Gas can be a bridge to low-carbon future if we put a price on CO2
The overbuilding of natural gas combined cycle plants starting in the mid-1990s presents a significant opportunity for near term reductions in CO2 emissions from the power sector. The current fleet of natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) units has an average capacity factor of 41 percent, relative to a design capacity factor of up to 85 percent. However, with no carbon constraints, coal generation is generally dispatched to meet demand before NGCC generation because of its lower fuel price.
Modeling of the ERCOT region (largely Texas) suggests that CO2 emissions could be reduced by as much as 22 percent with no additional capital investment and without impacting system reliability by requiring a dispatch order that favors NGCC generation over inefficient coal generation; preliminary modeling suggests that nationwide CO2 emissions [from the power sector] would be reduced by over 10 percent. At the same time, this would also reduce air pollutants such as oxides of sulfur and nitrogen.
That’s from the news release for the big MIT study, The Future of Natural Gas.
Considering that energy-related CO2 emissions are now down nearly 10% from 2005 levels, the point once again is that it is inexpensive and straightforward to reduce U.S. CO2 emissions to the 17% target for 2020 in most comprehensive climate bills — as I discussed over a year ago (see “Unconventional gas makes the 2020 climate targets so damn easy and cheap to meet“). Meeting such a 17% target in the utility sector alone, as in the latest incarnation of the watered-down climate bill, would be utterly trivial.
CAP’s Susan Lyon (along with Joseph Romm) has more on the MIT Study, which finds that natural will play a “crucial role” over the next several decades in reducing carbon emissions and serve as a bridge fuel between a dirty fossil fuel past and a clean energy future — if we put a price on carbon.
Ernest J. Moniz, Director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), noted that the analysis determined that natural gas could serve as a bridge between coal and renewable energy:
Much has been said about natural gas as a bridge to a low-carton future, with little underlying analysis to back up this contention. The analysis in this study provides the confirmation — natural gas truly is a bridge to a low-carbon future.
The study notes that the best way to spur this path forward is with a cap on carbon pollution. It recommends that, “a CO2 price for all fuels without long-term subsidies or other preferential policy treatment is the most effective way to achieve this result.”
The 30-member study group modeled a variety of future policy scenarios. They found that natural gas plays a significant role in cutting greenhouse gas emissions with major reductions coming from displacing inefficient, dirty coal-fired electric plants.
Furthermore, as U.S. natural gas markets are relatively mature compared to other countries, the U.S. is poised to be a leader in the coming push to expand natural gas markets globally. Modeling shows that integrating the three global markets that currently exist – North America, Europe, and Asia – would significantly lower natural gas prices for American consumers.
Importantly, the study finds that “environmental issues associated with producing unconventional gas resources are manageable yet challenging.” These environmental challenges, which have been heavily documented but are not yet thoroughly understood, stem primarily from the practice of hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) and the fracking fluids injected into the earth to access the gas itself. These ‘manageable’ risks include surface water contamination, shallow freshwater aquifer contamination, pressure on local water supplies, and community disturbance due to drilling and fracking. The study recommends, as CAP has, that companies should be required to disclose to government agencies and the public the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluids.
The models, covering a variety of policy scenarios extending to 2050, find that natural gas consumption will dramatically increase and significantly displace coal — if there is a carbon price. If not, “coal would continue to dominate.”
A scenario in which the U.S. does not restrict GHGs emission finds that U.S. gas production will rise by around 40% between 2009 and 2040. If the U.S. puts a price on emissions, production will rise closer to 30% by 2040 but then start falling slowly. In reality, even if we are dumb enough to not pass climate legislation in the next few years, it is certainly inevitable that we do so long before 2040, which makes projections beyond that point seem pointless.
The study finds that the natural gas resource base in the U.S. is large – enough for about 92 years worth of consumption at present domestic consumption rates – but much of this is from unconventional sources that will require additional research and development to recover.
To achieve an integrated role for natural gas in a carbon-constrained world, the study advocates several key policy recommendations. Broadly, it argues, the U.S. should use more gas for electricity generation and transportation:
Results indicate that a coal to gas displacement strategy could reduce power sector CO2 emissions by about 22% and demand for natural gas in the ERCOT electricity generation market would increase (by 0.36 TcF/year).
The study also looks at using CNG to power light-duty vehicles and LNG for heavy-duty vehicles, respectively. Because CNG use reduces GHG emissions by around 25% relative to gasoline, there could be a good passenger vehicle market; however, payback time of the upfront costs of a CNG conversion must become three years or less for market penetration to occur. It also considers expanding the use of LNG for long-haul trucks, a currently limited market; CAP estimated that if we can get nearly 3 million natural gas heavy trucks on the road by 2035, they could eventually displace up to about 1 million barrels per day, or 45 percent of the projected oil consumption of heavy trucks by 2035.
Yet panelists at the study’s release were careful to note that great legislative uncertainty remains, in addition to other uncertain factors such as gas reserve size, cost structure, and market conditions. In this uncertain climate, Gregory Staple, CEO of American Clean Skies Foundation, one of the study’s sponsors, argues for a strong natural gas title in energy legislation currently being debated in Congress, as well as stricter limits on global warming pollution:
At a minimum, a new energy bill should adopt stricter greenhouse gas emission standards for existing power plants and set a timetable for phasing out the least efficient and dirtiest coal-fired power plants.
Such a shift toward natural gas, under the right policies, can both enhance national security and reduce global warming pollution. For natural gas to best transition into its role as bridge fuel, comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation should become a reality.
Related Posts:
- Game Changer, Part 1: There appears to be a lot more natural gas than previously thought and
- 3: Unconventional gas “” great for low-cost climate action.
- 4: Tim Wirth delivers must-read “extreme words” to natural gas execs: “You don’t have the right to sit back and do nothing” about climate change. “We are in very deep trouble, the edge of catastrophe, and you can help.”
- 5: RFK, Jr. on “How to end America’s deadly coal addiction “¦ practically overnight” thanks to “a revolution in natural gas production”
Previous in TP Climate Progress
On an interesting addition to this section. This would require capital costs to enact but would extend the natural gas greatly giving a larger reduction in co2. Compressed air energy storage can use a wind energy field to pump up a large cavern underground to over 1000 lbs/in*2 from night time wind. Wind many times blows more at night than during the day. During the day that stored energy can be brought through a specialy desined turbine that uses 40% natural gas to meet demand. Underground caverns are already being used to store natural gas during the summer to meet winter peak demand in Illinois.
Natural gas is often described as the cleanest fossil fuel, producing less carbon dioxide per joule delivered than either coal or oil.[19], and far fewer pollutants than other fossil fuels. However, in absolute terms, it does contribute substantially to global carbon emissions, and this contribution is projected to grow. According to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (Working Group III Report, chapter 4), in 2004, natural gas produced about 5.3 billion tons a year of CO2 emissions, while coal and oil produced 10.6 and 10.2 billion tons respectively (figure 4.4). According to an updated version of the SRES B2 emissions scenario, however, by the year 2030, natural gas would be the source of 11 billion tons a year, with coal and oil now 8.4 and 17.2 billion respectively[30] (Total global emissions for 2004 were estimated at over 27,200 million tons).
In addition, natural gas itself is a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide when released into the atmosphere, although natural gas is released in much smaller quantities. Natural gas is mainly composed of methane, which has a radiative forcing twenty times greater than carbon dioxide. Based on such composition, a ton of methane in the atmosphere traps in as much radiation as 20 tons of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide still receives the lion’s share of attention over greenhouse gases because it is released in much larger amounts. Still, it is inevitable when natural gas is used on a large scale that some of it will leak into the atmosphere. Current estimates by the EPA place global emissions of methane at 3 trillion cubic feet annually,[31] or 3.2% of global production.[32] Direct emissions of methane represented 14.3% of all global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in 2004.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas#Environmental_effects
I found This a safer bridge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel
Yes I am glad that someone has mentioend the leaking of CH4 as it is an issue. Increased usage means more leaking.
DARPA: Biofuel from Algae Could Cost Only $1 Per Gallon
http://www.heatingoil.com/blog/darpa-biofuel-from-algae-could-cost-only-1-per-gallon215/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent
Environmental concerns
Issues commonly referenced include: focus on climate forcing associated with carbon dioxide production in extraction, liquefaction, gasification and transport [9]; the plants’ release of nitrogen oxide and particulate matter, known to aggravate asthma and respiratory disease[10]; environmental justice issues associated with site placement[11]; and that expensive infrastructure investment will displace cleaner alternatives
While natural gas power plants emit approximately half the carbon dioxide of an equivalent coal power plant, the natural gas combustion required to produce and transport LNG to the plants adds 20 to 40 percent more carbon dioxide than burning natural gas alone.[15] With the extraction, processing, chilling transportation and conversion back to a usable form is taken into account LNG is a major source of greenhouse gases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_natural_gas
It is important to make sure methane doesn’t leak, but we know how to do this. It will take both technological and institutional improvements to do so–in principle the economic incentive is there to fix the problem, but in practice the emissions are a small part of total gas sales, so they are often ignored. WIth the right policies in place, however, I have no doubt we can reduce those emissions.
One correction, the global warming potential of 20 mentioned above for methane is the instantaneous potential. The time integrated potential is closer to 10, if memory serves. Anyone have a good reference for that?
[JR: Wikipedia. Under 10, actually, for 500 years, but 72 (!) over 20 years.]
Watch Gasland and see how clean our reduced carbon future is if obtained from shale gas. Also, fracking is incredibly energy intensive, and at least one scientist has speculated that burning natural gas obtained from fracking will have roughly the same carbon footprint as burning coal from mountaintop removal coal mining. If that’s true then shale gas is not a transition fuel at all.
Jonathan i guess you mean this
Methane is a relatively potent greenhouse gas. Compared with carbon dioxide, it has a high global warming potential of 72 (calculated over a period of 20 years) or 25 (for a time period of 100 years).[2] Methane in the atmosphere is eventually oxidized, producing carbon dioxide and water. As a result, methane in the atmosphere has a half life of seven years.
The abundance of methane in the Earth’s atmosphere in 1998 was 1745 parts per billion (ppb), up from 700 ppb in 1750. By 2008, however, global methane levels, which had stayed mostly flat since 1998, had risen to 1,800 ppb[3]. By 2010, methane levels, at least in the arctic, were measured at 1850 ppb, a level scientists described as being higher than at any time in the previous 400,000 years.[4] (Historically, methane concentrations in the world’s atmosphere have ranged between 300 and 400 ppb during glacial periods commonlly known as ice ages, and between 600 to 700 ppb during the warm interglacial periods).
In addition, there is a large, but unknown, amount of methane in methane clathrates in the ocean floors. The Earth’s crust contains huge amounts of methane. Large amounts of methane are produced anaerobically by methanogenesis. Other sources include mud volcanoes, which are connected with deep geological faults, landfill and livestock (primarily ruminants) from enteric fermentation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane
Global warming potential (GWP) is a measure of how much a given mass of greenhouse gas is estimated to contribute to global warming. It is a relative scale which compares the gas in question to that of the same mass of carbon dioxide (whose GWP is by convention equal to 1). A GWP is calculated over a specific time interval and the value of this must be stated whenever a GWP is quoted or else the value is meaningless.
The substances subject to restrictions in the Kyoto protocol either are rapidly increasing their concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere or have a large GWP.
The GWP depends on the following factors:
* the absorption of infrared radiation by a given species
* the spectral location of its absorbing wavelengths
* the atmospheric lifetime of the species
Thus, a high GWP correlates with a large infrared absorption and a long atmospheric lifetime. The dependence of GWP on the wavelength of absorption is more complicated. Even if a gas absorbs radiation efficiently at a certain wavelength, this may not affect its GWP much if the atmosphere already absorbs most radiation at that wavelength. A gas has the most effect if it absorbs in a “window” of wavelengths where the atmosphere is fairly transparent. The dependence of GWP as a function of wavelength has been found empirically and published as a graph.[1]
Because the GWP of a greenhouse gas depends directly on its infrared spectrum, the use of infrared spectroscopy to study greenhouse gases is centrally important in the effort to understand the impact of human activities on global climate change.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential
Sure, there should be no problems “managing” the risks of fracking.
After all, we’ve had no problems “managing” the risks of coal mining, or offshore oil drilling, have we?
First, to supplement our friend Prokaryotes (who recently has grown an s.)
In an interview in The Nation, Josh Fox, the director of Gasland, has this to say:
The energy industry has done a really good job of presenting natural
gas as the cleanest alternative to burning coal, when in fact once you factor in the fracking process and the emission from methane, which we now know to be the most potent greenhouse gas, it is the dirtier, more polluting and far more toxic competitor to renewable energy. We have the technology to make the transition to renewable energy right now. The film points out that the 7,700 natural gas wells in the Dallas-Fort Worth area contribute more air pollution and more greenhouse gas than all the pollution from cars and trucks in the area. Natural gas is a dirty fossil fuel like the rest of them.
In addition to the climate change issue, there’s a human rights crisis. The drilling is disenfranchising people, taking them away from their homes. In the more than thirty states where there’s fracking or where fracking is planned, like New York, a large percentage of the land is currently being leased for gas drilling. This land is no longer owned by
the American people. Practically speaking, it’s owned by the gas industry because they can do what they want with it.
http://www.thenation.com/article/36385/onshore-drilling-disasters-waiting-happen-interview-gasland-director-josh-fox
Of further interest is another Nation article that also relates to the discussion between Joe Romm and Bill McKibben on our political response to global warming. Here are the first three paragraphs and a link.
Scott Parkin, an organizer at the San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network (RAN), is a straight-talking, get-things-done kind of guy, more at ease toiling behind the scenes in environmental struggles than serving as a personification of them. Yet in his fight against the coal industry he has embodied the qualities that define a new-model environmental movement in the United States. In the past four years this reinvigorated, multifaceted movement has chalked up an impressive–albeit frequently overlooked–series of victories against Big Coal, a leading contributor to domestic greenhouse gas emissions and a powerful lobby whose influence stretches from Congress to rural West Virginia courthouses.
A decade ago, the coal and utility industries began to push for the construction of a new generation of coal-fired power plants. Since then, 232 plants have been proposed. The environmental justice movement has defeated 127 of them. Not a single coal-fired plant was built in 2009. This past March, following several modest moves toward greater scrutiny of mountaintop removal permits in the past year, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was moving to block authorization of the largest mountaintop removal site in West Virginia, held by Arch
Coal, an industry leader. Then, on April 1, the EPA proposed new water quality regulations for future mountaintop removal permits–imposing standards that very few, if any, mountaintop removal proposals would meet, as EPA head Lisa Jackson noted.
These victories have seriously set back–if not yet vanquished–an industry that accounts for nearly 40 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions and powers roughly half of US energy production. It’s as if the antiwar movement had brought the military’s recruitment efforts to a grinding halt. The coal industry’s ability to do harm–to the climate
generally and to communities living in the shadow of coal plants or mining sites locally–has been significantly curtailed, and many in the environmental movement are beginning to speculate about the beginning of the end for Big Coal.
http://www.thenation.com/article/cracking-big-coal
Finally, totally OT here, in light of the legacies of Ghandi, the workers who participated in the CIO sit-ins, and Martin Luther King, and considering the urgency of the crisis, I find it astounding that not one of the contributors to the Romm McKibben discussion mentioned civil disobedience.
This post is right on. It is our best opportunity to reduce emissions in the short term.
Gasland is a polemic made by an artist, not by a scientist or someone who has any knowledge of the oil and gas industry. It shows.
The process of hydraulic fracturing or “hydrofracking” does not appear to cause any problems. Hundreds of thousands of wells have been fracked in this country over the last 60 years and there are few if any documented cases of the hydrofracking itself causing a problem. There are no confirmed cases that hydrofracking contaminated groundwater. There are a few cases where homeowners accuse gas companies of contaminating their water, but regulatory agencies have never confirmed these accusations and in some cases proved them to be incorrect. That is not to say that there are not and will not be problems associated with gas drilling. These can mostly be mitigated with strong regulations and enforcement of those regulations.
The people who made Gasland were from Pennsylvania and they needed to travel all across the country to find a movie’s worth of problems, half of which were contrived or misinterpreted. One of their big examples in Dunkard Creek, PA turns out to have been a problem with contamination from a coal mine, not gas drilling. That is with more than 500 Marcellus wells drilled in PA at the time and hundreds of thousands of wells drilled across the country. If fracking was such a problem they should have been able to show hundreds of cases of contamination right in PA.
The whole anti-hydrofracking movement was made up by activists, journalists and artists who don’t know anything about how wells are drilled and fracked. They assumed they knew more than career regulators who have consistently said that hydrofracking isn’t a problem. This average joe knows more than the experts approach is very similar to the know-nothings who think they understand climate change better than scientists who have spent their careers studying climate.
Before introducing, locked methane into the carbon cycle it makes more sense to make use of existing sources – a relative carbon neutral approach.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_lagoons
“The process of hydraulic fracturing or “hydrofracking” does not appear to cause any problems.”
Drilling might be culprit behind Texas earthquakes
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2009/06/12/2923921-drilling-might-be-culprit-behind-texas-earthquakes
EPA report did find uncertainties in knowledge of how fracturing fluid migrates through rocks, and upon its release service companies voluntarily agreed to stop using diesel fuel as a component of fracturing fluid, due to public concerns of its potential as a source of benzene contamination. With critics claiming that Bush administration officials influenced the 2004 EPA study, the U.S. Congress has requested that the EPA undertake a new, broader study of fracking. The report is due to be released in 2012.[21]
The increased use of hydraulic fracturing has prompted more speculation about its environmental dangers. A 2008 investigation of benzene contamination in Colorado and Wyoming led some EPA officials to suggest hydraulic fracturing as a culprit. One of the authors of the 2004 EPA report states that it has been misconstrued by the gas-drilling industry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing
Raindog
Here’s some more from the aforementioned interview with Josh Fox:
The second really surprising thing was the non-disclosure agreements. When an injured party is suing the gas industry because their water has been contaminated, the gas industry will give them some money or some water in exchange for their silence. Non-disclosure agreements were everywhere. I was very surprised and also very disheartened—because I couldn’t talk to those people. There was a great amount of information that was under this cloak of silence…
Congress exempted the gas industry from the Clean Air and Water acts. So there are no real functioning mechanisms for monitoring and gathering essential information about fracking.
In case you’ve forgotten, agreements of this sort were also made by BP with people whose lives were affected by the Gulf disaster.
And I believe you’re wrong about the best way to reduce emissions in the short term. The best way, both short and long term, is to reduce energy consumption. Based on one of your responses yesterday, I can imagine you saying that I am not qualified to speak about this unless I ride a bike and am off grid. To forestall an argument of this type (which I find absurd) let me say this: What we can do is largely determined by our infrastructural and social possibilities. I live in Copenhagen, a city with a good bike infrastructure and a strong bike culture, and I do ride a bike. My daily commute is a total of 24 kilometers. People in my city travel 1.1 million kilometers every day on bikes, and maybe you should try to calculate how much more CO2 we would emit if we all drove. Copenhagen is a city of some 500,000. Recently the Transportation Commissioner of New York City declared Copenhagen to be a model, and in the past three years New York has laid 220 kilometers of dedicated bike lanes and is adding an additional 80 kilometers every year. Imagine the energy savings if 40% of the stop-go city automobile traffic was replaced by bikes.
As for being off grid, people in cities generally do not live in private homes, and it seems to me that the more responsible and effective solution would be the social one that results in a better grid supplied by increasing amounts of renewable energy for everyone. I suspect you’ll object to that. (Having said that I would add that we, especially Americans and the denizens of some of the oil states, don’t just use energy, we squander it, so there’s much room for individual contributions.)
I agree with Prokaryotes, Josh Fox and others that methane mining of “unconventional gas” is a fraud by the hydrocarbon mining industry and their associated special interests to maintain the financial investments and future interests of their owners/investors. Besides being a major climate change gas, it represents numerous liabilities and costs that are socialized. These include LNG tankers and their Hiroshima sized national security threat, surface and groundwater contamination, public poisoning and increased health costs, Halliburton loop-holes which bypass clean water laws, more pipe lines, plant explosions (like the Kleen Energy plant in Middletown, CT), and the diversion of hundreds of billions of dollars over coming decades for fossil fuels and their lost opportunity costs vs. clean energy.
Clean energy is technically ready and eco-nomical now as it has been for many years, even as we continue to pour massive subsidies into “fuels.” Mining “unconventional gas” will lead to more unconventional problems and disasters.
The modeling has been clear on this point for quite some time — a CO2 price will incentivize greater use of natural gas (nat gas folks are shamelessly asking for additional incentives) — if the price is too low for too long, then you’ll see most of the power sector switch to gas at a much higher long term cost. Paradoxically, if you expect a very high CO2 price in the long term, then you are better off to build renewables, nukes and CCS equiped coal as aggressively as possible. Without the price on CO2, the power sector moves away from coal as the CAA begins to bite (on carbon and criteria pollutants). Unfortunately, the coal lobby has missed this point entirely.
I personally think the bridge is EFFICIENCY in everything we do — society is currently very wasteful with energy.
One of the best books on this subject is “Crossing the Energy Divide, Moving From Fossil Fuel Dependence to a Clean-Energy Future” by Robert U. Ayres and Edward H. Ayres.
http://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Energy-Divide-Dependence-Clean-Energy/dp/0137015445/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279055052&sr=1-1
The authors also make a critical connection between energy and water. Since I live in the SW US, this issue is very important.
This is excellent news. Counter to the claims of the conservative/Republican/deniers (redundant, I know), it would seem this technique is unlikely to drive the economy into a recession.
Combine the emphasis on natural gas for electricity with the rollout of electric cars and we could be on our way to a big chunk of our needed CO2 reductions.
Lloyd’s of London says that by 2013 we are looking at $200 a barrel oil. These aren’t some tinfoil hat peak oil conspiracy crazies. These people have made a successful business of managing risk since the 17th century, so I would expect that they know what they are talking about.
If that prediction is anywhere close to true, then electric cars are going to suddenly be very popular.
I’d like less coal, less petroleum, and more natural gas, with biogas replacing gas from wells as the infrastructure develops. Natural gas is a good transition fuel because it develops infrastructure that has other uses. All the while I’d like wind, solar, geothermal and tidal energy developed where applicable.
There are no magic bullets (except one that would wipe out all human greed). No one-size-fits-all-solutions for anthropomorphic climate change except:
‘Use less fossil fuel and more renewables.’
First, to supplement our friend Prokaryotes (who recently has grown an s.)
Maybe it has reproduced by binary fission as a prokaryote is apt to do. :)
Philip (#9) says, “Finally, totally OT here, in light of the legacies of Ghandi, the workers who participated in the CIO sit-ins, and Martin Luther King, and considering the urgency of the crisis, I find it astounding that not one of the contributors to the Romm McKibben discussion mentioned civil disobedience.”
OK, I contributed to the Romm-McKibben discussion yesterday, and I’ll mention civil disobedience now. A few hours ago, I drove past Walden Pond, asking myself, “What would Henry David Thoreau do if he were living today, faced with the slowly-evolving climate crisis?”
It seems likely to me that he’d respectfully be calling us a bunch of whimps! He proudly spent the night in a Concord, MA jail simply to protest an unfair poll tax. Here we are, quite possibly facing the end of modern civilization as we know it, yet most of us are too darn preoccupied with are precious activities of daily living to pick up the phone and call a senator–let alone go to Washington on October 10th for a 10:10 AM White House Work Party (WHWP), asking Obama to lead on Climate.
For anyone who gives a hoot, and who cares about our collective futures, please save the date and the time to join the above WHWP. Be there, or be square. More details can be found at http://www.gwenet.org, where you can also take the very simple step of following a link to sign a petition to Obama, asking him to “Please Educate and Lead on Climate.” (Every time someone signs the petition, the president is sent an emailed copy, so it’s a good nudge!)
OT, here’s an interesting and ironic Thoreau fact, in view of today’s political leanings: While Thoreau is often considered to be America’s first true environmentalist (L-leaning), he opens his essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” by saying “I heartily accept the motto,–’That government is best which governs least;’…” (Tea Party anyone?)
Folks, shale gas is the only near-term candidate to shut down coal. If we say no to shale gas now, we say yes to coal, mountain-top removal mining, more catastrophic ash pit dam breaks, more local pollution in the form of mercury, sulfur, NOx, particulates, etc from coal power plants, more coal train traffic and consequent train accidents, etc. Shale gas works now, it connects to the existing pipeline network, and it is used in existing natural gas power plants which are now running way below capacity.
Anti-shale gas propoganda is most certaintly being promoted by the coal industry, because they are the only party to benefit from holding shale gas down.
I realize I am coming off like a jerk in some of these posts but it has been very frustrating to see this process (which I think can help to save us from the worst problems with peak oil and at least help us cut our carbon emissions) get derailed by people who have very little idea what they are talking about. Why did Josh Fox, an artist by trade, make this movie instead of a hydrologist? Because serious scientists see that there is little or no evidence of the problems that these people insist are occurring.
Prokaryotes says:
July 13, 2010 at 3:51 pm
“Drilling might be culprit behind Texas earthquakes”
All it takes is for one person to suggest this and then they can write this headline – that was the case with a lot of the issues raised in Gasland. It doesn’t mean its true. they rarely get the science backed side to weigh in.
“EPA report did find uncertainties in knowledge of how fracturing fluid migrates through rocks, and upon its release service companies voluntarily agreed to stop using diesel fuel as a component of fracturing fluid, due to public concerns of its potential as a source of benzene contamination. With critics claiming that Bush administration officials influenced the 2004 EPA study, the U.S. Congress has requested that the EPA undertake a new, broader study of fracking. The report is due to be released in 2012.[21]”
They already studied fracking and came to the conclusion that it isn’t a problem. They know this but are trying to placate environmental groups who are seized with a religious certainty that it is a problem. The new study doesn’t include only fracking but the entire process from the first clearing of the site until the well is plugged and abandoned and the land reclaimed. I think this study is useful but only a tiny part of it will focus on fracking itself as they already know that it doesn’t cause significant problems.
“The increased use of hydraulic fracturing has prompted more speculation about its environmental dangers. A 2008 investigation of benzene contamination in Colorado and Wyoming led some EPA officials to suggest hydraulic fracturing as a culprit. One of the authors of the 2004 EPA report states that it has been misconstrued by the gas-drilling industry.”
“Suggesting hydraulic fracturing as a culprit” is really different than demonstrating that it is the problem. Most readers probably aren’t aware that in Wyoming and Colorado it was not (and still may not be) required that mud pits be lined with plastic to prevent leakage of drilling fluids into the groundwater. This has been the law in the eastern states for decades. I suggest that stronger regulation in those states would be beneficial. Benzene can also come from farm machinery and that might be the most likely source in these cases.
I also get very nervous about people suggesting that a decades long fossil fuel “bridge” is going to save us. The 50% of coal emissions from natural gas is still way too much.
Important technological changes are transformational, not incremental. Using gas is like improving horse and buggy design.
Natural-Gas Driller to Disclose Chemical Use
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703834604575365360901763540.html#
Yesterday, I’m thinking that a woman reassured herself
when talking with me that her family was doing the
best that they could. Employing as many as they could
to fix appliances for the public. They think that the
way to do such good service is with ICE vehicles.
It probably helps her in the now to not see far into
the future as it would be inconvenient for her to see
that she did not take a good path to have her wants met.
See seems very happy with herself.
Given that style, she probably knows to keep deoderant
with her in case she lets off some gas by accident, or
at least to be very quiet about it, or to say that it
is rude to overly draw attention if it does happen.
Certainly she knows that it would not permanently ruin
the room though.
Raul, this is OT but have a look http://bit.ly/cTRfdH
Raindog, you have looked at the information presented by Gasland, compared it to information provided by the experts working in the field to remediate gas well problems, and found Gasland to be full of serious errors. So did I.
Yes there are some problems with gas wells. Site damage, noise, bad casings which allow gas to move up into groundwater and into homes. Compared to coal mining these are trivial problems–but they are readily avoided just by requiring better drilling procedures. Unlike MTR.
The gas boom will go on. It is up to the various states to make it clean and safe. Hopefully they all get it right, but even if they don’t, I’ll take gas over coal any day. And efficiency over gas.
Prokaryotes, thank-you
Hmmm, I was noticed by Prokaryotes!!!!
Solar installers and roofers in general
would benefit by hats and shirts with radient
barriers. For shirts the barriers should be along
the back upper third?
Philip says:
July 13, 2010 at 4:53 pm
“Raindog
Here’s some more from the aforementioned interview with Josh Fox:
“The second really surprising thing was the non-disclosure agreements. When an injured party is suing the gas industry because their water has been contaminated, the gas industry will give them some money or some water in exchange for their silence. Non-disclosure agreements were everywhere. I was very surprised and also very disheartened—because I couldn’t talk to those people. There was a great amount of information that was under this cloak of silence…”
>This does happen but there is more than one way to look at it. When Fox says “non-disclosure agreements are everywhere” what does that mean? Every single person has one? There is one or two in each state? How many exactly are there? Remember that Fox has an agenda – to make this look really evil. He is getting wealth and fame from this movie. An even-handed look would not get the attention that this movie has. We are led to believe by innuendo that there are all sorts of evil secrets being kept. It is also possible that these people were wrong about the gas company being at fault but that the company just wanted them to stop spreading misinformation. I would think that if there was a real widespread problem or health risk that state regulators would not put up with it. Maybe in one or two states regulators could be corrupt, but in all of the states where this occurs State regulators seem to think that fracking is OK and doesn’t cause significant problems.
“Congress exempted the gas industry from the Clean Air and Water acts. So there are no real functioning mechanisms for monitoring and gathering essential information about fracking.”
This is not really correct. Every well that is hyrdrofracked does not need to go through a review under the Clean Air and Water Act. The EPA reviewed hydrofracking and exempted it. It is onerous regulation to make companies submit plans for review for each well. Especially when it is clear that hydrofracking itself isn’t a problem! There is not ONE case where state and/or federal regulators found a link between hydrofracking and water contamination after >1,000,000 wells have been fracked. Not ONE! Environmental groups and members of the public that don’t need to back up their statements with proof have alleged this to be the case in a few instances, but further investigations by actual scientists have NEVER found a link between any groundwater contamination and hydrofracking.
That is not to say that groundwater cannot be contaminated by oil and gas companies who have sloppy practices above ground. Just that hydrofracking itself does not lead to groundwater contamination. If properly regulated shale gas should be a clean, relatively low carbon (but definitely not no carbon) source of energy for the next few decades.
Mike #22 – thanks and I think you are right
And TAFL says:
July 14, 2010 at 3:54 am
“Anti-shale gas propoganda is most certaintly being promoted by the coal industry, because they are the only party to benefit from holding shale gas down.”
I did not want to go there because it starts to sound like conspiracy thinking, but I find this to be plausible. Who benefits more than the coal companies by stifling the switch from coal to natural gas which is in essence what Josh Fox, Propublica and other anti-shale gas forces are doing.
Raindog, 30# “If properly regulated shale gas should be a clean, relatively low carbon (but definitely not no carbon) source of energy for the next few decades.”
It is a dirty fossil fuel and you entirely miss the point of catastrophic climate change here. In order to sustain civilization and the economy we need negative carbon action to get “back” to a saver climate state http://350.org
Maybe there are some installation to replace coal plants in the short term, but cracking up the earth to release even more methane and other greenhouse gases in the process is very risky – not controllable. You cannot smell or see methane gas and once in the atmosphere the GWP could also be altered if there is to much of it.
Natural gas generation makes sense where anthropogenic methanogenesis is occurring. Beside this you have the potential of accidents with LNG generation plants or when transported. Then you have the cost and the emissions in the process, which all makes it less competitive. Natural gas is not a solution for a sustainable future.
Philip
“And I believe you’re wrong about the best way to reduce emissions in the short term. The best way, both short and long term, is to reduce energy consumption. Based on one of your responses yesterday, I can imagine you saying that I am not qualified to speak about this unless I ride a bike and am off grid.”
What I am trying so say is that as long as people are on the grid and/or driving cars these are all “our” problems not “their” problems. I see people getting high and mighty and wanting to shut down drilling of all kinds but I also see them using these company’s products in great abundance. You can’t act above it all but still use the products. We can’t switch entirely to wind and solar and other renewables in less than 30 years. That is just fact. So being against any other source of energy in the next 30 years is not taking responsibility for our predicament as I see it. We have to choose the best of these options to fill the gap. To me it is obvious that the best option is natural gas.
I realize this is easier said than done and that individuals have little control over large scale energy projects. I just want to see some realism on the issue.
“We can’t switch entirely to wind and solar and other renewables in less than 30 years. That is just fact.”
Solar and wind have each the power to produce more energy than humans can consume.
The Cost Of A 95% Renewable-Powered World By 2050?
http://www.solarfeeds.com/calfinder-resident-solar/12901-the-cost-of-a-95-renewable-powered-world-by-2050
Prokaryotes says:
July 14, 2010 at 11:23 am
“It is a dirty fossil fuel and you entirely miss the point of catastrophic climate change here. In order to sustain civilization and the economy we need negative carbon action to get “back” to a saver climate state http://350.org”
Actually gas is the cleanest fossil fuel – I am with you on cutting emissions back to 350 and this is a great start without total disruption of civilization
“Maybe there are some installation to replace coal plants in the short term, but cracking up the earth to release even more methane and other greenhouse gases in the process is very risky – not controllable. You cannot smell or see methane gas and once in the atmosphere the GWP could also be altered if there is to much of it.”
Dude, you need to read about what actually happens in hydrfracking. It is completely controlled. This makes me worry that you are not educated on this issue.
“Natural gas generation makes sense where anthropogenic methanogenesis is occurring. Beside this you have the potential of accidents with LNG generation plants or when transported. Then you have the cost and the emissions in the process, which all makes it less competitive. Natural gas is not a solution for a sustainable future.”
This deepens my worry stated above – Shale gas and LNG are totally different. Shale gas will reduce our need for liguid natural gas! LNG is what they do when they want to bring natural gas from places where a pipeline is not feasible such as Africa or the Middle East. Shale gas is in our own backyard – no need for LNG.
Prokaryotes says:
July 14, 2010 at 11:41 am
“We can’t switch entirely to wind and solar and other renewables in less than 30 years. That is just fact.”
Solar and wind have each the power to produce more energy than humans can consume.
The Cost Of A 95% Renewable-Powered World By 2050?
I am completely with this goal – the question is what do we do to fill the gap between now and 2050? Burn coal or gas?
Raindog, 35# “Dude, you need to read about what actually happens in hydrfracking. It is completely controlled. This makes me worry that you are not educated on this issue.”
Actually it is another experiment, as we pump chemicals down to frack up the earth and release fossil energy. Long term effects?
The chemicals used are not officially public. Beside this gas companies agreed to “not” use certain chemicals, under this premise the EPA granted extraction.
But it turns out some still use those chemicals. So much for the control and your blind faith.
Above all this the earth is becoming more unstable from climate change, which i think will make fossil energy extraction in a near future – to expensive.
Raindog, 36# “I am completely with this goal – the question is what do we do to fill the gap between now and 2050? Burn coal or gas?”
Simply build renewable – clean energy generation. For example there is a project to turn gulf oil rigs into wind farms. Same can be done for any other electricity source. You need to extend existing and update the infrastructure – efficiency.
Gulf of pollution clean-up workers also could
benefit from the color of their clean-up clothing
being infused with radiant barriers.
Several have noticed that it is too hot out there.
If hats had the benefit of reflecting infrared light
then the person could stay cooler.
Just painting a radiant barrier onto a helmet could
help a great deal.
Re “a CO2 price for all fuels without long-term subsidies or other preferential policy treatment is the most effective way to achieve this result.”: I believe that this kind of dogmatic adherence to “economy-wide” carbon-pricing policy is one of the biggest barriers to effective federal climate action.
How would the study’s recommendations compare with a policy that applies high carbon fees — e.g. of order $100 per ton — not to all generation sources, but only to new sources? Treat changes in emissions and generation output from baseline historical levels as “new-source” generation. For example, if a utility replaces a portion of its coal-powered generation with NG-sourced energy, it will have reduced emissions without changing generation output, no different than if it had sequestered a portion of its coal emissions; and it will receive $100 per ton for those “sequestered” emissions.
The financing for such pricing incentives would come from modest carbon fees on “old” sources. How modest? At the outset of the program there would be no “new” sources, so old-source fees would initially be zero, and would only become significant when new sources (including new NG generation) have attained significant market share.
Carbon fees starting out at $0.00/ton, which finance new-source incentives starting out at $100/ton. This is possible.