Methane report complicates industry plans

Six-year study finds energy companies’ emission rates are about 60 percent higher than what the EPA states

U.S. oil and gas operations are releasing far more methane into the atmosphere than the federal government estimates, causing more harm to the environment and potentially undermining the case for cleaner-burning natural gas as a bridge fuel to a carbon-free future, according to a study published Thursday in the prestigious journal Science.

Methane, the main component of natural gas, is a potent greenhouse gas that traps considerably more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, helping to accelerate climate change.

The six-year study on methane found that annual emission rates from energy companies are about 60 percent higher than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports.

The projected 13 million metric tons of methane emitted each year is the equivalent of about $2 billion in lost natural gas — enough to fuel about 10 million homes. The study, led by the national advocacy group Environmental

Defense Fund and involving 140 researchers from 40 institutions, is considered the most comprehensive of its kind.

These levels of methane significantly erode the potential climate benefits of using natural gas, which produces far less carbon dioxide than coal or oil when burned as a fuel. Most of the previously unreported emissions come from infrequent malfunctions at oil and gas wells that release large amounts of methane into the air without detection for prolonged periods of time.

That means the emissions can be reduced or eliminated if companies invest more in methane sensing and capture technologies at oil and gas wells to prevent these leaks or, at least, quickly detect and fix them. The study argued that more stringent state and federal regulations are needed to require these extra measures.

“There’s far more climate impact from the production and use of natural gas than we thought,” said Mark Brownstein, senior vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund. “But what we’ve also learned is we don’t have to live with that and these emissions are correctable.”

Natural gas has long been considered a bridge fuel on which the world could rely until renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power become more widespread and affordable. Much of the reduction in U.S. carbon emissions in recent years is attributed to the shift from coal-fired power plants to those burning natural gas.

But methane emissions — from gas wells to pipeline leaks — have become the Achilles’ heel of natural gas. Methane has 80 times the global warming effects of carbon dioxide.

Critical to industry

The oil and gas sector is the largest source of U.S. methane emissions, according to the Energy Department. Surging gas production from shale drilling and hydraulic fracturing, called fracking, has increased methane emissions through much of the past 10 to 15 years.

While it’s not immediately clear how much it would cost, it’s technically possible to eliminate about 75 percent of all methane emissions from oil and gas operations, the International Energy Agency said in a recent report. Nearly 50 percent of the emissions could be reduced at no net cost because the value of the captured methane would offset much of the expense of controlling the emissions, the IEA said.

Dramatically reducing methane emissions is considered critical to the energy industry, which is investing billions of dollars in natural gas production and liquefied natural gas processing as it faces tighter climate change rules around the world. Booming U.S. natural gas production is expected to surge by another 60 percent during the next 20 years, according the research firm IHS Markit.

U.S. natural gas output has soared to 81 billion cubic feet a day, from about 50 billion cubic feet of gas a day before the shale drilling boom began about a decade ago. A 60 percent spike from 2017 levels would translate to almost 120 billion cubic feet a day by the end of 2037.

Calling shale gas production anything but a revolution would be a huge understatement, said Dan Yergin, IHS Markit vice chairman and the report’s co-author. The shale boom, led largely by Houston companies, has reshaped the nation’s electric grid, fueled a petrochemical boom along the Gulf Coast and created a burgeoning industry in liquefied natural gas exports.

Natural gas is responsible for about one-third of all U.S. electricity generation now. That should grow to about 50 percent by 2040, IHS Markit projects.

The shale revolution “dramatically changed both markets and long-term thinking about energy,” Yergin said. “The profound and ongoing impacts on the industry, energy markets, the wider economy and the U.S. position in the world continue to unfold.”

‘Energy choices’

That’s why the study in Science argues in favor of solving the methane emission problems, rather then curbing or stopping natural gas production. Big improvements would come just by using better valves at wells and capturing the gas released.

As such, the study affirms the need for more cheap and abundant natural gas, said Steve Everly, spokesman for the industry group Texans for Natural Gas.

“We live in a world where we have to make energy choices,” he said, “and the choice to use natural gas is based on both its environmental and economic benefits. This study doesn’t change that.”

Already, some of the nation’s biggest oil and gas companies are moving to curb methane emissions. For instance, Exxon Mobil, the nation’s largest natural gas producer, said last fall it would stem its methane emissions from its U.S. onshore activities. In May, it pledged a broader effort to reduce methane emissions by 15 percent worldwide by 2020.

With the release of this study, the Environmental Defense Fund is calling for a 45 percent reduction in global oil and gas methane emissions by 2025 — a goal that would have the same short-term climate benefit as closing one-third of the world’s coal plants, according to the study.

The study is considered the most comprehensive on the topic, involving researchers from a long list of universities, including Harvard, Stanford , the University of Texas, Texas A&M and the University of Houston. The research involved both on-theground measurements at production sites and gas facilities and aircraft observations. The study tracked methane emissions from the drilling process through the multistate pipelines that carry the gas.

“Natural gas has the potential to be a much cleaner source of energy,” said Steven Hamburg, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund and a coauthor of the paper. “But that hasn’t always been the case because of the preventable emissions.”