Air sampling by NOAA over Colorado Finds 4% Methane Leakage, More Than Double Industry Claims

Natural-gas operations could release far more methane into the atmosphere than previously thought. [Source: Nature]

How much methane leaks during the entire lifecycle of unconventional gas has emerged as a key question in the fracking debate.  Natural gas is mostly methane (CH4).  And methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than (CO2), which is released when any hydrocarbon, like natural gas, is burned.

Even without a high-leakage rate for shale gas, we know that “Absent a Serious Price for Global Warming Pollution, Natural Gas Is A Bridge To Nowhere.”

But the leakage rate does matter.  A major 2011 study by Tom Wigley of the Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) concluded:

The most important result, however, in accord with the above authors, is that, unless leakage rates for new methane can be kept below 2%, substituting gas for coal is not an effective means for reducing the magnitude of future climate change.

The industry has tended kept most of the data secret while downplaying the leakage issue.  Yet I know of no independent analysis that finds a rate below 2%, including one by the National Energy Technology Laboratory, the DOE’s premier fossil fuel lab.

Now, as the journal Nature reports, we finally have some actual air sampling measurements, and they appear to confirm the higher estimates put forward by Cornell professor Robert Howarth:

When US government scientists began sampling the air from a tower north of Denver, Colorado, they expected urban smog — but not strong whiffs of what looked like natural gas. They eventually linked the mysterious pollution to a nearby natural-gas field, and their investigation has now produced the first hard evidence that the cleanest-burning fossil fuel might not be much better than coal when it comes to climate change.

Led by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Colorado, Boulder, the study estimates that natural-gas producers in an area known as the Denver-Julesburg Basin are losing about 4% of their gas to the atmosphere — not including additional losses in the pipeline and distribution system. This is more than double the official inventory, but roughly in line with estimates made in 2011 that have been challenged by industry. And because methane is some 25 times more efficient than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere, releases of that magnitude could effectively offset the environmental edge that natural gas is said to enjoy over other fossil fuels.

Methane is 25 times  more efficient than CO2 trapping heat over 100 year — but it is 100 times more efficient than CO2 trapping heat over two decades.

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As the United States has a freakishly warm and calm winter, Europe has been experiencing a frighteningly cold and dangerous season. Hundreds have died in frigid temperatures, snow and ice storms, and floods. This freakish weather in the Northern Hemisphere is connected by unusual behavior in the jet stream, which scientists are attributing to the dramatic changes in the Arctic caused by global warming pollution. In a new paper published in Tellus, scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research find that declines in summer Arctic sea ice are a factor in changing the Arctic Oscillation, the circulation pattern that dominates winter weather:

Scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany, say the frigid, snowy European winter has its origins in a warm Arctic summer. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that July 2011 was the fourth-warmest July on record. A warm summer in the Arctic cuts the amount of sea ice. NOAA reports that sea-ice levels last July were the lowest in three decades.

The effect is twofold, the Wegener scientists report. First, less ice means less solar heat is reflected back into the atmosphere. Rather, it is absorbed into the darker ocean waters. Second, once that heat is in the ocean, the reduced ice cap allows the heat to more easily escape into the air just above the ocean’s surface. Because warmer air tends to rise, the moisture-laden air near the ocean’s surface rises, creating instability in the atmosphere and changing air-pressure patterns, the scientists say.

In an interview with Conducive Chronicle, Dr. Jeff Masters explained why greenhouse pollution should be considered the most likely suspect for unprecedented behavior in the climate system:

The laws of physics demand that the huge amount of heat-trapping gases humans are pumping into the atmosphere must be significantly altering the fundamental large-scale circulation pattern of the atmosphere. Unprecedented behavior like we’ve witnessed in the configuration of the winter jet stream over North America — with the four most extreme years since 1865 occurring since 2006 — could very well be due to human-caused climate change. Something is definitely up with the weather, and it is clear to me that over the past two years, the climate has shifted to a new state capable of delivering rare and unprecedented weather events. Human emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide are the most likely cause of such a shift in the climate.

It’s critical to note that the southern hemisphere is also experiencing utterly extreme weather during its summer: Australia is deluged by flood, and heat waves and drought are crippling South America and Africa.

Readers asked what a good extended metaphor was for global warming.  Here’s one, courtesy of the National Center for Atmospheric Research:

AtmosNews takes a lighthearted look at an unexpected analogy, explaining why some people call carbon dioxide (and the other greenhouse gases) the steroids of the climate system. Statistics and extreme behavior are involved, whether we’re talking about baseball or Earth’s atmosphere. NCAR scientist Gerald “Jerry” Meehl explains why.

NCAR has puts it together an very informative website on global warming and extreme weather, which I highly recommend.

Related Post:

• PBS Covers Link Between 2011′s “Mind-Boggling” Extreme Weather and Global Warming: It’s Like “Being on Steroids”

As the Obama Administration moves to open up Arctic waters for exploratory offshore oil and gas drilling, a raising tide of opposition is emerging to counter the decision.

In the last two weeks, dozens of members of Congress, hundreds of scientists, and tens of thousands of concerned citizens have expressed their concerns about the environmental impact of drilling in Arctic waters.

In an open letter signed yesterday by 60 members of Congress, federal lawmakers called on Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to halt all leases for the Arctic in the agency’s five-year plan until a more sound review of disaster-response capabilities can be conducted:

“Successful oil spill response methods … cannot simply be transferred to the Arctic. The Arctic is a unique environment with significant hurdles that the DOI and related agencies must genuinely address before considering any new leasing in the region prior to including Arctic areas in a five-year plan.”

This follows a months-long investigation into disaster preparation in the Arctic by the Center for American Progress oceans team, which found a complete lack of infrastructure to deal with an oil spill:

There are no U.S. Coast Guard stations north of the Arctic Circle, and we currently operate just one functional icebreaking vessel. Alaska’s tiny ports and airports are incapable of supporting an extensive and sustained airlift effort. The region even lacks such basics as paved roads and railroads. This dearth of infrastructure would severely hamper the ability to transport the supplies and personnel required for any large-scale emergency response effort. Furthermore, the extreme and unpredictable weather conditions complicate transportation, preparedness, and cleanup of spilled oil to an even greater degree.

Just two weeks before, 573 scientists sent a letter to the White House urging the Obama Administration to take a science-based approach to issuing leases in the Arctic and to avoid opening up the region because of political pressure to expand drilling:

“Doing so prior to authorizing new oil and gas activity in the Arctic Ocean will respect the national significance of the environment and cultures of U.S. Arctic waters and demonstrate the value that your Administration places on having a sound scientific basis for managing industrial development of the Outer Continental Shelf.”

If one were to follow these concerns about taking a science-based approach to their logical conclusion, it’s highly unlikely that anyone would consider drilling for more fossil fuels in the Arctic. In its environmental impact statement, the Department of Interior even admits that “the Arctic is experiencing variations that are accelerating faster than previously realized” due to climate change — ironically making the region more attractive for oil and gas extraction as sea ice continues its downward spiral.

Apparently, the plan isn’t sitting well with many interested citizens either. Today was the final deadline for public comments, and almost 400,000 people have asked President Obama to stop the sales of leases in the Department of Interior’s five-year plan, according to the Alaska Wilderness League.

The Obama Administration is set to approve exploratory Arctic drilling permits to Royal Dutch Shell for operations next summer — a company that recently spilled 218 tons of oil in the North Sea and has the worst spill record in the UK since 2000.

In December, House Republicans attached poisonous riders on the Keystone XL pipeline and mercury-pollution rules to a tax-cut bill for working families. Senate Democrats killed the mercury rider, which would have blocked the so-called Boiler MACT rules, and President Obama rejected the tar sands pipeline after that rider was signed into law. Now the House GOP has new versions of the same poison pills, but Senate Democrats are fighting back. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told reporters in the Capitol Tuesday that he opposes both poison pills:

Instead of finding commonsense solutions, the Republicans are talking about things that have nothing to do with middle-income taxes — like the Keystone pipeline, rolling back regulations to keep our air safe and our water clean and pure. These tactics are stalling — more evidence the Republicans don’t want to extend this tax cut. They talk about extending it but simply are unwilling to do anything to make it a reality.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) agreed. “So we say to Speaker Boehner, instruct your conferees to drop the issue of Boiler MACT.”

Gary Trudeau is running a whole week on the disinformers.

Related Posts:

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Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-CO), elected in 2010 in one of the states most affected by climate change, now questions whether it is even happening. Hickenlooper told a Denver audience that he wouldn’t say “the sky is falling and that climate change is happening,” the Pueblo Chieftain reports:

I’m not going to go out and say the sky is falling and that climate change is happening, but I’m very concerned about the risk of climate change. That many smart people are that worried, that I’d be a fool not to be concerned.”

A former geologist, Hickenlooper had expressed skepticism of the overwhelming scientific consensus about global warming at a speech before mining executives during the 2010 campaign. “I don’t think that the scientific community has decided with certainty that climate change is as catastrophic as so many people think,” he said.

That year, approximately 100,000 spruce trees a day were killed by a spruce beetle infestation spurred by warming temperatures in Colorado.

Also in 2010, ThinkProgress Green interviewed some of Colorado’s many climate scientists to respond to global warming conspiracy theorist Ken Buck, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate. “There is no controversy about the role human actions have made to alter the climate system through the emissions of greenhouse gases over the past 150 years,” Dennis Ojima, chair of Colorado State’s Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory and a senior scholar with the Heinz Center said.

“It’s very likely it’s disruptive to anything we’re doing and take for granted at the moment,” Caspar M. Ammann, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research cautioned.

In 2009, Hickenlooper wasn’t as scornful of the scientific threat of carbon pollution from fossil fuels, instead calling it “one of the greatest challenges of our time.” Writing in the forward for “How the West Was Warmed,” Hickenlooper said that “the Rocky Mountain region is a showcase for both the most immediate and most dramatic impacts of global warming, from the mountain pine beetle epidemic to shrinking glaciers.”

(HT Colorado Independent)

Job creation in California’s clean energy/materials manufacturing sector increased by 53% from 1995 to 2010

When times get tough, companies often fall back on an old familiar phrase: “we just need to do more with less.” That usually applies to human resources. But it’s equally important with natural resources.

As it turns out, “green” companies in California that do more with fewer natural resources fared much better than companies in other sectors during the worst of America’s economic troubles — more than doubling the performance of the broader economy.

A new report from the non-partisan environmental think tank Next 10 shows that between 2009 and 2010, the “core green economy” in California — comprised of companies that provide products or services to cut natural resource use, re-purpose waste, and reduce global warming pollution — experienced half the number of job losses seen in the state’s broader economy.

Between January of 2009 and January of 2010, California’s economy shed 7% of jobs; however, the green economy saw only a 3% reduction in jobs. And from 1995 to 2010, the green economy in the state grew by 53% — far outpacing the 12% growth in the rest of the economy during that period of time.

California’s Core Green Economy shows signs of greater resilience than the economy as a whole. Over the past 16 years, its growth has outpaced the economy as a whole by more than a factor of four, and percentage losses are half those of the state’s total employment.

Despite these losses, some segments posted employment gains in the most recent observable period (January 2009 to 2010). Employment in Energy Infrastructure increased 14 percent, Advanced Materials expanded by four percent while Clean Transportation and Energy Generation grew by one percent each. Across the value chain, Manufacturing jobs in the Core Green Economy expanded by one percent from January 2009 to 2010, the only value chain segment to do so.

The big story was job creation in the clean energy/materials manufacturing sector, which increased by 53% from 1995 to 2010 while jobs in the rest of the manufacturing sector dropped by 18%. And as the report authors note above, even though companies saw a substantial slowdown due to the economic crisis between 2009 and 2010, employment in green manufacturing saw a slight increase in employment of one percent.

These figures echo those in a recent report from the Brookings Institution showing that clean energy jobs nationwide expanded by 8.3% per year from 2003 to 2010, with the rest of the “clean economy” (a broader definition including public transit, recycling and next-generation materials) growing 8.3% during the height of the recession between 2008 and 2009.

Related Posts:

• Green Jobs Reach 2.7 Million: The “Clean Economy” Starts Delivering on its Promise of High-Wage Jobs, Brookings finds
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Neither California nor the Mojave will survive unrestricted emissions of heat trapping greenhouse gases, but we can harness solar energy responsibly

by Jessica Goad (with some thoughts by Joe Romm at the end)

The Los Angeles Times recently published a story on large-scale solar that gets much of the context and many of the facts about renewable energy on public lands flat out wrong.

The Times piece, called “Sacrificing the desert to save the Earth,” describes an apparent land rush for solar energy development on public lands, and raises important questions about the impacts of this technology on the Mojave Desert in California.

However, it gets the comparisons to oil and gas development completely wrong, and also omits important details about what the government has done thus far to ensure that solar on public lands does not become a real land rush.

First, much of the story is based on a comparison to oil and gas development on public lands. The Times argues that financial incentives for solar development in southern California have “sparked a land rush echoing the speculative booms” of other land rushes in the past:

Industrial-scale solar development is well underway in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. The federal government has furnished more public property to this cause than it has for oil and gas exploration over the last decade — 21 million acres, more than the area of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties put together.

Even if only a few of the proposed projects are built, hundreds of square miles of wild land will be scraped clear. Several thousand miles of power transmission corridors will be created.

The desert will be scarred well beyond a human life span, and no amount of mitigation will repair it, according to scores of federal and state environmental reviews.

It is important to understand that this 21 million acres is the amount of public land that could be made available to solar energy development in six states (AZ , CA, CO, NV UT, NM), rather than the amount that will be eventually leased. (This is an arcane but important distinction when it comes to public lands, because companies bid for leases on parcels that are made available for development).  “Available” means that there is sufficient sun, the land is flat enough, none of the lands are protected (such as national parks), etc.

The data show that the Times’ comparison to oil and gas is totally incorrect. According to a Wilderness Society analysis, in just five western states (CO, NM, MT, UT, WY) over 50 million acres of public lands are already available to oil and gas development.

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To preserve a livable climate, we need to leave most remaining hydrocarbons in the ground. Guess who doesn’t like that idea?

by Bill McKibben, reposted from TomDispatch

If we could see the world with a particularly illuminating set of spectacles, one of its most prominent features at the moment would be a giant carbon bubble, whose bursting someday will make the housing bubble of 2007 look like a lark. As yet — as we shall see — it’s unfortunately largely invisible to us.

In compensation, though, we have some truly beautiful images made possible by new technology.  Last month, for instance, NASA updated the most iconic photograph in our civilization’s gallery: “Blue Marble,” originally taken from Apollo 17 in 1972. The spectacular new high-def image shows a picture of the Americas on January 4th, a good day for snapping photos because there weren’t many clouds.

It was also a good day because of the striking way it could demonstrate to us just how much the planet has changed in 40 years. As Jeff Masters, the web’s most widely read meteorologist, explains, “The U.S. and Canada are virtually snow-free and cloud-free, which is extremely rare for a January day. The lack of snow in the mountains of the Western U.S. is particularly unusual. I doubt one could find a January day this cloud-free with so little snow on the ground throughout the entire satellite record, going back to the early 1960s.”

In fact, it’s likely that the week that photo was taken will prove “the driest first week in recorded U.S. history.” Indeed, it followed on 2011, which showed the greatest weather extremes in our history — 56% of the country was either in drought or flood, which was no surprise since “climate change science predicts wet areas will tend to get wetter and dry areas will tend to get drier.” Indeed, the nation suffered 14 weather disasters each causing $1 billion or more in damage last year. (The old record was nine.) Masters again: “Watching the weather over the past two years has been like watching a famous baseball hitter on steroids.”

In the face of such data — statistics that you can duplicate for almost every region of the planet — you’d think we’d already be in an all-out effort to do something about climate change. Instead, we’re witnessing an all-out effort to… deny there’s a problem.

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Top Five Oil Companies Made $1 Trillion in Profits from 2001 Through 2011

by Daniel J. Weiss, Jackie Weidman, Rebecca Leber

General economic theory holds that companies will produce more of a good if its price is higher, or if it receives subsidies. Funny that these rules didn’t seem to apply to Big Oil in 2011, when the highest oil price since 1864 and $2 billion in subsidies to the five largest oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell—yielded lower oil production than in 2010. But these five oil companies combined made a record-high $137 billion in profits in 2011—up 75 percent from 2010—and have made more than $1 trillion in profits from 2001 through 2011.[1] This exceeds the previous record of $136 billion in profits in 2008.

Here are some more highlights from the big five’s activities in 2011:

• They produced 4 percent less oil and “oil equivalent” in 2011 compared to 2010.
• They spent a total of $38 billion, or 28 percent, of their profits to repurchase their own stock.
• They are sitting on more than $58 billion in cash reserves as of the end of 2011.
• They spent $1.6 million on campaign contributions and $65.7 million on lobbying efforts.
• For every $1 spent on lobbying in Washington, the big five received $30 worth of tax breaks.

Let’s dig a little deeper into this mystery to see why these companies are making more money while Americans see less oil and pay more at the pump.

Where the money goes

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Other stories below: Global warming could kill off snails; South Korean lawmakers vote for limits on greenhouse gas emissions

AEP chief: Coal’s elimination ‘just not going to happen’

Although the amount of energy produced by coal will decrease in the nation — from 45 percent today to 39 percent by 2020 — a top electric utility company CEO said there is definitely a future for coal.

“Coal is naturally going to come down, natural gas will be the choice, but they’re really marginal,” said Nick Akins, president and chief executive officer of American Electric Power. “Once technology is proven, you’ll start to see coal come back. We still need coal . . .  . If someone is trying to eliminate that, it’s just not going to happen.”

… “We provide the basic necessity of life as we know it….  What’s counterproductive is not to have an energy policy.”

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