I write frequently about the importance of using sound science and research in the formulation of our nation’s energy policies.
Two new scientific studies – one from MIT and the other from a federal government research center – are providing just such valuable facts and insight.
The two studies directly address a claim from last year when some Cornell scientists asserted that natural gas from shale produces more lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions than coal. The scientists blamed “fugitive” methane emissions said to escape during the recovery of natural gas. After the study’s release, The New York Times and other media outlets gave the report tremendous coverage.
But coverage does not equal credibility.
The academics’ claims were quickly debunked in a number of quarters – from Carnegie Mellon to IHS-CERA to the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). Even some Cornell colleagues took issue with the original study. Unfortunately, these well-founded, science-based critiques did not attract the same level of press attention that the original garnered.
Here’s hoping the two most recent studies on this issue will attract more notice.
Last week a group of MIT scientists determined that “the amount of methane emissions caused by shale gas production has been largely exaggerated.”
One important reason the MIT study differs from the Cornell critique is that the MIT researchers recognized that energy companies often have both the ability and incentive to capture and sell fugitive methane. Bringing that methane to market along with the natural gas being produced leads to a “strikingly lower” estimate of so-called fugitive emissions.
Meanwhile researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory who conducted an intensive study of gas production in Texas’s Barnett Shale discovered something similar. They recently concluded that lifecycle emissions associated with Barnett Shale gas used for power generation were “very similar to [those from] conventional natural gas and less than half those of coal-fired electricity generation.”
Still, additional scientific study will help to further add to the body of knowledge in this area, which is why ExxonMobil, together with the Environmental Defense Fund and eight other leading natural gas producers, is supporting a major University of Texas field study to measure methane emissions from natural gas production.
The goal is to obtain scientifically rigorous, representative data from multiple producing basins. The initial results from that study are due early next year. Given the attention given to the original Cornell study, their arrival will surely benefit the public policy discussion over the emissions benefits of natural gas.
