we increase our chances of developing health problems. And, methane pollution, at its core, is wasted energy. Because natural gas essentially is methane, pumping it or burning it into the air is no different than throwing money away.

An Everyday Problem

The Southern California gas leak produced nearly 100,000 tons of methane pollution. Each year, Texas producers report leaking nearly 10 times that amount, and EPA estimates oil and gas infrastructure across the country produces nearly 100 times more.

The latest data from the Environmental Protection agency estimates that, nationwide, industry’s methane emissions are nearly 30 percent higher than previously thought. And even that’s likely to be a significant underestimate — especially in Texas where a recent study found methane levels may be up to 90 percent higher than EPA estimates in some places.

What makes this particularly egregious is that methane emissions are a problem with a relatively straightforward solution. A recent analysis found that low-cost technology already exists to help companies reduce 40 percent of their emissions or more. Further, a number of recent scientific studies have revealed that a significant portion of methane emissions can be attributed to what scientists refer to as “super emitters” – a random assortment of polluters that, sometimes because of mechanical failure, sometimes because of user error, can send vast quantities of methane into the atmosphere. The Southern California gas leak was an extreme example of a super emitter, but as the footage indicates, thousands of others still exist. Regularly checking oil and gas infrastructure for these super emitters would allow us to make huge strides in addressing the problem nationally.

A Plan for Action

Fortunately, the United States is poised to act. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed regulations to address methane pollution from all new oil and gas infrastructure. This is certainly a step in the right direction.  But these regulations do not address existing facilities, the hundreds of thousands of oil and gas wells across Texas and the country that are spewing massive amounts of pollution right now.

That may be about to change.

Earlier this month, the Obama administration announced it would expand on the currently proposed regulations and tackle emissions from the vast expanse of existing oil and gas infrastructure. This is a big win for air quality. A number of scientific studies, including a 2013 study by researchers at the University of Texas, found that regulations play an important role in driving methane reductions. Regulating existing sources of methane pollution will be critical if the United States is to reach its goal of reducing 40 to 45 percent of methane emissions over the next decade.

Other energy producing states have acknowledged the crucial role that regulations play in reducing harmful emissions from the oil and gas industry. But unlike those states, Texas regulators chose to sit on their hands. If a picture is worth a thousand words, these new images of methane pollution unfurling across the Texas landscape should be all the proof that Texans need to support regulatory action to cut methane.

 

 

 

By Tim O'Connor

Methane leaking from pipes before natural gas is delivered to customers can have a large, harmful impact on the climate.  This idea was first brought to light in a major scientific paper published in 2012, and supported by numerous papers since.  For California, a climate leader, and a state that consumes 10 percent of the nation’s natural gas supply – this leakage epiphany was and continues to be a very big deal.

Last week, after years of science, politics, and policy deliberations, the state took one of its boldest steps yet in the quest to cut methane escaping from its vast network of aging pipes underneath city streets – a move that should result in a new direction for California, and likely for utilities across the nation.

That move, taking the form of a 28-page report and staff recommendations from California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) as part of the implementation of a 2014 law (SB 1371), proposes to require utilities in California to use specific best practices to find, fix, and prevent leaks from the natural gas distribution system.

Bringing local gas utilities to the 21st century

These recommendations, if adopted and implemented, would make huge strides in improving how California’s utilities and storage providers manage natural gas. It would also bring all of these companies up to modern standards, instead of having only some companies taking leading positions.

Utilities are already required to report how many leaks they have on their systems, and tell lawmakers how they spend the money they receive to upgrade and fix pipes. However, with this report and recommendations the CPUC is proposing to change the business as usual culture and overall operating practices – something utility commissions in other states will likely take note of.

For example, it recently came to light that when utilities find a leak, if the leak doesn’t present an immediate public safety concern (read fire or explosion) there is no requirement to fix the leak.  As a result, utilities routinely track thousands of leaks, some that are quite large, for decades at a time, stopping short of repairing the leaks when fixes are often easy and cost-effective.

Now the CPUC is proposing a sensible tectonic shift in this policy: when you find a leak, you fix it. Additionally, utilities will have until October 1, 2018 to eliminate much of their backlogs of unrepaired leaks.

Adopting sensors and other best practices

Another major change involves leak detection and public awareness, something EDF has been doing in partnership with Colorado State University using Google street view cars outfitted with vehicle mounted methane sensors.

Although PG&E has been engaging in a major deployment of vehicle mounted methane sensors with unquestioned success – SoCalGas, the utility in Southern California responsible for the Aliso Canyon leak, has resisted using similar technology. Similarly, although SoCalGas and SDG&E have on-line maps of the leaks they find, PG&E has yet to do the same.

Now, the CPUC is proposing to require all utilities to engage in the best proven practices – like mobile mounted methane sensors and online leak maps – as opposed to letting utilities pick and choose their own without rigorous oversite. Additionally, utilities may be required to conduct leak surveys of gas systems every three years instead of every five years; install new stationary methane detection devices at certain sites; and list how many leaks they have by zip code or other metric, as opposed to system wide.

Changing company culture to take methane seriously

Like building a house, individual components are only as effective as the sturdiness of the foundation.  For this reason, the CPUC recommendation is proposing to require changes to company policies that establish the basic framing of methane leaks and the importance of prevention.

Specifically, if adopted, companies will be required to state that methane is a potent greenhouse gas that must be prevented from escaping to the atmosphere, that non-emergency venting to the atmosphere is only permitted after significant specified  steps are taken, and that worker training programs on why it is important to reduce and/or eliminate methane emissions are required.

Taken together with inspection, maintenance and repair provisions, it appears the CPUC is shooting for a full overhaul of the utility leak practices for climate purposes – in addition to safety.

A giant step

While last week’s announcement is a sign of major progress for cleaner air and safer communities, there is more work to do to further strengthen and defend the state’s response to methane leaks. For example, while these recommendations state that leaks above a certain size must be repaired, they do not explicitly require utilities to fix their largest leaks first – another common sense provision. That’s why we will continue to support these recommendations and argue for stronger and clearer rules throughout the remainder of the rulemaking period.

About two weeks ago, 3,177 people sent a letter to the President of the CPUC urging him to ensure the agency adopted strong mandatory standards to control methane pollution. With last week’s release, these 3,177 people, can be sure their voices and concerns are heard.  Now, the staff recommendations must be put into action to fulfill the promise of SB 1371 to protect the environment and public health for all Californians, and set a model for reshaping the national conversation on responsible leak management.

By Mark Brownstein

When the White House confirmed plans to limit methane pollution from the oil and gas sector — not just from new or heavily modified facilities, but thousands of existing wells, pipelines and other facilities that are currently emitting at least 9.3 million metric tons of the invisible heat-trapping gas each year — industry responded with the usual complaints about back-breaking costs.

Unlike recent years, those objections come with a twist: The widespread (and very real) challenges in an oil and gas sector struggling with a global supply glut and sharply lower prices, both enabled by the same unconventional production technologies that fueled the boom in the first place. We simply shouldn’t impose new regulations in a down market, the industry says.

To be clear: There’s no disputing these are tough times for oil and gas. Hard working Americans have lost good jobs by the tens of thousands. Communities are suffering. It’s a cycle familiar to anyone who’s been around the industry, even if that doesn't make it any easier on people living through it now.

However real they may be, however, these market conditions aren’t a good reason for cutting corners on emissions. The underlying problem – air and climate pollution – remains costly and dangerous, regardless of the day’s NYMEX numbers. We also know that prices won’t stay low forever; indeed, there are already beginning signs of a rebound.

And don’t forget that industry also opposed methane emissions standards when prices were high, too.

No matter where we are in the boom-and-bust cycle that has characterized the industry since its inception, the oil and gas sector remains the largest industrial source of methane emissions in the U.S.  And reducing these emissions is still the biggest, most cost-effective opportunity we have to make fast, meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas pollution.

Bang for the Buck

The math is pretty simple. Methane packs 84 times the warming power of carbon dioxide for the first 20 years it is in the atmosphere. It accounts for one quarter of the human-caused warming we are currently experiencing. Moreover, methane often comes with other noxious or toxic emissions that have a big impact on neighboring communities.

Cost-effective solutions are available right now. Many are as basic as monitoring facilities regularly, and quickly fixing leaks or other malfunctions. Studies show that existing technology can cut methane leaks at least 40% at an average cost of around a penny per thousand cubic feet of gas produced – still about one-half of 1% of today’s natural gas price, even though commodity prices have fallen since the initial study.

And this isn’t just for big companies. An analysis by the Bureau of Land Management looking at the potential effects of rules to reduce emissions from new and existing methane sources pollution on small producers found that on average, compliance costs would reduce profit margins of small operators by an average of one-tenth of one percent.

Industry Itself Underscores the Point

The oil and gas industry’s own contradictory arguments against methane regulations underscore the point. At the same time they argue that it’s too burdensome to reduce emissions, they also say they’re already diligently addressing the problem, and that solving it is so simple they can do it on a purely voluntary basis. (We agree the solutions are straightforward and sensible, but don’t believe a voluntary path gets the results we need.)

The handful of leading companies that have taken steps to reduce methane know just how successful methane reduction efforts can be. Since implementing reduction technologies, operator Jonah Energy has reduced fugitive emissions by 75% and cut repair time by 85%, ultimately saving more than $5 million in what otherwise would have been wasted product.

Urgent Need, Powerful Payoff

Let’s not forget why all this matters. Last month set the new mark not only for hottest February on record, but also for the biggest margin over an old record. In other words, the warming train is gathering steam. That’s a very big deal, and its evidence of why it’s so important that we start reducing powerful, fast-acting pollutants like methane, even as the long term efforts to reduce carbon dioxide continue.

At global scale, stopping 45% of methane leakage would help the climate over the next 20 years as much as shutting down one-third of the world’s coal-fired power plants. So don’t let anybody minimize this opportunity as a trivial matter.

Methane is both a local and national problem, requiring robust detection and repair of leaks. Achieving this it isn’t hard or costly, but it does require commitment from both the state and federal levels.  The Obama administration should use its final year to make sure we get it right.

Image Source: Flickr User Tod Baker

By Mark Brownstein

Last week, the industry-sponsored Energy In Depth (EID) launched a critique of an analysis by ICF International showing that oil and gas companies can achieve major reductions in their methane emissions at relatively modest cost relative to the price of the natural gas they’re selling. In particular, EID emphasizes that natural gas prices have fallen substantially since the study was done, undercutting the result.

It’s true that natural gas prices have dropped, but the basic conclusion of the study still stands. While commodity prices fluctuate, the fundamental rationale for action hasn’t changed. In fact, over the same timeframe, EPA and other estimates of industry emissions have increased dramatically.

The bottom line is that reducing oil and gas methane emissions remains one of the biggest, most cost-effective opportunities we have for addressing climate change. Here’s why:

• Substituting what EID calls a “more realistic” price of three dollars per thousand cubic feet of natural gas (McF for short) for the four dollars used in the ICF report, a 40% reduction in methane emissions results in an average net cost that is still less than a penny per McF of natural gas produced.

• In fact, according to ICF, even at $2/McF, where prices hover today, the cost of emissions reduction per McF produced is just over one penny (about one and one-third cents, to be exact).

• EID also misreads (or misstates) the ICF calculations, incorrectly suggesting that capital costs are in addition to the net costs documented in the report (they’re not).

• EID also fails to note that ICF’s report projected prices for 2018, making its critiques of ICF’s price numbers two years premature. Indeed the current NYMEX forward curve pegs the Henry Hub gas price at roughly $3/McF, which as EID concedes is a case contemplated in the ICF report.

EID also continues to argue that oil and gas industry methane emissions have fallen, despite the fact that emissions are rising across key segments of the natural gas supply chain. Indeed, the most recent EPA estimates indicate oil and gas industry methane emissions overall are actually 27 percent higher than earlier calculations had indicated.

EID might not like EPA’s numbers, but that’s what they say (and the agency has been more than transparent in how they’re calculated). EDF believes the real number is probably higher still, based on reams of real methane measurements in the field.

Finally, EID and others like to point out that other sources besides the oil and gas industry – livestock, for example – also emit lots of methane. Nobody is disputing that point. But it doesn’t change the fact that oil and gas operations in this country emit at least 9.3 million metric tons of methane a year, equal to the carbon pollution of 200 coal fired power plants over twenty years. And that’s way too much.

Image Source: Google Images

By Jon Goldstein

What do Farmington, NM, Oklahoma City, Lakewood, CO and Dickinson, ND have in common? These cities are in the heart of oil and gas country, and – most importantly – were locations in which the BLM heard overwhelming support for strong efforts to reduce wasteful venting, flaring and leaks from the oil and gas industry at a series of public meetings in recent weeks.

Methane is a potent climate pollutant and the main constituent of natural gas, so when oil and gas companies on public land allow methane to be leaked, burned or vented to the atmosphere, it not only impacts air quality and our climate, it also represents an economic loss to taxpayers.

Individually at each hearing, and collectively across all four, voices supporting strong BLM methane waste and pollution rules far outweighed the opposition. In the final tally, supportive statements outnumbered negative ones by more than three-to-one. This fits with recent polling that found that a bipartisan majority (fully 80 percent) of Westerners support commonsense rules to cut oil and gas waste on BLM managed lands.

To put this in political terms during this  primary season, strong BLM action won the West by a landslide.

And like a winning candidate, BLM now has a strong mandate to strengthen and finalize their rule without delay. More delays, such as the two, three or even six month extensions some in industry requested at the hearings will only lead to more waste of taxpayer and tribal revenue.

In this case, time really is money. For instance, a three month delay will mean another $82.5 million dollars of our natural gas would be wasted from venting, flaring and leaks on federal and tribal lands according to a recent report.

BLM doesn’t collect royalty payments on natural gas that escapes to the atmosphere before being sold; therefore local communities lose out on funding that could have gone to improve schools, roads and other needed infrastructure. In fact, according to a recent report, taxpayers could lose out on $800 million over the next decade as a result of the wasteful venting and flaring of natural gas.

This was a point that BLM heard loud and clear at their Lakewood, CO hearing on Super Tuesday last week.

“The BLM proposal is a step in the right direction to make sure that our nation’s public natural gas resources located within taxpayer-owned federal lands are not being wasted. Every year oil and gas companies waste hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of natural gas through unchecked leaks and the careless practice of venting and flaring,” Maite Arce, president of the Hispanic Access Foundation, said in a statement to the BLM panel in Colorado.

Clean air issues were also raised in the Colorado hearing by Linda Johnson, a Board Member of Breath Utah, who travelled all the way from the Salt Lake City to testify.

“The final form of the BLM rule is out for comment. We think it’s very good for people in the Uinta Basin, and everywhere oil and gas mining happens. It could be even stronger. To capture every bit of wasted gas, there could be more frequent leak detection and other inspections, but it’s an important step in the right direction. Breathe Utah thinks it’s a very good, very necessary rule, that closes a lot of gaps — regulatory gaps and literal leaky gaps.”

Meanwhile a similar set of robust, diverse voices spoke up in the BLM hearing Dickinson, ND last Thursday.

“This rule is an important step towards ensuring that taxpayers and owners receive fair compensation for all resources extracted from BLM land,” — Ryan Alexander, the president of national budget watchdog organization Taxpayers for Common Sense, told the BLM in North Dakota.

Tribal communities also weighed in, a crucial constituency for a rule designed to reduce waste and pollution on both federal and tribal lands.

“I want BLM to know that tribal mineral owners like myself value safe and clean air on Fort Berthold Indian Reservation,” said Theodora Bird Bear, a tribal member of the Three Affiliated Tribes in North Dakota.

Next Up

BLM’s proposal is a strong step toward better management of our energy resources. But there’s room for improvement especially to provisions that could and should require oil and gas companies to inspect sites for methane leaks on at least a quarterly basis as leading states require.

Join us in getting the strongest possible BLM methane rule across the finish line by filing comments before the BLM deadline on April 8.

By Drew Nelson

It was a big week in Canada-US relations. For the first time in 19 years, the White House hosted the Canadian Prime Minister for a state dinner. And for good measure, President Obama and Prime Minister Trudeau announced a renewed collaboration to combat climate change starting with methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases.

Under the pact, the United States and Canada committed to reduce oil and gas methane gas emissions by 40-45 percent below 2012 levels by 2025. Both countries also said the goal would be met by developing regulations for existing sources as well as new ones – a crucial concern – and challenged other countries to adopt similarly aggressive oil and gas methane goals.

This new level of cooperation will deliver significant progress for both Canada and the United States toward achieving their emissions reduction commitments set at the Paris climate talks held this past December.

A Big Climate Opportunity

Curbing methane pollution from the oil and gas industry represents the largest untapped opportunity to quickly slow global climate change because of both methane’s potency, and because we can cost-effectively reduce these harmful emissions using existing technologies.

We know that we must control and reduce carbon dioxide because it is the pollutant that ultimately impacts the total amount of warming our planet will experience over time. However, we also know that methane’s warming power is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over the first 20 years it sits in the atmosphere, and that methane accounts for 25% of the warming we feel today.

That means that cutting oil and gas methane is one of the biggest, cheapest and quickest ways to make real progress on climate change right now.

North America Key to Progress

In yesterday’s announcement the two leaders “invite[d] other countries to join the target or develop their own methane reduction goal,” highlighting that the opportunity to reduce methane emissions expands beyond the United States and Canada.

For starters, we would hope that the new Canada-U.S. collaboration will inspire comparable action by Mexico to reduce oil and gas methane emissions and potentially build a platform for future North American climate cooperation.

The U.S., Canada and Mexico are three of the top five global industrial methane emitters. All three countries also highlighted oil and gas methane emissions in their Paris commitments, making it logical for them to work together to achieve those goals.

Further, recent ICF studies evaluating the methane reduction opportunity in the U.S. Canada, and Mexico show that, using current technology, methane pollution can be reduced 40% to 54% for the low cost of an average penny per thousand cubic feet of gas produced. These are some of the most cost-effective reductions that exist in these countries.

The World Beyond

We hope that this week’s agreement will inspire global action on this potent pollutant. If the rest of world were to also implement a 45 percent oil and gas methane emission reduction goal, that would have the same short-term impact as closing 1,000 or one third of the world’s coal-fired power plants.

The leadership demonstrated by both President Obama and Prime Minister Trudeau has paved the way to tap into this opportunity. Let’s hope this is the start of something much bigger and much better, for the sake of our shared future.

By Drew Nelson

Yesterday, British Columbia’s Premier Christy Clark announced that the province will align with Alberta’s groundbreaking new policies on reducing emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane from the oil and gas industry.  Alberta had announced in November a goal of cutting oil and gas methane emissions 45 percent by 2025, and BC’s new commitment is just one more sign that there is growing momentum in Canada to tackle this powerful climate pollutant.

The Methane Threat – and Opportunity

Methane is a serious climate threat – with 84 times more potency than carbon dioxide in the short term, it is responsible for about a quarter of the warming we feel today. Globally, the oil and gas industry emits enough methane every year to equal the near-term climate impact of 40 percent of total global coal combustion, and Canada is the fourth-largest emitter of all countries.

Oil and gas methane is a big problem, but because of its short-term warming power and the cost-effective solutions available to address it, it also presents a big opportunity to make a real dent in climate change.

Research has shown that in Canada, reducing methane emissions is one of the most cost-effective ways to address the oil and gas industry’s greenhouse gas impact. A recent analysis by the leading energy industry research firm ICF International found that upstream methane emissions from Canada’s oil and gas industry could be reduced by 45 percent from projected 2020 levels for the low cost of C$2.76 per metric tonne of C02 equivalent – this is incredibly cheap compared to other greenhouse gas mitigation options.  And in British Columbia specifically, the analysis showed methane emissions could be reduced significantly for just C$1.69 per metric tonne of C02 equivalent.

It’s clear that reducing oil and gas methane emissions makes good business sense, but it also has larger implications for the future of the industry. Investors who have a long-term stake in natural gas are increasingly concerned that if not comprehensively addressed, methane could undermine natural gas's reputation as a low carbon, cleaner energy fuel. Just today, two leading Canadian investors published an op-ed supporting methane rules in Canada as a good economic move.

British Columbia Has an Opportunity to Lead

With Premier Clark’s announcement that BC will take important first steps in tackling the oil and gas methane problem, the province is poised to become a leader on the issue. To show it is committed to true progress, one of the most important steps for BC to take will be setting a strong reduction goal – between Alberta’s 45 percent reduction target and the 40 percent reduction target recommended by British Columbia’s Climate Panel, the province’s leaders have some strong examples they can follow.

Both Alberta and the climate panel stressed the need for regulation to reach those goals, and it’s critical that BC incorporate a regulatory framework in its own policies. As we’ve seen before, voluntary measures on the part of industry are not enough to achieve needed reductions — quantitative targets backed by regulations are the best and most effective means for doing so. While industry can’t do this on its own, it must still be part of the process. Clark’s announcement included a commitment to work with industry on this policy move, and that collaboration will be critical to ensuring all players are working together to implement the most effective methods for meeting the province’s methane goals.

Beyond just action on methane, there’s more opportunity for BC to continue to be a climate leader by taking action on all of the recommendations by British Columbia’s Climate Panel. Moving forward on the full list of recommendations for policies to reduce CO2 across the economy will continue to demonstrate BC’s climate leadership and deliver solid climate benefits for everyone.

The Bigger Picture

Yesterday’s announcement by Premier Clark is a great first step toward establishing BC as a leader on reducing Canada’s oil and gas methane pollution. But BC can’t do the job alone.

As Prime Minister Trudeau and his team meet with the Premiers today, oil and gas methane reductions should be on their agenda for actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the country. One recent analysis found that Canada has an emissions gap of 45 million metric tonnes to meet its climate goal, assuming all the provinces meet the targets they’ve established — research suggests that if Canada followed Alberta’s lead on methane, a quarter of that national gap could be filled.

That’s about as much of a silver bullet as you can find in the climate world, and suggests that Prime Minister Trudeau would be well-advised to follow BC’s and Alberta’s lead in taking advantage of this opportunity.

By EDF Blogs

By David Lyon and Adam Peltz

There are at more than 1.5 million inactive oil and gas wells in the U.S. that remain uncapped and, in some cases, unsafe. Some are temporarily dormant, while others are fully depleted but not yet properly sealed, continuing to emit residual pollution from the days when they were active. Many are what the industry calls “orphans,” with no financially solvent owner in sight to take the responsibility for them. Long seen as a water protection issue, a new study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters now shows that properly plugging unused wells can also reduce emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane.

The study looks at orphaned and plugged wells in four oil and gas producing regions of the country – Colorado’s Denver-Julesburg Basin; Ohio’s Appalachian Basin; Wyoming’s Powder River Basin; and Utah’s Uinta Basin. It is part of a series of 16 major studies organized by Environmental Defense Fund to better understand the scale and scope of oil and gas methane emissions.

Long History and a Hodgepodge of Rules

People have been plugging oil and gas wells for almost as long as they’ve been drilling them. Left alone at the end of their life cycle, old wells all too often can emit methane and other pollutants into the air and water indefinitely. Early plug jobs sometimes used wooden logs to stop up boreholes. Technology has advanced considerably, relying on cement and mechanical barriers to ensure wells are isolated from groundwater and the surface. When plugged correctly, wells should not leak.

Every state has requirements for operators to plug wells at the end of their productive lives. But standards vary in quality and comprehensiveness, and wells often slip through the cracks if their operators go bankrupt prior to plugging their wells in the absence of adequate bonding – a financial commitment operators make to cover the eventual cost of plugging and remediation.

States that had early drilling booms have found themselves with considerable backlogs of orphaned wells – there are at least 150,000 of these on record and potentially hundreds of thousands of others whose locations are lost to history. Many states have programs in which the oil and gas agency takes responsibility for plugging wells out of bonding funds, voluntary industry contributions and fees. In some states this works very well, but in other states the funding is inadequate to the task of dealing with the volume of these wells.

New Study Zeroes In on Methane

In the new study, scientists at consulting firm GHD Services Inc., the University of Cincinnati, and Washington State University measured methane emissions at 138 abandoned wells. Out of over 100 plugged wells, just one was emitting methane, and only at a low level. By contrast, 40 percent of the unplugged wells were leaking methane, and the average leak rate was over 100 times higher than the single leaking plugged well. Overall, average emissions of unplugged wells were 5,000 times higher than plugged wells.

The moral of the story: plugging is effective for reducing methane leakage.

Although the researchers estimate that abandoned wells contribute less than 1 percent of regional methane emissions in the study areas, we still do not have a good idea of the magnitude of national emissions due to potential regional variability in emission rates and major uncertainty in the number of plugged and unplugged wells in existence. Uncertainty also is high due to the “superemitter” phenomenon, in which a small number of sources are likely responsible for the majority of emissions.

Plugging Away

Many responsible companies and states have good programs to plug wells – leading to some of the positive results found in the study. However, the study also shows the importance of addressing the vast number of orphaned and poorly plugged wells that remain across the country. And to work, wells must be plugged properly. States should continuously review their plugging procedures to keep up with the latest technologies and practices. Even wells that were properly plugged under historic regulations may require remediation if they show signs of leakage.

The methane emissions and contaminant leakage from orphaned and abandoned wells across the country add up, and it’s critical to continue to keep addressing them. Oil and gas regulators and operators must pay attention to the pollution created across the entire supply chain – not just the infrastructure currently in use, but also what’s reached the end of its lifecycle. We know that making the effort to plug the wells can put a big dent in oil and gas pollution – industry should take this opportunity to shows responsibility for its operations and regulators must also step up and hold them accountable for doing so.

Image Source: Alicia Iwanicki, GHD

By Steven Hamburg

A paper today in the journal Science, estimating emissions from the massive methane leak at Aliso Canyon, indicates that nearly 100,000 metric tons of methane escaped into the atmosphere over Southern California – more than previous estimates. The new findings come days after the Environmental Protection Agency released draft results of their updated accounting of methane emissions from the nation’s oil and gas supply chain that shows that emissions are up 27% above the agency’s early estimate.

The more we know about methane emissions, the higher they get. The new findings show not just the massive scale of the oil and gas industry’s methane problem, but also how critical it is to get the science right to both understand this source of a potent climate pollutant and reduce it. We know that cutting methane is one of the fastest, most cost effective ways to curb today’s warming, and when combined with critical efforts to reduce carbon dioxide pollution, substantial climate progress can be made.

A View from Above

Steve Conley, an atmospheric scientist and pilot, was the first to fly over the sprawling Aliso Canyon storage facility owned by Southern California Gas to measure escaping methane. He continued to take regular airborne measurements for the state of California throughout the months-long leak. His paper published in Science integrates these measurements into a total amount of natural gas lost to the atmosphere, and his results were much higher than those provided by the gas company.

This kind of discrepancy isn’t surprising. Since 2012, EDF has been coordinating a series of studies on methane emissions that looks at various segments across the oil and gas supply chain. What we’ve found is that different types of measurements can yield distinctly different results if not done carefully. A big reason is the “super-emitter” phenomenon: unpredictable sources, like the well at Aliso Canyon, release large amounts of methane, and often appear in different places at unpredictable times. Accurately measuring these large sources is difficult using ground-based approaches like those used by the gas company to estimate the size of emissions from the facility.

Over the past few years the many scientists studying methane emissions have found that best way to get an accurate reading of rates of methane pollution from oil and gas infrastructure is to combine air- and ground-based methods. Researchers did just that in 2013 for oil and gas equipment across the vast Barnett Shale in Texas – one of the nation’s largest oil-producing regions. Their results clearly showed that methane emissions were almost twice as large as those estimated by the EPA.

Correcting the Record

The Barnett study is just one of many in recent years that have shown consistent undercounting of methane emissions in regions across the country. Scientific research efforts led by Stanford and Harvard have that found methane from all sources, including oil and gas, is systematically underreported.

Recent research looking specifically at the oil and gas supply chain has found indications of the same trend. In August 2014, a Colorado State University study reported that previously unrecorded emissions from thousands of U.S. gathering facilities – which consolidate gas from multiple wells and feed it into processing plants or pipelines – are eight times higher than EPA estimates. Similarly, a 2014 University of Texas paper that studied oil and gas production emissions reported 17% higher emissions from pneumatic controllers.

A National Priority

The White House and EPA have expressed intentions to address oil and gas methane, setting a national reduction goal and proposing initial standards to begin meeting it. With their intention to revise the inventory of methane emissions in the US, based on the growing body of peer-reviewed science, EPA is showing further commitment. While some critical gaps in the methodology remain, it is promising to see that this year’s draft inventory comes much closer to reflecting the true scale of the problem.

What EPA hasn’t done yet is tackle the methane pollution we’re facing right now from existing oil and gas infrastructure. EPA’s proposed methane standards only address sources that will be built or modified in the future, not those polluting today. Until EPA moves to cut methane from these existing facilities, we will be experiencing unnecessary climate change and continuing to risk disasters like the one caused by the aging well at Aliso Canyon.

EPA head Gina McCarthy acknowledged the threat posed by methane in her comments at a global energy forum this week, saying, “we can and we must" do more in regard to methane emissions from oil and gas production.

The Aliso Canyon measurements and new EPA inventory adjustments have brought us closer to better understanding – and reducing – the oil and gas methane problem. As momentum continues, we get closer to taking advantage of the insights that a new body of science has provided. We now know where the problems are and how to fix them; let’s not waste any more time in acting on our greatly enhanced knowledge.

 

By Aileen Nowlan

After more than four months of spewing potent methane pollution, the massive Aliso Canyon gas leak has finally been plugged. But now the state of California and the utility that owns the site, SoCalGas, are left with the responsibility of ensuring a disaster like this doesn’t happen again.

While Aliso Canyon has captured the attention of the nation, it’s important to remember that there are smaller—and far more prevalent—leaks happening throughout the country’s oil and gas supply chain every day. In fact, those emissions add up to more than 7 million metric tons of methane pollution every year.  That equals over $1 billion worth of wasted natural gas at 2015 prices.

Methane leaks aren’t just wasteful—they have real impacts on communities. In Wyoming, for example, oil and gas pollution has driven up respiratory illness and smog levels to rival those in famously polluted Los Angeles. In California, residents living near the Aliso Canyon leak have already experienced headaches and vomiting; the long-term health impacts of their exposure to these leaks are a big unknown.

While solutions to detect leaks—like the infrared cameras that made the Aliso Canyon geyser visible to the world—are readily available today, a group of technology developers and oil and gas companies are collaborating with EDF to develop even more cost-effective–and automated–technologies to dramatically speed up leak detection.

Scattered, aging infrastructure

Part of the problem is that much of the oil and gas infrastructure around the country is showing its age. The well that failed at Aliso Canyon was 63 years old. That’s no surprise—California has been an oil and gas producer for over a hundred years, and that state alone has over 50,000 wells. With wells, storage fields, and gathering and boosting facilities around the country, we expect aging oil and gas infrastructure will only make the problem worse over time.

Some of the biggest methane leaks, called super-emitters, are elusive and unpredictable, often occurring as a result of operating conditions like tank venting. These leaks are relatively easy to find and cheap to fix if–and this is a big if–robust monitoring and repair practices are in place.

Up to now, periodic monitoring has been the industry norm, but leaks can appear at any time and continue unabated until the next inspection. Just imagine how much more methane pollution could be cut if there were a way to continuously monitor for leaks.

A partnership to find and stop leaks faster

That insight inspired EDF, in partnership with eight oil and gas companies, to develop and launch the Methane Detectors Challenge, an initiative to bring next-generation, cost-effective methane monitoring technologies from the lab to the marketplace. With continuous detection systems, companies will be able to identify and address leaks almost as soon as they begin.

Over the past two years, innovators have come forward with solutions, and our panel of technical and industry experts put those solutions through extensive independent lab and outdoor testing.

This initiative has resulted in front-runner detection systems that are accurate at distances of over 80 feet from a methane source. They are designed to be installed at an oil or gas facility and allow remote monitoring—the systems are self-powered and communicate via a cellular connection or the facility’s local control system. Deployed in the right location on a site, one or two systems could provide 24-hour real-time methane monitoring and alerts.

Some MDC partners are moving to refine these systems in the field, potentially in Colorado, North Dakota and Texas. Over the next couple of months, we will ensure the systems can differentiate between on-site from off-site methane, withstand harsh weather conditions and provide fast, accurate alerts.

That’s a solution that SoCalGas—facing potentially billions in losses from the Aliso Canyon disaster—may now wish they had last fall when the leak began.

Luckily, efforts by leading companies and innovators are helping to make the best possible solutions available – including continuous monitoring technologies, like those emerging from the Methane Detectors Challenge –to protect communities and the environment from the threat of methane pollution. As detecting methane leaks becomes faster and cheaper than it’s ever been, the industry and the regulators overseeing it have the tools they need to ratchet down the hidden risks and waste from oil and gas methane.

This post originally appeared on the EDF + Business blog.

By Jon Goldstein

These numbers don’t lie. They represent the strong support new methane waste and pollution reduction rules from the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management enjoy across the west. Methane is a potent climate pollutant and the main constituent of natural gas, so when oil and gas companies on public land allow  methane to be leaked, burned or vented to the atmosphere, it not only impacts air quality and our climate, it also represents an economic loss to taxpayers.

Here’s how this math adds up to a win for taxpayers, public health and the climate.

Two (or Three) are Better Than One

Last week the BLM kicked off its public comment process for important new rules designed to limit methane waste from oil and gas operations on Federal and Tribal lands.  The agency held hearings in Farmington, New Mexico and Oklahoma City seeking input from the public on the proposal. Despite the fact that both New Mexico and Oklahoma  are in the heart of oil and gas country, comments in support of these new rules outweighed opposing viewpoints by significant margins in both locations. More than twice as many concerned citizens in Farmington and three times as many in Oklahoma City testified in support of BLM taking action on methane.

At these hearings, Latino and Tribal voices joined public health professionals, veterans, taxpayer groups, and environmental advocates in voicing strong support for the BLM proposal. Last week, 40 current and former local elected officials representing diverse constituencies from across New Mexico also issued a letter in support of strong BLM methane rules.

Supporters out-commenting the opposition two- and three- to-one in the oil and gas patch, and dozens of elected officials endorsing sensible rules in a major oil and gas producing state are indicative of the strong, broad and diverse support that BLM’s proposal is garnering across the West. It’s not surprising then that a recent poll found that a bipartisan majority (fully 80 percent) of Westerners support commonsense rules to cut oil and gas waste on BLM managed lands.

A big reason for this support: Westerners understand that wasting our natural gas through venting, flaring and leaks not only pollutes our air and damages our climate; it shortchanges taxpayers by millions of dollars each year. BLM doesn’t collect royalty payments on natural gas that escapes to the atmosphere before being sold; therefore local communities lose out on funding that could have gone to better schools, roads and other needed infrastructure. In fact, according to a recent report, taxpayers could lose out on $800 million over the next decade as a result of the wasteful venting and flaring of natural gas.

Next Up

BLM’s proposal is a strong step toward better management of our energy resources. But there’s room for improvement especially to provisions that could and should require oil and gas companies to inspect sites for methane leaks on at least a quarterly basis as leading states require.

While some are asking for more delays, we think the time to act is now. Join us in getting the strongest possible BLM methane rule across the finish line by filing comments before the BLM deadline on April 8 and offering public testimony at the BLM’s final two public hearings in Lakewood, CO on March 1 and Dickinson, ND on March 3rd. We’ll be there, joining the fight for better climate protections, reduced waste, and cleaner air.

By David Lyon

Methane emissions from the oil and gas industry are significantly higher than previous official estimates, according to draft revisions of the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions inventory released Monday by the Environmental Protection Agency. At 9.3 million metric tons, revised estimates of 2013 emissions are 27% percent higher than the previous tally. Over a 20-year timeframe, those emissions have the same climate impact as over 200 coal-fired power plants. The lost gas is worth $1.4 billion at 2015 prices.

The big jump makes it crystal clear that there can be no more excuses for ignoring this huge challenge – not only controlling methane emissions from future sources, as proposed new EPA rules will do, but also controlling emissions from the tens of thousands of leaking facilities already operating now. Existing systems account for all of today’s emissions, and will generate the lion’s share of pollution for many years to come, yet federal rules so far don’t apply to them.

EPA is expected to use similar calculations to estimate 2014 emissions when it publishes the final inventory sometime between now and April 15. EPA also plans to update estimates of previous years’ emissions going back to 1990 based on revised methodologies.

The new estimate drastically exceeds modest improvements in several subsectors in prior years, which have been widely touted by industry lobbyists who oppose new rules and claim voluntary emissions reductions can get the job done.

The revised figure is based on new, more accurate accounting methods reflecting the significant improvement in scientists’ understanding of the problem in recent years. While the new figures still do not encompass the full scope of the industry’s methane footprint (see below), they paint a more thorough portrait of real world conditions. Although major gaps remain, EPA deserves credit for their efforts.

What Changed and Why?

As U.S. oil and natural gas production have soared, scientists have made great strides in their understanding of the industry’s methane emissions. EPA is updating its accounting methods to begin incorporating the latest scientific evidence by more accurately reflecting both the number and type of sources in the field, and the amounts of methane they emit.

2013 Emissions (MMT CH4) 2015 GHGI Draft 2016 GHGI % change Production & Gathering 1.9 4.2 125% Processing 0.9 0.9 -2% Transmission and Storage 2.2 1.2 -47% Distribution 1.3 0.5 -65% Natural Gas Systems 6.3 6.7 7% Petroleum Systems 1.0 2.5 150% Natural Gas & Petroleum Systems 7.3 9.3 27%

SOURCE: EPA, 2015 GHGI and Draft 2016 GHGI, tables 3-37 and 3-44.

The largest leap in emissions (and second biggest percentage jump) is in the production and gathering sector. That’s because EPA is increasing their estimates of equipment counts at well pads and factoring in emissions from thousands of gathering facilities that collect gas from multiple wellheads, which had been almost completely ignored in earlier accounting. As it turns out, they’re emitting as much as 1.7 million metric tons of methane a year, almost none of which showed up on the books until now.

The biggest percentage increase is in the oil sector (petroleum systems), due to increased estimates of equipment counts at oil production sites.

Based on current research, EPA is also estimating that emissions from several segments are actually lower than previously thought. As proposed, the new figures for transmission and storage show a marked decrease (but this excludes “superemitters” – the widespread, unpredictable leaks, malfunctions or other problems – responsible for a significant share of industry emissions).

Local gas distribution also reflects progress on controlling emissions due mainly to improved technology and better operating practices on the part of local utilities, but estimates undercount emissions associated with industrial meters, and may not fully account for the number of leaks in the nation’s vast network of distribution pipes.

Until now, EPA had been relying mostly on data from the 1990s – before the start of the shale boom – to derive national emission estimates. Methane is the main ingredient in natural gas, and also a major byproduct of oil and gas production. It’s important because methane has 84 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over a 20-year timeframe.

EPA is continuing to refine their calculations and emphasizes that the numbers in the draft will likely change between now and the final version, based on stakeholder feedback on a series of detailed technical memos published by the agency. This is the fourth time in recent years that EPA has revised their accounting methods in order to get closer to the actual facts on the ground.

Emissions EPA Still Leaves Out

Over the past five years, academic and industry researchers have made extensive efforts to develop a better sense of what’s leaking where, how much, and why, and to create a better census of operating equipment. Some of that research is included in EPA’s new accounting methods, but not all. A recent study of methane in Texas’ Barnett Shale, for example, found oil and gas methane emissions could be 90% higher than estimates based on the GHG Inventory, in part because inventories often don’t count super emitters.

Case in point: the recent Aliso Canyon disaster in California released nearly 100,000 tons of methane, but operators aren’t required to report that type of pollution to regulators – nor is there a method for EPA to consider these emissions in their official estimates. Aliso Canyon is the “mother” of all super emitters, but research shows similar problems happening on a smaller scale every day throughout the supply chain.

In fact, the science suggests overall U.S. methane emissions from all sources are likely anywhere from 25- to 75% higher than EPA estimates. It is likely that a sizeable chunk of that discrepancy results from the widespread problem of super emitters and underestimated equipment counts in the oil and gas industry.

Big Step Forward

While critical gaps remain in accounting for all oil and gas methane emissions in the EPA inventory, this new draft represents important progress. The dramatic figures make it more clear than ever that the time to regulate existing sources – the sources responsible for this 9.3 million ton problem – is now.

By Ben Ratner

As oil and gas leaders converge on Houston for the year’s largest industry conference, CERA Week, falling oil and gas prices are understandably top of mind and a cause for concern for the industry. But there is another decline story underway in industry, one that poses a risk to the future of hydrocarbons in a carbon constrained world – a story of falling trust.

While today’s $30 oil price is disruptive in the short-term, new information on the very low level of public trust in the oil and gas industry should prompt concern from executives and investors about possible longer-term disruption to companies’ social license to operate.

The Industry’s Public Trust Problem

Recent polling conducted by KRC Research for EDF found that a mere 29 percent of Americans trust oil and gas companies to operate responsibly. Strikingly, even among Republicans, the trust rate is under 40 percent.

Digging deeper into the numbers, just 15 percent of Americans trust the oil and gas industry to be accurate in disclosing how much pollution they cause.

So what do these results mean?

They mean that a basic ingredient essential to the long-term viability of any industry – societal trust – is sorely lacking. When 197 nations agree to an ambitious framework and goal to cut greenhouse gas pollution, but very few Americans trust oil and gas operators to even disclose their pollution accurately, a collision course develops.

An Opportunity for Building Trust

Methane – the main component of natural gas and a powerful short-term climate forcer – is not the only environmental problem associated with the oil and gas industry. But because methane has such serious implications for natural gas’ reputation as a clean, lower carbon energy fuel source, it has become a referendum on the ability of industry to operate responsibly and deliver fuels that facilitate a transition to a low carbon economy.

A few corporate leaders have stepped forward to act on methane, but industry’s response to date has fallen far short. That’s why even by conservative estimates, the industry here in the U.S. continues to release methane into the atmosphere at a rate upwards of 7 million metric tons annually, creating the same 20-year climate impact as 160 coal-fired power plants. And globally, annual methane emissions from oil and gas pack a short-term climate punch equivalent to the carbon dioxide pollution from 40 percent of global coal combustion.

The Path Forward

The path to raising commodity prices is complicated, and is well beyond the control of any one operator. But there is a path to raising trust. Oil and gas executives can boost the reputation and long-term standing of their companies and industry writ large, by showing the public, regulators and investors that they’re serious about addressing their methane problem.

• Enhance disclosure – A lack of information breeds distrust. So in light of the trust deficit, it is not surprising to find that methane disclosure by companies is inadequate. As EDF found in a report released last month, none of the leading 65 upstream and midstream players in the U.S. disclose any quantitative target to reduce methane emissions. Boosting disclosure is low-hanging fruit for operators, and a way for leaders to build awareness of actions they are already taking to reduce methane emissions.

• Support rules – As Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein once said, oil and gas companies that get facilities permitted in the absence of methane rules are achieving “a very hollow victory”. Supporting rules is an investment in ensuring the public that a level playing field exists with climate and health protections they can believe in. The long-term cost to industry if it sustains regulatory hostility is the real one for executives worry about.

• Encourage scientific study – Scores of studies in the U.S. have improved national understanding of emissions, unlocked waste reduction opportunities, and provided a basis for data-driven regulations that work. The state of methane measurement globally is much less mature. ENI, Total and BG Group committed in Paris to partner with EDF to advance methane measurement internationally, and more companies have the opportunity to support these efforts.

• Adopt best practices – Instituting best practices for methane management is a good springboard to demonstrate responsibility, engage local stakeholders, inspire investor confidence, and set a foundation for compliance with the rising wave of methane and air pollution regulations. Global companies should look closely at the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership (affiliated with the United Nations) as an emerging opportunity with a set of resources and protocols that can facilitate best practice adoption and the kind of transparency that can help build trust. And other multi-stakeholder opportunities exist, like the Methane Detectors Challenge to catalyze faster, cheaper methane detection systems.

Speculation abounds on the shape and speed of the oil price recovery, but for the long term, a trust recovery is just as essential for shoring up oil and gas’ role in a changing world. Methane management is a key place to focus and should remain top of mind for the C-suite.

This post originally appeared on the EDF + Business Blog.

By EDF Blogs

By: Mark Brownstein & Tim O'Connor

The nearly four-month disaster at the Aliso Canyon storage facility owned by Southern California Gas Company has spurred widespread calls to close the sprawling underground reservoir, and cast intense scrutiny on the 13 other similar facilities around California. But others, including Governor Jerry Brown and key state agencies, say the facilities may be needed to keep the electric grid running reliably.

Ironically, one reason for dependence on this fossil fuel is California’s renewable energy boom.

As things currently stand, there aren’t enough responsive resources on the grid to simultaneously manage the large daily swings in consumer electricity demand typical in California and swings in renewable energy output due to variations in time of day and weather.

A more robust grid in combination with innovative energy storage and energy management technology will eventually reduce these swings, but may take decades to fully deploy.  Until then, fast-acting gas-fired generation is necessary for balancing system operations. This has become a rallying cry for SoCalGas and the rest of California’s oil and gas industry in the wake of Aliso Canyon.

By championing the status quo, these companies are ignoring actions that can be taken right now to reduce natural gas dependence by making the state’s gas and electricity markets more efficient and competitive. There’s no excuse for holding back reforms that can begin the transition away from co-dependence.

The Codependence of Gas and Renewables

The marriage of gas and renewables in the electricity market springs from inherent variability in wind and solar power flows. The more of these resources there are on the system, the more utilities depend on the quick on-off response of natural gas-fired power plants to balance the load – particularly in surge periods such like early summer evenings when solar output falls rapidly but cooling demand from air conditioning remains high.

Officials are acutely aware of the relationship (after all, nobody wants a blackout on their watch). In his January 6 Emergency Declaration, Gov. Brown directed a half-dozen state agencies overseeing the Aliso response to “take all actions necessary to ensure the continued reliability of natural gas and electricity supplies in the coming months during the moratorium on gas injections into the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility.”

In response, the California Energy Commission (CEC), California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), and the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO ) expressed serious concern about closing the facility, because existing gas pipelines aren’t big enough to feed all power plants in the Los Angeles basin, and that those plants depend on gas from Aliso Canyon to meet “rapid changes in electricity demand that occur every day.”

Utilities See Renewables as Opportunity for Gas

This codependence creates a number of perverse incentives. First, it effectively gives utilities like SoCal Gas a virtually endless justification for sites like Aliso Canyon – and their three other fields in Southern California. What’s more, SoCalGas and other companies have actively latched on to renewables as a new growth opportunity – supporting solar and wind as they hold monopoly power over the regional pipeline and gas storage market.

In their most recent bi-annual report to CPUC, SoCal Gas and the state’s other gas utilities stated as clearly as can be said that “the intermittent nature of renewable generation is likely to cause the electric system to rely more heavily on natural gas-fired generation” and with “higher daily fluctuations of gas usage in the future … [the] gas system will need to be able to accommodate such operations.”

With rising penetration of intermittent renewables in California through the state’s recently mandated 50% renewable portfolio standard, as long as competing solutions are locked out of the market – as they are today – gas utilities will remain in the catbird’s seat.

Opening Up a Cleaner, More Dynamic Electric Grid

Reducing reliance on big natural gas storage facilities like Aliso Canyon – and on huge bulk supplies of natural gas in general – requires smarter solutions for reliably managing the swings that come with renewables. In November, our colleague Gavin Purchas wrote about time-of-use pricing, and linking the California wholesale electric market to its neighbors to the north as ways to enhance stability. Similarly, Larissa Koehler wrote about growing availability of utility-scale battery storage in the California energy system.

While new technologies and smarter rate structures for customers can deliver big returns, fundamental change materializes when energy markets where the big bets get made are actually transformed. Fostering real competition between natural gas and emerging clean energy resources here would allow battery storage, demand response and other technologies and energy management solutions to play on equal footing, spur innovation and capital investment, and take a bigger share of the market now wholly owned by storage and combustion of natural gas.

First and foremost, the job of creating open, competitive markets falls to the state and local regulators who decide the rules of the game. Entities like the Cal-ISO that develop rules for “fast-ramping” resources to support renewable integration; and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power that develops long term Integrated Resources Plans. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees wholesale gas and electric markets, also has a role to play, as described recently by EDF’s Jonathan Peress.

Smarter, More Efficient Markets

Creating accurate and efficient price signals for the services that gas provides in both the gas and electric markets can determine the optimal mix of resources, while better meeting the goal of reducing dangerous climate and air pollution, and the risk of another Aliso Canyon disaster.

How California handles this challenge will have broad implications for other states as rapid renewable energy growth continues. Standards that allow more kinds of companies to get paid for providing services that keep the electric grid stable and balanced are a huge opportunity. Reducing the need for gas combustion and gas storage by allowing new alternatives to compete is part of the solution. In a future blog post, we will provide additional specifics on how such competition can be fostered.

Image Source: Flickr user Travis

By Mark Brownstein

The oil and gas industry emits at least 7 million metric tons of methane pollution into the atmosphere each year with a growing mountain of scientific evidence that suggests the real amount is actually even higher. Despite the fact that this pollution has an undue effect on global warming, the industry effectually wants us to “be ok” with this pollution.

The latest piece from industry lobbying group Energy In Depth (EID) claims that recent methane research finds “very low emissions,” and that regulatory action to reduce them further is unwarranted. It isn’t the first time we’ve heard this argument and for that reason, here’s a refresher on the facts.

We know reducing emissions is doable, in part because some responsible companies are doing it. There are forward thinkers in the industry who enroll in voluntary emission reduction programs operated by the Environmental Protection Agency—and they have shown what is possible. But these 20 or so companies represent only a tiny fraction of the thousands of producers across the country.

Further, the areas where we’ve seen meaningful declines in emission are areas where there have been either concrete or pending regulations to control emissions. Straightforward voluntary efforts to reduce emission are useful, but they are no substitute for regulations.

One reason regulations are so critical to securing reductions? A phenomenon called superemitters.

Time and again, researchers have found that these large, unpredictable leaks – sometimes caused by equipment failures, sometimes by human error, and sometimes by other factors altogether – are significant contributors to industry’s overall emissions. Just a couple of months ago, a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed methane emissions in the gas-rich Texas Barnett Shale are 90 percent higher than official estimates suggest, mainly because EPA tracking methods don’t accurately account for these sources.

And the only sure-fire way to address these emissions is through regularized, widespread monitoring of facilities across the oil and gas supply chain in order to quickly find and fix the leaky equipment.

It would be nice to think that industry would do this on their own, but few producers have raised their hand and committed to implement the leading leak detection practices, much less several of the other commercially available and cost-effective emission reduction strategies known to the industry.

That means regulations are the next logical solution for addressing the problem. Requiring companies to check equipment for emissions, that, not only contribute to climate change but can also impact air quality, is not an extreme ask. Nor are taking any of the other proven, cost-effective steps to reduce emissions available to industry. On the contrary, it’s the responsible thing to do.

EID regularly touts the benefits of gas over coal – and their assertions are true as far as they go. But they don’t go far enough to tell the whole story. EDF has never minimized the important role of natural gas in reducing our nation’s CO2 emissions. But natural gas is over 95% methane, a pollutant that will trap 84 times as much heat as CO2 over 20 years. Data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests methane is responsible for approximately 25 percent of today’s global warming.

In order to live up to its billing as a cleaner energy resource, natural gas’s methane problem has to be addressed.

Another related fixation at EID is the leak rate of natural gas, and the crossover point at which greenhouse benefits relative to coal disappear. But this is completely irrelevant when the question has to do with absolute, not relative impacts of methane emissions. It’s not the rate or percentage of gas leakage that matters. It’s the volume. As things stand today, the oil and gas industry’s annual methane emissions will have the very same climate impact as the annual emissions from 160 coal plants during the next two decades.

A recent poll showed that less than a third of Americans trust the oil and gas industry to operate responsibly – and that sentiment applies across party lines. This latest material out from EID is just one example why. Continuing to push back against any and all regulations, even the ones that apply commonsense, cost-effective solutions, is what the public has come to expect from the industry.

By Tim O'Connor

After nearly ten months of waiting, California regulators at the state’s Air Resources Board stepped up this month in a big way to reduce emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane from the state’s oil and gas industry.

For a state that prides itself on leading the charge to fight climate change, it was odd to see California had been lagging behind others when it came to addressing methane pollution. After all, methane is such a powerful short-term climate forcer that it’s responsible for a quarter of the warming we feel today. Now, by introducing long-awaited draft rules tackling the problem, the golden state has put itself back in the game.

A rule worthy of praise – with still room for improvement

Several provisions in the draft rule represent some of the strongest standards in the nation and have the potential to seriously advance the conversation on methane controls. Among them, the new rule proposes to cover both new and existing sources in oil and gas fields – something that should draw the federal government’s attention as it contemplates whether to include both types of categories in its proposed national rules. The rule also uses better science than prior proposals – evaluating methane’s impact based on its 20-year impact rather than a longer 100-year value.

Additionally, California’s new regulations would require stringent quarterly inspection of leak-prone equipment instead of a more loose annual inspection requirement – a key improvement to the rule from prior drafts – though the ability for operators to step-down the inspection requirements into an annual schedule still needs to be rescinded.

A surprise improvement to several provisions is a move away from flaring of wasted gas – a decision that will result in the removal of existing gas combustion devices in places like California’s central valley, an air basin that routinely ranks as one of the nation’s most polluted.  By requiring oil and gas operators with waste gas to either put the gas into closed vapor recovery systems or install extremely low NOx units, the rule will deliver a double benefit by cutting vented methane that hurts the climate while also cutting smog-forming gases that hurt public health.

And, a not-so-surprise addition to the rule around natural gas storage also emerged, a direct response to the massive release of gas from Aliso Canyon.  While this portion of the rule will certainly be fleshed out in the coming weeks and months, new provisions over leak detection, repair and mitigation were introduced for the first time – somewhat matching the work of the California Department of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) and charting a robust regulatory response to the multi-month Southern California disaster.

Methane is a national problem and it needs a national solution

As the second largest consumer of natural gas in the U.S., it’s critical that California adopt rigorous methane reduction standards within its own borders. However, as evidence mounts about the true scale of methane leaks across our country, it has become clear that action by California alone is not enough: methane is a national problem and it needs a national solution.

Along with a handful of other states, including Colorado and Pennsylvania, California will now join the charge in holding the oil and gas industry accountable for its emissions of this potent greenhouse gas, and set an example for the federal government to do the same. Earlier this year, EPA released a long-awaited historic proposal for new rules to cut methane emissions from the nation’s oil and gas sector. However, those less comprehensive rules now stand in contrast to the more stringent efforts of bold states like California.

The largest discrepancy between the federal rules and the new standards proposed by California is the application of oversight on both new and existing facilities. The EPA rules propose to regulate emissions from future operations, but don’t include the thousands of existing production sites, processing plants, pipelines and storage facilities across the country that are the source of millions of tons of methane emissions each year.  While leaks from these existing sources are far less extreme that the gusher at Aliso Canyon, they add up to the same climate impact over the next 20 years as the annual emissions from 160 coal plants.

Getting the rules across the finish line

Stronger federal rules could reduce leaks from the intentional venting that is common practice, as well as the accidental leaks that are the result of poorly maintained equipment and below-standard field performance.

In California, the Aliso Canyon disaster has made an irrefutable case for more robust regulations to limit methane pollution from both current and future oil and gas sites, and California appears to be rising to the challenge. The state’s proposed rules show a commitment to increased oversight and more rigorous maintenance requirements of oil and gas facilities and we look forward to seeing the state finalize the strongest possible version of those rules.

Now it’s time for the federal government to also take a look at its proposed rules and ensure the final product is as strong and comprehensive as it can be.

Image Source: SMU Central University Library, Flickr

By Jon Goldstein

The west is rightly known for mountain views and desert vistas. Many of these landscapes are managed by the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on behalf of all Americans. But something else is a major part of the region as well – tens of thousands of oil and gas wells and their associated infrastructure.

More than 90 percent of oil and gas production on BLM lands comes from the Western U.S. The tax and royalty revenue generated by this production is used to fund local infrastructure needs –schools, roads and other improvements — in rural and tribal communities. But due to outdated policies (they have not been significantly revised in 30 years), too much of our natural gas has been going to waste.  That means these communities, and American taxpayers in general, are losing out.

In fact, in 2013, oil and gas companies threw away $330 million worth of the public’s gas according to a recent report – shortchanging the communities that rely on the revenue from these resources most.

A Big Step Forward

Just last month, in an effort to more responsibly manage this public resource, the BLM began a process to update these three-decades-old oil and gas policies. Now, the public has a chance to have a voice in this process as well. Once adopted, BLM’s proposal will make significant reductions in the amount of methane that the industry is currently allowed to flare, leak, or vent into the atmosphere in massive quantities.

The proposal is a positive step for taxpayers, air quality, and our climate. Because natural gas essentially is methane, delivering gas to market (instead of the atmosphere) delivers significant royalty payments back to American taxpayers. According to a recent report, without action, the public could lose out on $800 million over the next decade as a result of wasteful venting and flaring practices. These efforts also will significantly reduce emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas responsible for about a quarter of global warming we are experiencing today.

Covering Existing Sources

One aspect of the proposal that’s particularly powerful is its commitment to address pollution and waste occurring now. The BLM’s proposed rules will set an important precedent for the Environmental Protection Agency who so far has declined to regulate existing oil and gas wells. The BLM rule targets new as well as existing sources, the wells and equipment in use today that are contributing to the more than 7 million metric tons of methane pollution emitted by the industry nationwide each year.

BLM’s proposal is a strong step toward better management of our energy resources and tackling the issue of climate change. But there’s room for improvement. Over the next two months, BLM will solicit public comments on the proposal and we encourage the agency to consider these key elements as they finalize their rules:

1. More frequent leak inspections. Requiring operators to check their facilities for leaks on a quarterly basis will make a big dent in industry’s emissions. Colorado and Wyoming have successfully enacted similar policies on leak inspections, setting a strong precedent for BLM to level the playing field.

1. Limit the waste of federal resources due to gas flaring. The BLM proposal places a presumptive ban on venting and some restrictions on flaring of natural gas from oil wells. But the rule should make gas capture planning mandatory and binding and should place time limits on the wasteful practice.

BLM can and should act to limit methane waste and pollution from federal and tribal lands. In fact 80 percent of Westerners support commonsense rules that can cut oil and gas waste on publically owned lands. Fortunately, those voices can be heard in coming weeks as the BLM accepts public comment on the proposal and in hearings across the west. We’ll be there and we hope you will join us to fight for better climate protections, reduced waste, and cleaner air.

Photo source: Earthworks

By Scott Anderson

Southern California is now in month three of one of the country’s worst environmental disasters. In October 2015, a natural gas storage well operated by SoCal Gas sprung a massive leak hundreds of feet underground, releasing nearly 1,400 tons of gas into the air each day at its peak. Thousands of local residents impacted by noxious fumes and oily mist have been evacuated from the communities around the Aliso Canyon storage field. Because the leak is so large and technically complex, SoCal Gas has been working for months to fix it – so far without success.

In December, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a State of Emergency because of the ongoing leak. In addition to addressing the immediate disaster at Aliso Canyon, Gov. Brown ordered emergency regulations for the state’s natural gas storage industry and has directed several state agencies and commissions to prepare and submit reports and propose how to prevent similar leaks at similar sites across the state.

This month, the Department of Conservation's Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) released its draft emergency regulations, and EDF suggested important clarifications to make the rules more workable. We also provided a long list of issues not covered by the emergency rule that nevertheless must be addressed going forward (you can read our comments here). The draft is a good start, and though there is a lot more work ahead, the signs are that DOGGR is taking the right approach and heading in the right direction.

Above all else, DOGGR’s rules, both emergency and permanent, should satisfy one critical concept: well integrity. Well integrity is all about keeping wells from leaking – a complex endeavor requiring oversight (with vigorous enforcement) of design, construction, operation, testing, routine maintenance, repair, and decommissioning of wells.

The Aliso Canyon disaster has shined a light on an aging infrastructure where well integrity appears to have suffered from decades of neglect and thus poses significant environmental and public safety risks.

The draft emergency regulations are an important first step. California regulators know and EDF agrees that it is unrealistic to think that any emergency regulations will immediately resolve an issue this complex. This will be – and must be – the beginning of a long, continual effort to upgrade gas storage regulations, especially those relating to well integrity. This is true not just in California but across the country.

Thankfully, leaks of the size and duration of SS25 at Aliso Canyon are rare. Extreme leaks are dramatic and hard to miss. But even a methane leak this huge is small compared to the cumulative amount of methane pollution coming from every stage of the country’s oil and gas supply chain, from wellheads to the local utility lines under city streets. EPA estimates that each year, 7 million metric tons of methane escapes from the supply chain – about 80 times the amount that has been emitted from Aliso Canyon to date.

Preventing methane leaks from oil and gas wells is only part of the solution to the methane emissions problem – but it is an important one. If a well is built or maintained badly, it will leak.

EDF looks forward to working closely with other California stakeholders and with public officials to resolve well integrity issues and all other aspects of the methane emissions challenge. Our oil and gas staff have been working on well integrity issues for years, especially in states that have experienced tremendous growth in oil and gas production from shale formations. Texas, Ohio, and other states have favorably taken our environmentally-focused proposals into account in recent policy updates, leading to better overall outcomes. In these efforts, well integrity issues like cementing practices and pressure management were addressed. Passed in 2013, “Rule 13” marked Texas’ most significant overhaul in decades of well construction rules (including gas storage wells). According to the Texas Railroad Commission, the rule has reduced the number of blowouts across the state by nearly half.

This demonstrates that good well integrity rules can make a difference in safety and environmental performance. Well integrity includes key principles like multiple barriers of protection, appropriate safety equipment, frequent testing and maintenance, and monitoring of well conditions that might indicate potential leaks to the environment. After major gas storage disasters in Kansas and Texas, both states upgraded their gas storage regulations. California, too, will need to address these and other important technical issues as it upgrades its rules.

Given the State of Emergency in California, it is understandable that resolving the immediate crisis has taken center stage. But the solutions required to prevent another Aliso Canyon and the millions of tons of methane emissions from smaller, less dramatic leaks will not be implemented with one rule.

DOGGR must remain committed to ensuring that the state’s oil and gas laws reflect this idea of continual improvement. It’s the only way to ensure that policies meant to protect public health and safety keep pace with a rapidly changing industry. This means updating not only the policies that pertain to gas storage facilities, but also oil and gas production wells, underground injection wells for wastewater, wastewater storage facilities and other aspects of oil and gas development.

EDF works with states across the country to help implement the most forward-thinking ideas into their policies to safeguard against incidents like the Aliso Canyon gas leak, and we’re committed to working with DOGGR and other agencies, as well. Because the best way to fix a gas leak is to prevent it from happening in the first place.

By Mark Brownstein

The Natural Gas STAR Methane Challenge Program unveiled last week by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is a perfect example of what can go wrong when the agency tries too hard to entice an unwilling industry to engage.

For years, EPA has offered voluntary “pollution prevention” programs to encourage companies to achieve environmental goals faster or cheaper than they might under regulations alone. Done right, voluntary programs stimulate innovation and reward true leaders. But weak efforts accomplish nothing, handing out laurels for token efforts that amount to business as usual – or less.

Gaping Holes

The problem with the EPA Methane Challenge program is that it falls short on thoroughness, rigor, and urgency. For starters, it lacks a critical yardstick to measure progress, requiring no quantitative goals whatsoever. Among other problems and deficiencies:

• The new program doesn’t require or even mention the need to set emissions targets for participating companies, making it entirely possible that a company’s overall methane emissions could increase yet still win official kudos from the agency.

• Companies are free to pick and choose what practices they implement, all but guaranteeing that EPA will end up rewarding cherry-picking by companies.

• Companies aren’t required to implement practices to find or fix methane leaks as a condition of program participation, despite the fact that leaks, equipment malfunctions, and equipment failures are a widespread problem that accounts for a major share of industry emissions.

• Despite pressing need, the program gives companies five years to fully implement commitments, even though cost effective strategies and technologies for reducing emissions are widely documented, readily available, and in some cases, already successfully deployed in the field by leading companies.

A Reason for Skepticism

So far, industry’s track record with voluntary programs is not impressive. Over the past 20 years, the EPA’s current voluntary program for the oil and gas program — Natural Gas STAR  — has achieved a meager one percent participation rate in the oil and gas industry.

When EDF recently surveyed 65 of the biggest companies in the oil and gas industry, we found that exactly none have publicly disclosed methane emission reduction targets, and less than a third report any methane emissions information at all. For those that did, the data was scattershot.

The oil and gas industry is eager to point out that methane emissions have come down over time even as production has gone up, but they are less quick acknowledge areas (such as in the gathering and processing sector) where the data shows emissions have been increasing. Nor will they tell you that emissions associated with leaks, equipment malfunctions, and equipment failures are grossly underreported in official government emissions inventories.

A Missed Opportunity

According to a recent survey, less than a third of Americans trust oil and gas companies to operate responsibly and just 15 percent trust those companies to accurately report their emissions. That is why this new program offered by EPA is so disappointing.

Voluntary programs designed to work in coordination with regulation can be – and have been – used to reward early action and steps beyond compliance. Unfortunately, this program does neither.  Here, all signs point to an effort intended to set a low bar in hopes of boosting previously meager participation by industry.

Unfortunately, by setting the bar low, the new program won’t do much for the environment or improve the public’s confidence in the industry or government to address a significant pollution problem.

The goal of the Challenge is worthy, and we sincerely hope it will make a contribution in that direction. But with the weak track record of industry participation in voluntary programs, and the shortcomings of this one, the need for regulatory standards is more clear than ever.

By Dan Grossman

In an important step forward in curbing methane emissions from the nation’s oil and gas sector, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) today announced a regulatory proposal aimed at wasteful practices that shortchange taxpayers, squander energy resources and threaten the Earth’s climate.  The proposal, which will apply to both new and existing oil and gas facilities, begins to fill an important gap left by the EPA in August when that agency proposed to reduce emissions only from future facilities, ignoring the millions of oil and gas emissions sources already in operation.

Oil and gas companies that operate on our nation’s federal and tribal lands are exploiting a resource that belongs to the public and the Native American tribes.  These operators should be held to the highest standards when it comes to avoiding the waste of the resource and minimizing the pollution from their activities.

BLM is the federal agency in charge of managing these public and tribal resources.  But the agency’s regulatory structure is woefully out-of-date and much too permissive of wasteful and inefficient practices.

In 2013, operators leaked, vented and flared 109 billion cubic feet of gas from operations on federal and tribal lands, enough gas to heat 1.5 million homes for a year.  From an environmental perspective, these operators emitted 1 million metric tons of methane to the atmosphere, the same near-term climate impact as the pollution from 23 coal-fired power plants or 19 million automobiles.

This wasted gas also means that companies are simply not paying millions of dollars in royalties rightly owed to U.S. taxpayers – money that should be going to fund schools and roads and other needs in our communities instead of being pocketed by industry.

Today, BLM announced that it is rising to the methane waste challenge by proposing a strong but feasible and cost-effective set of regulations to crack down on waste of the public’s resource.  Following the path of leading states, such as Colorado and Wyoming, BLM has proposed requiring operators to improve the efficiency of both existing and future operations by:

• Prohibiting the harmful practice of venting gas to the atmosphere;
• reducing flaring by (1) placing a volumetric limit on the amount of gas an operator can flare and (2) requiring the submission of gas capture plans with all applications for permits to drill (APDs);
• conducting regular inspections of their wells and repairing leaks quickly; and
• requiring older, inefficient equipment, such as high-bleed pneumatic devices, to be replaced with more advanced low-bleed or no-bleed versions.

BLM has also included some flexibility in its proposal so that states that have shown leadership by enacting their own strong regulations will be able to continue drive efforts to curb waste and pollution within their jurisdictions.

Even though many leading companies are already implanting these practices, we fully expect the usual voices from the industry trade associations to proclaim that the sky is falling and that they should not be subjected to additional rules when the price of oil is so low.  But lagging prices can never be an excuse for ignoring environmental protection.  After all, we don’t abide oil spills just because the price of the oil has fallen.  We shouldn’t tolerate wasteful methane pollution, especially from operators exploiting the public’s resources.

Our staff will pore over the proposed rule in the coming days and weeks and deploy our technical, scientific and legal resources to ensure BLM adopts a strong and durable regulatory regime that protects taxpayers from waste and the planet from harmful methane emissions.