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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=green face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:green'>How do these
two compare? <a
href="http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/jan11/global0111.htm">http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/jan11/global0111.htm</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=green face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:green'>Kenn<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=green face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:green'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>
<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center tabindex=-1>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>
greenbuilding-bounces@lists.bioenergylists.org
[mailto:greenbuilding-bounces@lists.bioenergylists.org] <b><span
style='font-weight:bold'>On Behalf Of </span></b>Reuben Deumling<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> Tuesday, January 25, 2011
10:07 AM<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> Greenbuilding<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> [Greenbuilding] Fwd:
Climate Benefits of Natural Gas May BeOverstated</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>From "Common Dreams"<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><i><font size=1
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-style:italic'>Published
on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 by ProPublica<o:p></o:p></span></font></i></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Climate Benefits of Natural Gas May Be Overstated<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United
States</st1:place></st1:country-region> is poised to bet its energy future on
natural gas as a clean, plentiful fuel that can supplant coal and oil. But new
research by the Environmental Protection Agency—and a growing understanding of
the pollution associated with the full “life cycle” of gas production—is
casting doubt on the assumption that gas offers a quick and easy solution to
climate change. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Advocates for natural gas routinely assert that it
produces 50 percent less greenhouse gases than coal and is a significant step
toward a greener energy future. But those assumptions are based on emissions
from the tailpipe or smokestack and don’t account for the methane and other
pollution emitted when gas is extracted and piped to power plants and other
customers. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The EPA’s new analysis doubles its previous estimates
for the amount of methane gas that leaks from loose pipe fittings and is vented
from gas wells, drastically changing the picture of the nation’s emissions that
the agency painted as recently as April. Calculations for some gas-field
emissions jumped by several hundred percent. Methane levels from the hydraulic
fracturing of shale gas were 9,000 times higher than previously reported.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>When all these emissions are counted, gas may be as
little as 25 percent cleaner than coal, or perhaps even less.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Even accounting for the new analysis, natural
gas—which also emits less toxic and particulate pollution—offers a significant
environmental advantage. But the narrower the margins get, the weaker the
political arguments become and the more power utilities flinch at investing
billions to switch to a fuel that may someday lose the government’s long-term
support. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Understanding exactly how much greenhouse gas
pollution comes from drilling is especially important, because the Obama administration
has signaled that gas production may be an island of common political ground in
its never-ending march toward an energy bill. The administration and Congress
are seeking not just a steady, independent supply of energy, but a fast and
drastic reduction in the greenhouse gases associated with climate change. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Billions of cubic feet of climate-changing greenhouse
gases—roughly the equivalent of the annual emissions from 35 million
automobiles—seep from loose pipe valves or are vented intentionally from gas
production facilities into the atmosphere each year, according to the EPA. Gas
drilling emissions alone account for at least one-fifth of human-caused methane
in the world’s atmosphere, the World Bank estimates, and as more natural gas is
drilled, the EPA expects these emissions to increase dramatically. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>When scientists evaluate the greenhouse gas emissions
of energy sources over their full lifecycle and incorporate the methane emitted
during production, the advantage of natural gas holds true only when it is
burned in more modern and efficient plants. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>But roughly half of the 1,600 gas-fired power plants
in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>
operate at the lowest end of the efficiency spectrum. And even before the EPA
sharply revised its data, these plants were only 32 percent cleaner than coal,
according to a lifecycle analysis by Paulina Jaramillo, an energy expert and
associate professor of engineering and public policy at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Carnegie</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Mellon</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Now that the EPA has doubled its emissions estimates,
the advantages are slimmer still. Based on the new numbers, the median
gas-powered plant in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United
States</st1:place></st1:country-region> is just 40 percent cleaner than coal,
according to calculations ProPublica made based on Jaramillo’s formulas. Those
800 inefficient plants offer only a 25 percent improvement. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Other scientists say the pollution gap between gas and
coal could shrink even more. That’s in part because the primary pollutant from
natural gas, methane, is far more potent than other greenhouse gases, and
scientists are still trying to understand its effect on the climate—and because
it continues to be difficult to measure exactly how much methane is being
emitted.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>In November the EPA announced new greenhouse gas
reporting rules for the oil and gas industry. For the first time under the
Clean Air Act, the nation’s guiding air quality law, thousands of small
facilities will have to be counted in the pollution reporting inventory, a
change that might also lead to higher measurements.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The natural gas industry, in the meantime, has pressed
hard for subsidies and guarantees that would establish gas as an indispensible
source of American energy and create a market for the vast new gas reserves
discovered in recent years. The industry would like to see new power plants
built to run on gas, automobile infrastructure developed to support gas
vehicles and a slew of other ambitious plans that would commit the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>
to a reliance on gas for decades to come. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>But if it turns out that natural gas offers a more
modest improvement over coal and oil, as the new EPA data begin to suggest,
then billions of dollars of taxpayer and industry investment in new
infrastructure, drilling and planning could be spent for limited gain. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>“The problem is you build a gas plant for 40 years.
That's a long bridge,” said James Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, one of the
nation’s largest power companies. Duke generates more than half of its
electricity from coal, but <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Rogers</st1:place></st1:City>
has also been a vocal proponent of cap-and-trade legislation to limit
greenhouse gas emissions.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><font
size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Rogers</span></font></st1:place></st1:City>
worries that a blind jump to gas could leave the country dependent on yet
another fossil resource, without stemming the rate of climate change. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>“What if, with revelations around methane emissions,
it turns out to be only a 10 or 20 percent reduction of carbon from coal? If
that's true,” he said, “gas is not the panacea.” <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The American Petroleum Institute said in an e-mailed
response that federal offshore drilling rules are already cutting down on the
emissions tallied by the government. Spokesmen for the Independent Petroleum
Association of America and the natural gas lobbying groups Energy in Depth,
American Clean Skies Foundation and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s Natural Gas Alliance,
which have all been pushing to expand the use of gas, declined to comment on
the EPA’s new figures and what they mean for the comparison between gas and
coal. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>But industry groups point out that gas looks
attractive compared to the alternatives. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Nuclear energy is less polluting than gas from a
climate-changing perspective, but it is costly and viewed skeptically in the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>
because of the dangers of disposing of radioactive waste. So-called “clean
coal”—including underground carbon sequestration—could work, but the technology
has repeatedly stalled, remains unproven, and is at least 15 years away.
Renewable sources like wind and solar are being developed rapidly, but the
energy is expensive and won’t provide a commanding supply of electricity for
decades. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Gas, on the other hand, is plentiful, accessible and
local. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Methane Is the Most Potent Climate
Gas</span></font></b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Measuring the amount of natural gas that is leaking
during drilling is one challenge. Getting a grip on how that gas—which is
mostly methane—affects the environment, and what effect it will have on global
warming, is another. And on that, some scientists still disagree. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, as well as
methane, propane and lesser-known gases that also affect climate change. For
the purposes of standardization, all these gases are described together using
the unit Co2e, or carbon dioxide “equivalent.” But because each gas has a
different potency, or “warming” effect on the atmosphere, a factor is applied
to convert it to an equivalent of carbon dioxide. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Methane, the primary component of natural gas and the
most potent of the greenhouse gases, has far more of an effect on climate
change than carbon dioxide. But determining the factor that should be applied
to measure its relative warming affect is still being debated. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>To crunch its numbers, the EPA calculated the average
concentration of methane in the atmosphere over a 100-year period and
determined that over that period methane is 21 times more potent than carbon
dioxide. Using that equation, a ton of methane emissions is the equivalent of
21 tons of carbon dioxide. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>But some scientists argue that the impact of methane
gas should be calculated over a shorter time period, because methane degrades
quickly, and because gas drilling releases large quantities of methane into the
atmosphere all at once, likely concentrating and amplifying the effect. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Robert Howarth, an environmental biology professor at <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Cornell</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>, used research from the
United Nations to calculate that if methane’s potency were considered over 20
years rather than 100 years, it would be 72 times as powerful as carbon dioxide
in terms of its warming potential. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Figured that way, the climate effect of methane from
natural gas would quickly outpace the climate effect of carbon dioxide from
burning coal. Howarth’s research is incomplete and has been criticized because
at first he failed to figure in methane emissions from coal mining. But he said
that after correcting his error, the emissions from coal barely changed, and
the data still showed that the intensity of methane could erase the advantages
of using natural gas. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>“Even small leakages of natural gas to the atmosphere
have very large consequences,” Howarth <a
href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/cornell-university-3-2010-draft-report-on-greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-hyd"
target="_blank">wrote in a March memorandum</a> [1] [1], which he says is a
precursor to a more thorough study that could begin to scientifically answer
these questions. “When the total emissions of greenhouse gases are considered …
natural gas and coal from mountaintop removal probably have similar releases,
and in fact natural gas may be worse in terms of consequences on global
warming.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Howarth says his latest calculations show that the
type of shale gas drilling taking place in parts of <st1:State w:st="on">Texas</st1:State>,
<st1:State w:st="on">New York</st1:State> and <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Pennsylvania</st1:place></st1:State> leads to particularly high
emissions and would likely be just as dirty as coal. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Environmental groups say factual data on how much
methane is emitted from gas fields—and what the warming affect of that methane
is—should be locked down before major policy decisions are made to shift the
nation toward more reliance on gas.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>“You can’t just assume away some of these sources as
de minimus,” said Tom Singer, a senior policy analyst for the Natural Resources
Defense Council who focuses on emissions reporting in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">New Mexico</st1:place></st1:State>. “You need to get a handle on
them before you can make a determination.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Less Pollution Means More Profit</span></font></b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The EPA tracks fugitive and vented methane emissions
through a program called Natural Gas STAR and then works to get drilling
companies to save money by stanching their leaks and selling the gas they
capture for profit. It was a discrepancy in the Gas STAR data that prompted the
EPA to sharply revise the government’s greenhouse gas statistics late last
year. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>According to Gas STAR’s most recent figures, at least
1.6 percent of all the natural gas produced in the United States each year,
about 475 billion cubic feet, is assumed to be leaked or vented during
production. But those numbers were reported before the EPA adjusted its
greenhouse gas estimates, and they are expected to rise when the new estimates
are plugged into the calculation. If companies could capture even the gas
leaked in Gas STAR’s current estimates, it would be worth $2.1 billion a year
at today’s prices and would cut the nation’s emissions by more than 2 percent
right off the bat. Several studies show that maintaining and installing
equipment to capture the emissions pays for itself within 24 months. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Gas STAR has seen some success in pushing companies to
use these capture tools. The EPA’s 2010 greenhouse gas inventory, using 2008
data, shows that even though more gas is being produced from more wells, total
emissions from that production have decreased by more than 26 percent since
1990, mostly due to the progress of Gas STAR. But while these figures
demonstrate that Gas STAR is effective in lowering the annual rate of
emissions, the EPA’s new figures essentially move the starting point, and, when
recalculated, 2008 emissions are now understood to have been 53 percent higher
than emissions in 1990.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>That doesn’t mean the program isn’t working—it is. It
simply means that the road to making reductions significant enough to affect
the rate of climate change is much longer than expected. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The EPA now reports that emissions from conventional
hydraulic fracturing are 35 times higher than the agency had previously
estimated. It also reports that emissions from the type of hydraulic fracturing
being used in the nation’s bountiful new shale gas reserves, like the
Marcellus, are almost 9,000 times higher than it had previously calculated, a
figure that begins to correspond with Robert Howarth’s research at Cornell. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Clean Enough to Count On? </span></font></b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Getting a solid estimate of the total lifecycle
emissions from natural gas is critical not only to President Obama’s—and
Congress’–decisions about the nation’s energy and climate strategy, but also to
future planning for the nation’s utilities. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Even small changes in the lifecycle emissions figures
for gas would eventually affect policy and incentives for the utility industry,
and ultimately make a big difference in how gas stacks up against its
alternatives. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Rogers, the Duke executive, says the country’s large
promised reserves of natural gas must also hold up for gas to prove beneficial,
in terms of both cost and climate. If domestic reserves turn out to be smaller
than predicted, or the nation runs out of gas and turns to liquefied gas
imported from overseas, then the greenhouse gas footprint of natural gas would
be almost equal to coal, Jaramillo pointed out in her <a
href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/comparative-life-cycle-air-emissions-of-coal-domestic-natural-gas-lng-and-s"
target="_blank">2007 lifecycle analysis, published in the journal Environmental
Science and Technology</a> [2] [2]. That’s because the additional processing
and shipping of liquefied gas would put even more greenhouse gas pollution into
the atmosphere.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>“In the 60’s we put a needle in one arm—it was called
oil,” <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Rogers</st1:place></st1:City>
said. “If the shale gas doesn't play out as predicted, and we build a lot of
gas plants in this country, and we don't drill offshore, we're going to be
putting the needle in the other arm and it's going to be called gas.” <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The utilities are in a bind because they have to build
new power plants to meet the nation’s demand for energy, while anticipating an
as-yet-undefined set of federal climate and emissions regulations that they
believe are inevitable. Do they build new gas-fired plants, which can cost $2
billion and take three years to bring online? Or do they wait for proven
systems that can capture carbon from coal-fired plants and sequester it
underground? <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>If carbon sequestration works, coal-based power
emissions could drop by 90 percent, said Nick Akins, president of American
Electric Power, the nation’s largest electric utility and the number-one
emitter of greenhouse gas pollution. That suggests to Akins that natural gas
may not be the solution to the nation’s energy needs, but rather the transitional
fuel that bridges the gap to cleaner technologies.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='background:white'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Going from a 100 percent CO2 emitter to a 50
percent solution when you could go beyond that is something we need to turn our
attention to,” said Akins. “If there is a 90 percent solution for coal, and
other forms like nuclear, and renewables, then obviously you want to push in
that direction as well.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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style='font-size:12.0pt'>© Copyright 2011 Pro Publica Inc.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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