In his blog post this week (reprinted with permission), climate champ Mark Brownstein of the Environmental Defense Fund sets the record straight on methane emissions. An important read.
When credibility is your stock in trade, it’s important to have your facts straight. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal blew it.
In an unsigned opinion piece dubbed “
Meth Heads in the White House,”
the paper dismisses plans expected to be announced by the Obama
administration in the next few weeks that would start to tackle the huge
amount of methane leaking from America’s oil & gas production
facilities.
The question is a significant one, because – as the
article notes in passing – methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas
(in point of fact, packing more than 80 times the warming power of
carbon dioxide over a 20 year time frame). According to EPA data, oil
& gas operations emit roughly 8 million metric tons of unburned
methane annually, enough gas to heat nearly 6 million homes.
While acknowledging the problem, the Journal argues that companies
are solving it just fine on their own, citing figures which closely
track industry talking points suggesting that emissions are already
dropping. Unfortunately, the numbers in question are a blend of
half-baked, fully cooked and – in one key instance – flat out wrong.
In their most glaring error, Journal editors cite
a University of Texas Study
published last month (and partly funded by EDF) to claim that oil &
gas industry methane emissions have fallen 10 percent between 2013 and
2014 alone. In fact, as study author David Allen has pointed out, the
results, which actually come from two different UT studies, fall
squarely within the margin of error and hence show no such change in
emission rates.
In other words: No, the UT study does not say what the Journal editors say it says. The paper owes its readers a correction.
As
to the idea that methane emissions from oil and gas operations have
fallen steadily over time, this too is simply false. In reality, oil
& gas industry methane emissions as estimated by the EPA stayed
relatively flat between 1990 and 2008, and didn’t begin to decline
noticeably until 2009. While part of that was the result of smarter
practices by select operators, the bigger driver of the reported decline
has been 2012 EPA rules limiting natural gas emissions from an
important part of the drilling process known as “well completions.”
We’d say those gains are proof-positive that sound regulation gets results.
Reported
declines after 2009 also completely ignore oil well emissions, which
account for a substantial share of sector’s total methane footprint.
(Part of the reduction also stems from changes in how EPA does its
math.)
Even
those numbers don’t paint the whole picture.
Although
EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program data shows the industry’s total
methane emissions fell 12 percent between 2011 and 2013, emissions from
key activities not currently covered by federal standards went up
substantially.
According to the very same UT study cited affectionately by the
Journal, average emissions from thousands of pneumatic controllers used
to operate valves throughout the supply chain are 17 percent higher than
EPA estimates, due to a mixture of both unintended malfunctions and
deliberately leaky design. Moreover, UT researchers say real-world
emissions from these devices may be twice as high as EPA figures due to
systematic undercounting by the agency.
Two other recent national studies not mentioned in the article – but available
here and
here
– suggest EPA’s overall estimates of methane emissions from the oil
& gas industry are too low by half, based on actual methane
emissions measured by scientists.
The good news,
firmly underscored by the UT study,
is that a relatively small share of wells and equipment are responsible
for a disproportionate piece of the emissions pie. The trick is finding
which ones are performing badly, and when. And that is precisely why we
need tougher rules and regulations. Once we know where the problems
are, it is a relatively simple, cost-effective matter to start plugging
the leaks.
Could industry police itself, as the Journal suggests?
The evidence suggests otherwise. The biggest voluntary program for
reducing industry methane emissions, EPA’s Natural Gas Star, has been
around since 1993, but of the more than 6,000 producers in operation,
fewer than 30 are participants.
Fortunately, the economics favor
action. Cutting current methane emissions in half by requiring leak
detection and repair and other sensible measures, would save the oil
& gas industry nearly $1 billion a year in wasted product and cut
the 20-year climate pollution equivalent of 90 coal-fired power plants.
Penciling
out the math even farther, a study by ICF recently estimated that
companies could cut methane emissions by 40 percent or more for about
one quarter of one percent
of the price of the gas they’re selling. That means $4.00 worth of gas
would cost $4.01 – an affordable bargain even at a time of falling
prices.
In short, the Wall Street Journal has the facts backward.
When you get the numbers straight, it’s easy to see how the methane
problem is also a huge, low-cost opportunity to help address the climate
challenge, and to recognize that sensible regulation can set a level
playing field for all oil and gas operators, not just the few who choose
to do the right thing.
Photo source: flickr.com/photos/earthworks
