Fugitive methane emissions from natural gas operations are a significant global warming pollution source that should be reduced sharply, a new working paper from the World Resources Institute asserts.
But experts discussing the issue Apr. 4 at WRI's Washington, DC, headquarters questioned whether its urgency trumps the need to properly measure actual greenhouse gas emissions before formulating regulations.
"We need to understand not only where we've been, but where we are now," suggested Fiji George, Shell Exploration & Production Co.'s onshore science, policy, and regulatory advisor. "Natural gas is an immediate and available alternative to fuels which have bigger adverse environmental impacts. The paper describes technologies which might be applied to make it even better, but more accurate measurements are required."
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin are working with the Environmental Defense Fund and Shell to directly measure methane emissions from several key sources, and expect to report initial results sometime in May, he told OGJ following the discussion.
"In the immediate term, natural gas is a friend," George said. "We need to take better measurements and do more research to get maximum benefits from it."
Will Allison, director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's Air Pollution Control Division, also emphasized the need for better emissions data.
"One problem is that greenhouse gases haven't been regulated until recently," he said. "Studies in Colorado along the Front Range and on the Western Slope could provide hard data to inform the public policy debate where there's been so much uncertainty."
Acknowledge limits
But Michael Obeiter, a senior associate in WRI's Climate and Energy Program and one of the paper's authors, warned that spending too much time developing better GHG emissions measurements could be a mistake. "We'll have to acknowledge we'll never have perfect data, but we can't let not having it keep us from doing anything," he said.
The working paper, "Clearing the Air: Reducing Upstream Greenhouse Gas Emissions from US Natural Gas Systems," noted that while using more gas than coal to generate electricity is an important US environmental improvement, fugitive methane emissions potentially could reduce gas' net climate benefits.
James Bradbury, another senior associate in WRI's Climate and Energy Program who also helped write the working paper, said the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the US gas industry constitutes 3-4% of the US GHG inventory—more than any other single source.
"To ensure gas remains less environmentally potent than coal, methane leakage rates need to be kept below 3%," he said. "That's the key takeaway."
But the main regulatory question here remains urgency vs. accuracy. Its answer could be significant.
