You had me at “schematic”
As oil prices tick upward and America searches for cleaner energy sources, the hunt for natural gas is on the rise. Last fall “60 Minutes” called natural gas the “answer to our energy problems.” Wyoming is drilling for so much natural gas that smog produced by the industry is cloaking its skies. When President Obama announced his plan to ensure America’s “energy security” late last month, natural gas was considered one of the key alternatives to oil.
The appeal of natural gas, which is drilled from shale rock formations, is its cleanliness. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, burning natural gas produces lower emissions than energy sources like oil and coal. But two new reports are casting doubts on the relative benefits of shale gas. In short, these findings suggest that the process of extracting natural gas creates other emissions that offset any gains that come from burning it.
The first report comes to us from ProPublica, which writes that methane emissions that occur during the natural gas drilling process are higher — potentially even 9,000 times higher — than the E.P.A. initially believed:
When all these emissions are counted, gas may be as little as 25 percent cleaner than coal.
All things considered, concludes ProPublica, natural gas still “offers a significant environmental advantage” over other energy sources. But since its report, which was published in late January, new evidence has emerged that will require further study.
This second question comes from climate researcher Robert Howarth of Cornell. In a report set for publication in the journal Climate Change, Howarth found that the environmental footprint of natural gas is greater than that of conventional gas or oil, particularly over a 20-year time-frame (pdf):
Methane contributes substantially to the greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas on shorter time scales, dominating it on a 20-year time horizon. The footprint for shale gas is greater than that for conventional gas or oil when viewed on any time horizon, but particularly so over 20 years. Compared to coal, the footprint of shale gas is at least 20% greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon and is comparable when compared over 100 years.
Not surprisingly, reports the New York Times, the findings did not sit well with the booming natural gas industry.
Still, the new findings are not a reason to abandon natural gas production, but rather a basis for deeper analysis; Howarth himself told the Times that his report is not the “end of the story,” and his research paper concludes by stating that his results do not “justify the continued use of either oil or coal.” What they do justify is the necessity for scrutiny to determine whether another energy source is a viable alternative.
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