Tag Archives: natural disaster

Why methane emissions matter to climate change: 5 questions answered

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natural gas line
REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk
Natural gas can travel over 1,000 miles from the well to end use. During that long journey, gas has many opportunities to escape into the atmosphere.

The EPA on Aug. 29 unveiled a proposal to rescind regulations to limit methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. Critics said the rollback will worsen climate change and air quality. Reaction from energy companies varied, with some arguing the limits are unnecessary while others supported the federal regulations.

Colorado State University energy scholars Anthony Marchese and Dan Zimmerle last year published an extensive study on the extent of methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. They explain the sources of methane from natural gas and what this regulatory rollback could mean.

1. Once natural gas is extracted from the ground, how do the methane and other gases get into the atmosphere?

The U.S. natural gas infrastructure includes a million miles of pipes and millions of valves, fittings, tanks, compressors and other components that operate 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, to deliver natural gas to your home. Natural gas can travel over 1,000 miles from the well to end use. During that long journey, gas has many opportunities to escape into the atmosphere. This includes unwanted leaks from faulty components as well as intentional venting of gas from devices that use the high-pressure gas to open and close valves.

In addition, the compressors that are required to increase the pressure and pump the gas through the network are powered by internal combustion engines that burn natural gas; the exhaust of those engines includes unburned methane. Since the natural gas delivered to your home is 85% to 95% methane, natural gas leaks are predominantly methane. While methane poses the greatest threat to the climate because of its greenhouse gas potency, the other hydrocarbons present in the natural gas can degrade regional air quality and harm human health.

2. Why has it been difficult to determine the extent, or the rate, of methane emissions?

Because the natural gas infrastructure is so vast, it is not possible to measure every leak from every faulty valve or fitting. Indeed, we don’t even have accurate estimates of the total number of valves and fittings. The best way to estimate the total amount of methane emissions from the natural gas infrastructure is to perform as many measurements as possible from as many different types of components as possible. The reason that one has to perform hundreds or even thousands of measurements from each type of equipment is so that you can capture the high-emitting sources (the so-called super-emitters), which are low in number but their emissions are so high that they can account for 50% to 80% of the total emissions.

By making thousands of measurements, along with compiling our best estimates of the inventory of all of the types of equipment in the U.S. natural gas infrastructure, it is possible to estimate the total emissions from all U.S. natural gas operations with a reasonable degree of certainty, which we currently estimate to be 2.3%. That is, 2.3% of the natural gas that travels through pipelines is released into the air. We estimate that quantity of natural gas emissions represents a loss in revenue of over $1 billion per year for the industry, and it has the equivalent greenhouse gas impact as the annual tailpipe emissions from 70 million passenger cars.

3. What would the Obama-era regulations have required oil and gas companies to do?

The Obama-era regulations were put in place in 2016 to set emissions limits for methane from a variety of sources in the oil and gas industry. The 2016 regulations built upon previous regulations put in place in 2012 for emissions of volatile organic hydrocarbons (VOCs), which are nonmethane hydrocarbon gases produced by oil and gas operations. The companies that had installed controls for VOC emissions sources were not required to install any new controls because reduction in VOC emissions also reduce methane emissions.

The 2016 rule also included additional sources that were not previously covered in 2012, including hydraulically fractured oil wells, some of which can contain a large amount of gas along with oil; pneumatic devices at well sites and gas processing plants; and compressors and pneumatic controllers at transmission and storage facilities.

The 2016 rule required operators to periodically detect and repair methane leaks at new and modified facilities; older facilities that have not been significantly modified are not covered by the rule.

4. How do scientists determine whether natural gas is better for climate change than burning coal?

Methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas, with more than 80 times the climate warming impact of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it is released. Studies show that if methane leaked at a rate of greater than 3%, there would be no immediate climate benefits from retiring coal-fired power plants in favor of natural gas power plants. The good news is that a 2.3% leak rate suggests that natural gas power plants are slightly more beneficial to the climate in comparison to coal-fired power plants. However, the results of our studies also showed that power plants could show more substantial benefit to the climate if the industry reduced the total methane leakage rate to 1%, which many of our industry partners believe to be achievable.

In addition, natural gas power plants can change output more quickly than large coal plants, supporting the integration of variable renewable sources, such as wind and solar power. Industry, and some environmental groups, see natural gas as a “bridge fuel” that helps with the integration of renewable energy into electricity systems.

However, there is one additional, clear difference between coal and natural gas power plants. For coal plants, almost all of the climate impact is due to burning the coal, while for natural gas, the climate impact is a combination of combustion and methane emissions – both leaks and venting. Changing how coal burns is very difficult. Reducing natural gas leakage is a very real possibility.

5. Why were some oil and gas companies supportive of the tighter regulations on methane emissions?

The EPA estimates that the proposed new amendments would save the oil and gas industry $17 to $19 million per year. While this may sound like a lot of money, it pales in comparison to the economic value to be gained by minimizing leakage. We estimate that reducing methane emissions from 2.3% to 1% would result in an annual revenue of over a half billion dollars per year, which is more than 30 times the estimated savings from rolling back the regulations. Many oil and gas companies recognize this fact, and they also recognize that regulations are needed to ensure that all companies are held to the same standard.

Our experience working closely with over 20 industry partners has shown that industry can provide leadership in sharing best operational practices, developing comprehensive leak detection and repair programs, piloting these new technologies and constructively engaging with the regulatory process. Our experience in Colorado, which has developed some of the nation’s strictest methane emissions regulations, also strongly suggests that government regulations are needed to ensure that best practices become standard practices.

In the end, we believe the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back regulations, without regard to their efficacy, not only will worsen climate change but also will affect the health and safety of U.S. citizens and undercut the natural gas industry’s efforts to produce and promote natural gas as a clean fossil fuel – a fossil fuel that integrates well with renewable sources.

Anthony J. Marchese is an associate dean for academic and student affairs, Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering; director of the Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory; and professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Energy Institute Affiliate Faculty, Colorado State University. Dan Zimmerle is a senior research associate at the Energy Institute, Colorado State University.

Hawaii’s Animal Rescuers Save Stranded Pets and Livestock From Lava Flow

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As Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano continues to erupt, spewing lava and toxic gas, rescuers have been busy saving pets and livestock on the Big Island. Hundreds of animals may have been left behind earlier this month when their owners either had to quickly evacuate or were away at work when some areas were evacuated.

“It’s like missing part of your family,” Donna Whitaker, executive director of the Hawaii Island Humane Society (HIHS), told the Hawaii Tribune-Daily on May 9. “It’s hard enough to think about losing your home, but to know that you had to leave your pets behind is agonizing.”

Eleven days later, the Red Cross shelter in Pahoa, about 25 miles from the volcano, was “quite the crazy farm right now,” HIHS volunteer Burgandy Singleton told Reuters. “We are housing everything from wee little creatures to ginormous beasts and no trouble. With that many personalities mixing it up, it’s been amazing.”

The shelter is also housing human evacuees and their four-legged family members. In cases where dogs and cats have been left behind, HIHS volunteers have been returning to the homes with the pet owners.

“Ideally, we take the owner back in so [the pet] can hear a familiar voice and we can hand-trap them,” instead of using cages, Singleton told Reuters. “We are trying every trick from every book.”

Along with pets, rescuers have saved stranded sheep, goats and more than 1,300 cows that were relocated to a safer area of the island, Reuters reports. Dozens of horses are temporarily staying at an equestrian center.

Unlike somewhat calmer cats and dogs, Singleton said the larger animals are especially nervous. “From the earthquakes, to the smoke and lava, to the helicopters overhead, they are just spooked,” she told Reuters.

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The grassroots organization, Hawai’i Lava Flow Animal Rescue Network (HLFARN), has been launched on Facebook to provide helpful information and support to evacuees needing help with pets or animals. “So far we have been able to save over 200 animals, thanks to a few people who have not slept much since then,” according to a May 20 update.

Among the good Samaritans rescuing pets are Elijah Lawson and his friends, who drove a pickup truck and trailer around evacuated areas. When they weren’t able to rescue a Yorkshire terrier from inside a fenced property, they cut a hole in the fence to give the little dog “at least a fighting chance,” Lawson told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald.

“For lack of a better word, it’s completely heartwrenching,” he said. “I’d be lying if I said our truck wasn’t crying on the way back … I have such a hard time breathing down there with the sulfur (dioxide), and I can only imagine how the pets have it, just wanting to get out of there.”

Fortunately, rescuers have been able to save many other animals.

In one amazing case, Carol Hosley’s two small dogs ran off in terror earlier this month when firefighters arrived at her apartment to help her evacuate. Daylynn Kyles, president of Aloha Ilio Dog Rescue, from which Hosley adopted one of the dogs, voluntarily searched the area with friends for 10 days.

They finally found the dogs trapped between a fence line and a cooled lava flow. Kyles and her friends crawled through grass and over the fence line to get to the dogs. With the exception of a lot of red ant bites, the two dogs are doing well, considering their ordeal.

“I’m just thrilled to death, I just couldn’t be happier,” Hosley told Hawaii News Now. “The other stuff is stuff, but I got the dogs.”

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As HIHS volunteer Singleton pointed out, it’s very important for evacuees who’ve lost everything to be able to reunite with their pets. “It’s the one piece of home they still have, the one piece holding them together,” she told Reuters. “And the pets feel the same way.”

HOW TO HELP

These are some Big Island-based organizations that are rescuing pets and livestock from the lava flow. Check out their websites for more information on how you can help them help animals during this difficult time.

Related at Care2

Photo Credit: Julien Millet/Unsplash

Earth Rage

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by Stephen Capra 
 
…the faces of the beasts show what truly IS to us -Rainer Marie Rilke

What does it take to awaken a world from the self-inflicted wound of arrogance and greed?

From earthquakes that shake our foundation, to the floods that Noah could only understand. From the new intensity hurricanes that bring ocean to land, land to ocean and displace an ever-growing population. These vicissitudes, are not warnings, they reflect the changes and torment our planet is undergoing presently. Humans, that have been gifted life by this planet, are choosing by their actions, to destroy its very soul, its life force. In so doing, we are damming generations to come with vitriol and without care.

Today, we are witness to a fool’s enterprise of capitalism. Our world today seeks enlightenment through materialism, and thus can never find the joy and understanding that nature reveals. We are mutating into societies that are lead not by leaders, but rather those corrupted by power, and driven by their own material gain. One that reflects an approach of get all you can, rather than one of community.

We live in a world that rewards those who allow oil to remain our energy source, and we fight block by block, to place solar power on equal footing, as the planet cries out in pain. When did we become this arrogant believer in man’s powers or religion to solve all our problems? When did we allow species to perish at the hands of our egocentric view of a world, one which seemingly only reflects only our image, how do we see that to be sustainable?

If we refuse to act, then we will be remembered as collaborators with genocide. When we turn our ears deaf to logic; grant our souls to corporate enterprise, while ignoring the message in our heart, we symbolize the clear disconnect that urban life and the loss of connection to wildness has fostered.

How could that be?

Because we are the children of a great and selfless generation, one that won a great war, and was given dams, clear-cuts, urban sprawl and microwaves, as the reward for saving the world free. Second homes, larger closets, bigger cars, cable TV and endless children, were part of our victory and led to the development of corporations that reached across the globe, to harness resources and find cheap labor, to feed our American dream.

We placed dictators in charge of countries that defied us and we used the atom bomb to keep the world in line. The world watched and took notice; we continued to hear in school and in church about our generosity and caring. We cut more timber to build great cities and we drilled our beautiful West for oil, we drilled our oceans for more and we drilled every part of the globe with less concern for our neighbors and their children, but we continued to believe in our generosity.

We bribed our elected officials at home and abroad, we allowed our rivers to be poisoned, our air fouled. When we began to clean it up, corporations went where that could foul it up, cheaper.

We elected a new generation of Republican leaders that ignored science and reason; they created false prophets that filled our airwaves to make us doubt reality. They supported foods and crops that made us fat and bees endangered. The impact made us less inclined to spend time in nature. The NRA and others helped push for more powerful guns and scopes to kill that which we refuse to see as equal-the bears, wolves and whales that define the sanity and grace in life on this earth.
Now the gospel they preach is to ignore the very signs that beg for our action. That we must acknowledge the reality of climate change and the role that man continues to play in this poisoning of life on earth.

No country has more skin in this than America; no country should act with more resolve than America. We cleared the world of their natural resources, wildlife, air and water to feed our addiction to a better life, to having more and more of everything. We honored and revered wealth, indulgence and glamor. We ignored the cost that such extravagance was having on our planet, and we did so with a blind arrogance.

Today, we have a President that has long ago sold his soul for money. We have an oil industry that fills our minds with commercials about technologies to better our future, while lobbying hard to have access to every acre to drill and frack so they can continue their dead man walking, get rich, approach to life on earth.
Climate change is real; pulling America out of the Paris accord is part of the ablation of our responsibility and reflects a new American ego, one that does not seek to be generous, but rather to take all that remains. Such boorish and misguided behavior will spark the wars of the future and distills the harsh truth about our self-centered view of our world.

The shame should be all consuming, but the void of emotion and brute ego remains palatable.

To restore our leadership in the world does not require investing in our military, it requires investing in clean energy alternatives and sharing any and all technology with the world. Yet, we are conceding such a mantle and the endless job creation that goes with it, to every other nation, rather than admit that climate change is real. So we bury our head in coal and drill our wildest lands, to kill the wildness that remains in our planets heart.

America, much like the issue of Slavery, must come to terms with our polluted past and the role we played across the globe. We must make true reparations to the world for our self-indulgence. We must go far beyond any nation in our efforts to end climate change and we must investment large sums of money and research into this issue-NOW! Our national labs must abandon their nuclear mission and become the backbone of our clean energy revolution. We must give companies ever more incentives and rewards for a clean future.

We must also protect far more lands, wildlife and water, using innovation for energy development, no matter how small the scale. We have no choice but to elect leaders that put the planet first and make decisions based on that principle.
We must return to a fundamental core value, which insured future generations have it better, not worse, than us.

It’s also crucial that we become real partners with wildlife and seeing them as part of our moral responsibility, not as simply expendable game. We must love more than ourselves. That may not solve climate change, but it is part of rediscovering our soul as a people.

Finally, it’s about reconnecting to nature, and pushing aside the lust for consumerism and giving real thought and encouragement to family planning.
All of this requires a maturing of America, as a people, as a society. We have failed the moral test for generations, and yet at times we have surprised and inspired. We do not have time now for failure; we must grow into the responsibility that our actions have warranted. We must fight climate change because it is a true moral and social imperative. The world, you see, is watching.

We must engage the process with humility; with true spirit and enlightenment.
If we do not, the tears of our planet will become the floods that remove man for the sake of a new beginning.

That is the message our planet is showing us. We must begin to listen.

Earth is life. Let’s respect the true life.
Let us fight for the mother, which gives us life.
Mother Earth, you are life.
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