EPA says methane leaks dramatically lower - San Francisco Chronicle

Pittsburgh —

The Environmental Protection Agency has dramatically lowered its estimate of how much of a potent heat-trapping gas leaks during natural gas production, in a shift with major implications for a debate that has divided environmentalists: Does the recent boom in fracking help or hurt the fight against climate change?

Oil and gas drilling companies had pushed for the change, amid differing scientific estimates of the amount of methane that leaks from wells, pipelines and other facilities during production and delivery. Methane is the main component of natural gas.

The new EPA data are “kind of an earthquake” in the debate over drilling, said Michael Shellenberger, president of the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental group based in Oakland. “This is great news for anybody concerned about the climate, and strong proof that existing technologies can be deployed to reduce methane leaks.”

The scope of the EPA’s revision was vast. In a mid-April report on greenhouse emissions, the agency said tighter pollution controls instituted by the industry resulted in an average annual decrease of 41.6 million metric tons of methane emissions from 1990 through 2010, or more than 850 million metric tons overall. That’s about a 20 percent reduction from previous estimates.

The EPA revisions came even though natural gas production has grown by nearly 40 percent since 1990. The industry has boomed in recent years, thanks to a stunning expansion of drilling in previously untapped areas due to the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which injects sand, water and chemicals to break apart rock and free the gas inside.

Representatives of the oil and gas industry said the EPA revisions show that emissions from the fracking boom can be managed.

“The methane leak claim just got a lot more difficult for opponents” of fracking, said Steve Everley, with Energy In Depth, an industry-funded group.

The EPA said it made the changes based on expert reviews and new data from several sources, including a report funded by the oil and gas industry. But the estimates aren’t based on independent field tests of actual emissions, and some scientists said that’s a problem.

Robert Howarth, a Cornell University professor of ecology who led a 2011 methane leak study that is widely cited by critics of fracking, said, “Time will tell where the truth lies in all this, but I think EPA is wrong.”

The issue of methane leaks has caused a major split between environmental groups. Since power plants that burn natural gas emit about half the amount of the greenhouse gases as coal-fired power, some say that the gas drilling boom has helped the U.S. become the only major industrialized country to significantly reduce greenhouse emissions. But others believe the methane leaks negate any benefits over coal, since methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas.

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EPA says methane leaks dramatically lower – San Francisco Chronicle
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EPA says methane leaks dramatically lower - San Francisco Chronicle