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With New Tools, A Focus On Urban Methane Leaks
With New Tools, A Focus On Urban Methane Leaks
Until recently, little was known about the extent of methane leaking from urban gas distribution pipes and its impact on global warming. But recent advances in detecting this potent greenhouse gas are pushing U.S. states to begin addressing this long-neglected problem.
Battered by storms and weakened with age, the natural gas distribution pipes of urban New Jersey have long been in need of repair. And for a long time, the state’s largest utility, Public Service and Enterprise Group (PSE&G), has wanted to replace them. The problem is that pipelines cost upwards of $1.3 million per mile, and the utility owns 4,330 miles of it. Replacing it all would cost at least $6 billion, not to mention decades of work.
In December 2014, however, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) approached the utility with a solution. Using new technology that can trace methane emissions back to their sources with great precision,
researchers could home in on the highest-risk pipes, allowing the utility to prioritize repairs along the worst offending lines. EDF and its collaborators, from Colorado State University and Google Earth Outreach, then spent six months gathering data the utility could use.
The state’s Board of Public Utilities, which determines how much money PSE&G can raise from its customers and how it can spend it, had earlier rejected a request from the utility to raise $1.6 billion for 800 miles of new pipeline. But after the results of the monitoring effort were in, the utility narrowed its request to 510 miles of pipeline replacement, at a cost of $905 million over three years. Work on the project begins this month.
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Politicians push nuclear ‘poison pill’
Politicians push nuclear ‘poison pill’
Construction of a new nuclear reactor in Flamanville, France, is already six years behind schedule. Image: schoella via Wikimedia Commons
Natural Gas Needs To Clean Up Its Act
Natural Gas Needs To Clean Up Its Act
To call natural gas ‘clean’ would be a misnomer. Natural gas is a fossil fuel that emits carbon dioxide when burned and is an important contributor to climate change. The general consensus, however, is that when compared to oil (and petroleum products) or coal, natural gas it is by far the ‘cleaner’ choice for providing base-load power generation, heating homes, and for a series of other industrial and transport applications.
Still, the debate over methane emissions from natural gas production, transport, and distribution calls into question this assumption.
A new study by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) examined the methane emissions from natural gas production on federal and tribal lands. The study found that total natural gas loss, including flaring, amounted to 65 billion cubic feet (bcf) in 2013, or enough to meet the heating and cooking needs of around 1.6 million homes.
The implications of the study are serious. Not only does natural gas loss represent a waste of finite natural resources but it makes a significant and unnecessary contribution to the already seemingly impossible task of combating climate change.
Related: Can This Next Shale Hotspot Live Up To The Hype?
While methane (the major component of natural gas) has a far shorter lifespan than carbon dioxide, it is more efficient at trapping radiation, making the impacton climate change 25 times greater over a 100 year period. Over 20 years, methane’s warming potential is 84 times greater than CO2.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), methane accounts for around 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, almost 30 percent of which came from the production, transport, and distribution of oil and natural gas.
The latest study is part of a much broader effort by the Environmental Defense Fund to measure methane emissions across the United States, not just on federal and tribal lands. In an earlier study released last year, the EDF argued that adoption of existing technologies and operating practices, as simple as more frequent inspections, could help the U.S. reduce methane emissions by 40 percent by 2018.
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