In light of Pennsylvania State University’s decision to give up coal for natural gas, it’s worth taking a look at recent news about the climate impacts of natural gas.
ProPublica just published an article about gas that is getting some buzz. The bottom line: Natural gas is not as great as once thought, in part because of emissions over its life cycle, an issue that researchers have been highlighting for some time.
Advocates for natural gas routinely assert that it produces 50 percent less greenhouse gases than coal and is a significant step toward a greener energy future. But those assumptions are based on emissions from the tailpipe or smokestack and don’t account for the methane and other pollution emitted when gas is extracted and piped to power plants and other customers.
The EPA’s new analysis doubles its previous estimates for the amount of methane gas that leaks from loose pipe fittings and is vented from gas wells, drastically changing the picture of the nation’s emissions that the agency painted as recently as April. Calculations for some gas-field emissions jumped by several hundred percent. Methane levels from the hydraulic fracturing of shale gas were 9,000 times higher than previously reported.
When all these emissions are counted, gas may be as little as 25 percent cleaner than coal, or perhaps even less.
Now natural gas does offer substantial benefits over coal, aside from greenhouse-gas emissions. It’s a cleaner-burning fuel, for example. There are also many concerns about the environmental impacts of mining coal — like mountaintop removal — but the new techniques for extracting natural gas have problems of their own.
On his DotEarth blog at The New York Times, Andrew Revkin says that even though there are troubling aspects to natural gas’s life cycle, he views natural gas as a necessary bridge fuel to The Next Thing in energy. Penn State officials also see natural gas as a bridge fuel to whatever they use next.
That Next Thing is no small consideration. Natural gas, like other fossil fuels, is a finite resource — at the same time that it is becoming ubiquitous in both industrial and residential use. Some colleges, like Ball State University, have had luck moving to geothermal, but Penn State officials worried about how geothermal might affect local groundwater. Some colleges, particularly in the Northeast, have tried biomass, but burning biomass at Penn State was seen to be nearly impossible, because of the low energy density of wood chips and the like.
A bridge fuel — but to what? That’s a question everyone will have to figure out together.
Follow Buildings & Grounds through your favorite RSS reader:
2 Responses to Concerns About Natural Gas, Even as Colleges Switch to It
chemteach - January 28, 2011 at 12:59 pm
At some point we need to realize that there is not going to be a SINGLE energy source (which the article calls the NEXT THING) that will meet all of our needs.
1. The US has large coal reserves, but it is polluting.
2. It is cheap and fast to build natural gas power plants and natural gas is one of the few energy sources that can basically be flipped on and off with a switch at the power plant. However,Petroleum use (whether natural gas or oil) needs to be conserved as it is used to make so many of the products we rely on from pharmaceuticals to clothing, computers, and cars.
3. Wind can only be placed in places where the wind blow consistently and requires immense amounts of metal resources including steel, copper, and rare earths. The effects of wind turbines on wildlife are still being studied.
4. Solar requires huge areas for arrays whether photovoltaic panels or concentrated solar. Efficiencies have greatly improved, but solar only works when the sun shines. The basic resources from which solar arrays are made are not cheap and not easily recycled.
5. Biomass requires land which we also need to feed ourselves and the pigs, chickens, and cows most people like to eat. Biodeisel from algae is an active research area where I live, but getting the oils out of the algae is still not efficient. Turning corn into alcohol for burning instead of tortillas to feed people always comes to my mind when biomass comes up as a source.
5. Hydrogen is not an actual energy source itself since it must be obtained from a hydgrogen source such as water or natural gas which requires energy which comes from some other source.
6. Nuclear provides lots of energy for the amount of fuel required. It also produces no carbon dioxide emissions. The US also has plenty of Uranium resources. However, the startup costs for a nuclear power plant and regulations make the prospect of new US nuclear plants low. Many people are concerned about the radioactive waste disposal, but there are solutions such as salt bed disposal.
7. Geothermal is useful in areas where there are the right geologic formations. There must also be adequate water resources available. Geothermal as far as I know has mostly been used in very local situations.
We need to understand the Laws of Conservation of Mass and Energy are absolute: there are no new material resources or energy sources. We can only learn to use what we have more wisely. Citizens, business leaders, scientists, engineers, local, state, and federal entities need to carefully study which energy resources are going to work in a given place.
lewandowski - February 2, 2011 at 4:37 pm
Lot of great questions but no path of filterization. To say the sky is falling does not give process to what to do so therefore….