Natural gas isn’t clean energy solution
Carbon dioxide is the principal heat-trapping greenhouse gas that is thought to contribute to global warming. But it’s not the only one, though it usually gets most of the attention. Methane is 84 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon in the first 20 years after it is released.
Methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, is escaping into the atmosphere from leaks during the production, storage and distribution of natural gas in such large volumes that there is a real danger it could undo the expected ecological advantages of switching from coal to gas in electricity production, with consequences for climate change that could be severe.
President Obama has touted natural gas as the bridge fuel to a clean energy future. But natural gas could prove to be a bridge to nowhere if methane leaks like the uncontrolled huge one at an underground gas storage facility in the San Fernando Valley in California happen. Because methane is a health hazard, more than 2,000 families have been relocated, and another 2,600 are awaiting relocation help from Southern California Gas Company, which owns the storage facility.
At its peak in late November, the leak was releasing 58 metric tons of methane an hour, according to the California Air Resources Board. The effect of the leak — which is still loading the atmosphere with greenhouse gases — is comparable to adding 7 million cars to the road. The leak is now down to 36 metric tons an hour, but it’s not expected to be fixed for another two months.
Studies show that methane is leaking from the entire natural gas supply chain — from fracking wells, pipelines, valves and storage facilities — at rates that range as high as 8 percent of the gas supply. No one can say for sure just how much methane is being lost, but EPA is using sophisticated methane detectors to provide better data. Meanwhile, EPA has proposed regulations cutting methane emissions by 40 percent to 45 percent over the next decade. But the rules would apply to new oil and gas wells only. Pipelines and gas storage facilities like the one in the San Fernando Valley are exempted.
There is no excuse for the continued leaks of methane into the atmosphere. Technology is available to prevent almost all of them. But the oil and gas industry maintains that emission controls would raise the cost of shale-gas production to the point where it would be uneconomical to produce gas.
Compared to nuclear power, the oil and gas industry is enjoying a free ride with respect to the environment and public health and safety. Nuclear plants require larger capital investments than comparable oil or gas facilities only because nuclear utilities are required to build and maintain costly systems to keep their radioactivity from the environment. If natural gas facilities were similarly required to sequester the pollutants they generate, they would cost significantly more than nuclear plants do. Nuclear plants generate electricity without emitting greenhouse gases like carbon compounds and methane. Yet nuclear power development has been hobbled by limits not placed on the natural gas industry.
Tilting the playing field to make sure natural gas is the preferred fuel for producing electricity must change if we hope to prevent the worst effects from climate change. Energy reforms at the federal and state levels are essential to ensure that the reliability, environmental and economic benefits of nuclear power are valued in the same way as other low-carbon sources. For example, since the early 1970s, nuclear power is estimated to have saved almost 2 million lives worldwide that would otherwise been lost to air pollution from fossil fuels.
The nation and the power industry have yet to fully realize is that the best path to achieving deep reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions will require major growth of nuclear power. Looking forward, nuclear power — not natural gas — needs to be out in front on mitigating anthropogenic influences on climate change.