The climate for a CSG conundrum
The overwhelmingly important issue in assessing our response to coal seam gas – and similar unconventional gas sources such as shale gas – is the impact of CSG development on climate change.
There are, of course, a lot of problems associated with drilling, extraction, transport and so on, but the same is true of other fossil fuels, not to mention renewables like wind, which have attracted a fair bit of community opposition in some places.
The climate change question raises two issues, neither of which can be easily resolved.
First, what is the global warming potential of CSG, and how does it compare to conventional natural gas?
Second, what’s the relationship between CSG and the broad campaign to stabilise the global climate?
On the first question, the big question is whether CSG (and for that matter, conventional natural gas) is associated with excess methane emissions, and if so, how much this changes the standard assessment that gas has about half the global warming potential of oil or coal. The issues are complex, and it’s hard to find a trustworthy source. The CSG companies say there’s no problem, but of course that’s what they would say.
On the other hand, the main source for the view that methane is a big problem, Robert Howarth of Cornell, is clearly an advocate rather than an independent expert. The most obvious way in which he skews the data is to focus on a 20-year timeframe, which makes the impact of methane look a lot bigger, since it has a shorter residence time. The justification he’s offered, that this is the typical life of a gas project, is nonsensical. Howarth’s work has received lots of criticism on other grounds that I’m less competent to assess, but having seen him load the dice on an issue I understand, I’m not inclined to give him much credence on other points.
Howarth relies heavily on the argument that shale gas companies vent unburnt methane to the atmosphere. There is dispute over the extent of this practice, but in any case the US EPA has prohibited it, despite claims by the oil and gas industry that such restrictions are unnecessary overkill.
Some papers criticising Howarth and supporting the standard assessment can be accessed here and here.
Of particular interest is this paper from the Tyndall Centre, which comes out strongly against unconventional gas, but nevertheless concludes that its GWP is similar to that of the conventional kind and around half that of coal.
The Tyndall argument against fracking is simply that any cheap additional supply of fossil fuel is likely to increase total energy use and discourage the growth of renewables and that this will more than offset any benefit from the substitution of gas for coal.
This is probably too complicated to assess in a single post.
The first question is analytical – is the Tyndall analysis right about the impact of expanding natural gas supplies, from whatever source they are obtained?
The answer: it depends.
If we are relying on a combination of technical progress and some limited support for renewable energy to solve our problems, then cheap natural gas is likely to make matters worse. Investment in renewables has fluctuated (though around a rising trend) precisely because of the variability in these policies.
On the other hand, if we had a carbon price consistent with stabilising the global climate, say $50/tonne, new natural gas would almost entirely act as a substitute for coal and a complement for an expanding supply of renewables.
As it is, Australia is in a halfway house. We have a carbon price, but it is well below the level that is really needed. I hope that, once the carbon price comes into effect, and the alleged dire consequences don’t materialise, it will be possible to open the question of increasing the price, at least for the period after 2020.
There is also a question of political tactics. Globally, it’s clearly too late to think about an across-the-board ban, so the question is how much effort to put into campaigns about particular gas projects, as opposed to other fossil fuel projects, and campaigns for better climate policies (carbon prices, energy efficiency, less energy-intensive lifestyles) in general.
From the climate change viewpoint, the main case for focusing on CSG projects, rather than, for example, new coal mines or coal-fired power stations, is that they may be easier to stop. But it’s important to recognise that the payoff from stopping a CSG project is much less than that from stopping a coal project of the same size (in terms of the energy produced or used).
Similar questions arise in the Australian context. For example, there’s an obvious tactical problem in making alliances with Bob Katter. While he is good on some issues, he’s a climate delusionist, an opponent of carbon pricing and a supporter of coal mining.
To sum up: if you share my view that climate change is the most important environmental issue facing Australia and the world, you should be very cautious about advocating all out opposition to CSG.
Professor John Quiggin is a Federation Fellow in Economics and Political Science at The University of Queensland. Read more about FAQ Research writers here.
This story first appeared on www.crikey.com.au on February 15. Republished with permission.
Comments on this article
There is much to object to in
There is much to object to in this piece. Quiggin accuses Cornell Professor Howarth of skewing his data by focusing on a 20year timeframe describing Howarth’s justification as nonsensical. Anyone who has read the paper knows it covers both 20 and 100year timeframes. Did Quiggin read the paper?
Quiggin criticizes Howarth’s argument that shale gas companies vent unburnt methane to the atmosphere. He queries the extent of the practice and points out that the EPA forbids it. A 2011 study by Tom Wigley from the NCAR concludes that for gas to have smaller GHG emissions than coal new methane leakage rates cannot exceed 2%:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/b430681263425q64/
The journal Nature reports on NOAA air sampling that found 4% methane leakage, more than double industry claims in an area known as the Denver-Julesburg Basin. This excludes pipeline and distribution losses.
http://www.nature.com/news/air-sampling-reveals-high-emissions-from-gas-field-1.9982
So Wigley says no GHG advantage for unconventional gas with leakage rates above 2% and NOAA finds 4% leakage over Colorado gas fields. Perhaps Quiggin needs to broaden his reading a bit.
Blue Planet .. Called Market Forces At Work
I try to avoid making dumb decisions .. unlike governments
On a small scale I operate on simple market principles.
Given the incentives, the RECS and FITs PV was a rational economic decision. I make more money than I would putting it into a bank and over the period since installation than I would investing in the stock market. The last 10% tariff increase, with likely further substantial increases in peak rates for households mid year, makes the decision to go PV and take the money even "smarter" .. unlike my smart meter that doesn't understand daylight saving. Another clever government initiative.
Market principles are what the carbon tax was all about.
Frankly the trick is to recognise that ROI is easy to achieve whether there is a Labour/Green coalition or a Liberal/National Coalition.
My PV instalation .. 5Kw to maximise benefits .. had zip to do with carbon pollution or emissions reductions. It was simply even better than investing in banks for the dividend stream.
Guess the trick question for Blue Planet is if you had a spare $5billion to invest, would you invest in a wind farm, Solar Dawn, a coal exporter or a CSG business? The market is making it very clear where they are going.
The guessing industry!
It has become impossible for anybody to say: “I don’t know”. Instead of saying a simple sentence a complicated article is written which concludes that the writer does not know. It is usually written in a manner to give the impression that the author “know” but cannot proof it “yet”. Any good scientist, consultant or engineer will conclude that more research (read money) is needed to find an answer. The massive carbon tax may provide a bottomless pit of funds to do “more research” into hundreds of issues never to be resolved.
I guess that most of the CSG will be exported. I guess if we don’t export to countries willing to buy it that other countries will do it. I assume that if we mine the coal instead of using coal seam gas, the gas will not remain underground. I guess that all of us guess but the way we guess makes a huge difference in the way we can mine the bottomless pit of carbon tax money.
I guess that many guesses about unknown issues will arise to utilise the carbon tax windfall. In the meantime a few householders may guess how to pay the next electricity bill.
Re Effective Carbon Taxes and CSG
Rod - So do you think the new? government should do away with the labor government's PV FiTs and get everyone to pay back the labor government's RECS rebate for PV when it does away with the carbon tax. This would be fair wouldn't it? I understand you have installed a PV system see rod's post in http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/bright-shine-small-solar-fixes. I presume you claimed the rebate for your system. Surely this would have gone against your principles wouldn't it?
Not worthy of Climate Spectator
As the many critical and well-founded comments attest, this piece by Quiggan is fundamentally flawed. Not the standard I've come to expect from Climate Spectator.
Effective Carbon Taxes and CSG
Since in Australia with exemptions, exclusions, compensation, etc we won't actually have an effective $23 a tonne carbon the likelihood of getting to an effective $50 a tonne is clearly zero.
With carbon emmissions growth actually accelerating (allowing for the impact of the current global downturn) it is very difficult to contemplate any scenario that produces changes in 20 let alone 50 years.
Economic reality is the simple explanation for CSG and other non-renewable energy sources continuing to grow at significant rates. It is economically rational to pursue CSG , coal exploration, oil exploration etc. In contrast Solar Dawn and other large scale solar projects can't raise funds even with huge government cash handouts.
What this says is that in Australia with the shonky carbon tax it makes more sense to fund CSG and Coal and export jobs to China than it does to support renewable energy projects.
Don't believe this .. just have a look at what is happening. Exploration expenditures, Bluescope steel works in China, etc etc
And with a change in Governmet the $23 a tonne is likely to be gone sooner rather than later.
CSG is a dangerous distraction
I share John's view about climate change, but to me that suggests all-out opposition to CSG is exactly right.
His second paragraph doesn't help. I'm unaware of drilling and extraction problems associated with wind, and the product's transport requires transmission lines, not pipelines, water, and fracking chemicals wrecking agricultural land (perhaps for ever), or liquefaction plants with tankers.
Compare eventual remediation of wind (remove blades and tower, leave concrete plinth) with CSG, as if we could ever fully clean THAT up.
Is CSG useful over one decade? Such investment will surely be a lock-in for three decades, and won't go towards renewables NOW. If Sydney City does tri-gen based on CSG or LNG they won't have money for wind and solar.
And that is assuming collecting and using CSG can be performed without releasing methane in quantities that make the CSG exercise worse than pointless. Perhaps it's not silly for Howarth "to focus on a 20-year time frame"; that may be about all we have left to get things right. On the very long term, methane may be 'only' 20x worse a GHG than CO2, in the short term it is far worse.
I'm contemplating a move to a Sydney suburb well over 70M about current sea level. But I think I should leave a boat there for my inheritors, as it will one day be an island. Anon once said "we don't change until it becomes too painful not to". Trouble is, on many issues, that's too late.
Global Warming or Imminent Fossil Fuel Depletion
"We need to get renewable energy production up to 50% of our current primary energy needs by around 2030"
No we don't...... we need to reduce consumption of everything by 90%. Building renewables to continue BAU is just as stupid as BAU itself. If we blow all the remaining FFs on renewables, then we won't have "fossil fuels for the uses that require their chemistry for the production of necessary materials; fertilisers, petro-chemicals, plastics, metals etc." will we.
We need to live more simply so we may simply live.
Cancel the debts, end growth, and stop going to work. It only encourages them...
Short timeline is the correct one
Who is "clearly an advocate rather than an independent expert"...
The evidence is that we now need to reverse human impact on the earth's climate system on a decadal timescale to keep the climate safe for civilization. This is not the 1970’s when the climate issue was first being raised and a measured 100 year plan may have rescued us. We are making only negative progress in reducing CO2 emissions - and while fundamentally important we do reduce them, the benefits will accrue decades later. Furthermore every year of delay increases the expense of removing the increasing excess CO2 from the atmosphere.
Methane has a short residence time in the atmosphere, about a decade, so reducing its emissions represents a fast track to abating some climate change escalation and pushing off some looming tipping points.
Comparing methane and CO2 global warming potentials (GWP) is complicated by the difference in atmospheric residence times, 12 years for methane and multiple timescales for CO2 with the mean considered to be 100 years. For example, while the 100 year GWP of methane is 25, the 20 year GWP is 72 (2007 IPCC AR4 p212). This means that if the same mass of methane and carbon dioxide were introduced into the atmosphere, methane will trap 72 times more heat than the carbon dioxide over the next 20 years. (Continued below)
Paul Taylor, PhD
Author: The Biochar Revolution
Transforming Agriculture and the Environment
http://biochar-books.com
Short timeline is the correct one
Methane’s Global Warming Potential is complicate by the fact that methane undergoes short term reactions in the atmosphere (while CO2 is relatively unreactive in the atmosphere). Drew Shindell, a climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute calculates that methane’s actual impact on climate may be twice previous estimates due in part to its conversion to another greenhouse gas, ozone in the troposphere http://www.physorg.com/news5258.html Shindell said, "Control of methane emissions turns out to be a more powerful lever to control global warming than would be anticipated."
Conversely emission of CO2 both in earlier development of the western nations and now in China and India, is associated with particulate emissions which mask and therefore effectively postpone some of the long term warming due to CO2. This makes the relative practical contribution of methane in the important short term even higher.
We need to tackle human caused methane emissions very seriously if we want to slow down the tipping point in the natural methane cycle, release of methane clathrates, which by recent reports are being radically activated in the arctic.
Paul Taylor, PhD
Author: The Biochar Revolution
Transforming Agriculture and the Environment
http://biochar-books.com
Evidence can't be lightly dismissed
There is research, apart from Robert Howarth of Cornell, on high methane emissions from CSG, for example this study just out:
Fracking study sends alert about leakage of potent greenhouse gas
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/0213/Fracking-study-sends-alert-about-...
And in defense of Howarth et al, their work is peer-reviewed in journals such as “Climate Change”, so shaming them as “an advocate rather than an independent expert” is a cheap shot. And according to Renee Santoro, in a recent post to “The Conversation”: “We assessed the greenhouse gas impact of shale gas development over 100-year and 20-year time frames and in terms of energy (in MJ) and power (kWh) produced”.
Most important is this very significant study from Myhrvold and Caldeira, which finds that there is no “no time to waste” on transition to green energy:
Myhrvold N P and Caldeira K (2012), Greenhouse gases, climate change and the transition from coal to low-carbon electricity Environ. Res. Lett. 7 014019
They find that natural gas will just delay the problem. “Our calculations show that with natural gas it will take a little longer to get to the same amount of cumulative emissions and warming, so it would delay a bad outcome, but not avoid it,” Caldeira told environmentalresearchweb.
Evidence can't be lightly dismissed
There is research, apart from Robert Howarth of Cornell, on high methane emissions from CSG, for example this study just out:
Fracking study sends alert about leakage of potent greenhouse gas
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/0213/Fracking-study-sends-alert-about-...
And in defense of Howarth et al, their work is peer-reviewed in journals such as “Climate Change”, so shaming them as “an advocate rather than an independent expert” is a cheap shot. And according to Renee Santoro, in a recent post to <a href="http://theconversation.edu.au/methane-makes-shale-gas-a-current-climate-danger-5020">“The Conversation”</a>: “We assessed the greenhouse gas impact of shale gas development over 100-year and 20-year time frames and in terms of energy (in MJ) and power (kWh) produced”.
Most important is this <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/02/20/quiggin-dont-write-off-csg-if-youre-worried-about-climate-change/iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/1/014019/pdf/1748-9326_7_1_014019.pdf">very significant study</a> from Myhrvold and Caldeira, which finds that there is no “no time to waste” on transition to green energy:
Myhrvold N P and Caldeira K (2012), Greenhouse gases, climate change and the transition from coal to low-carbon electricity Environ. Res. Lett. 7 014019
They find that natural gas will just delay the problem. “Our calculations show that with natural gas it will take a little longer to get to the same amount of cumulative emissions and warming, so it would delay a bad outcome, but not avoid it,” Caldeira told environmentalresearchweb.
disposing of CSG criticism
Tom,
The gratuitous dismissal of the Cornell study sounded suspicious as there was nothing wrong with the study, just a different view of the timetable issues .. why does that make the rest of the report suspect? Surely the next 20 years are crucial if we are to avoid all kinds of tipping points.
There was also a gratuitous swipe at wind (2nd para, which didn't make a lot of sense and certainly wasn't the same kind of criticism that excessive emissions for CSG rightly need focus on).
Recent data (2012) on leakage is not good (eg US NOAA report which shows leakage double what has been assumed).
See also recent paper by Tom Wigley in Climate Change Letters (2011) where effects of different amounts of leakage are considered: abstract http://www.springer.com/about+springer/media/springer+select?SGWID=0-11001-6-1242421-0
Interesting that Citigroup analysts took a negative view of CSG recently in relation to AGL Energy.
NOAA air sampling showing 4% fugitives from unconventional
http://www.nature.com/news/air-sampling-reveals-high-emissions-from-gas-field-1.9982
At 4% fugitivies Coal Seam Gas is as bad as coal. This field in the nature article above near Denver is a shale field.
US EPA have revised upwards their estimates for well workovers and well completions for CSG by as much as 8000 times.
According to Marius Kloppers CSG is worse than Shale because CSG is closer to the surface. So until proper real field tests are conducted we can only assume CSG at higher than 4% of total yield to atmosphere.
Therefore CSG is dirtier than coal
Also Howarth has mainly been dismissed by those linked to fossil fuel interests. Quiggan has got it seriously wrong on this one and needs to read a bit more widely. I'd recommend the updated API Compendium and also I would be asking Worley Parsons to release the report comissioned for Beyond Zero Emissions which they refuse to hand over despite being contracted (in writing) to do so.
"First, what is the global
"First, what is the global warming potential of CSG, and how does it compare to conventional natural gas?"
John - Wrong question and wrong comparison. As is any comparison to coal. Both gas sources are fossil fuels and at best still massive producers of GHG emissions in use and through all stages of production. The sensible comparison is with renewable alternatives - deployable technologies available now. Not sure what LCOE for wind you have been looking at, but suggesting it has problems other than unscientific opposition to claimed health or amenity impacts is unsupportable by the evidence. The solution is the creation of a distributed intelligent national grid to support a range of utility scale renewable energy technologies sited where they get their best input resource (ie: wind, wave, solar) as well locally effective rooftop PV as well as energy efficiency.
Doing that will be at around half the cost of any business as usual path and cheaper than the alreday underway massive re-creation of the grid in its current form based on 120 year old centralised energy systems. The barriers are not the ability, but political - our will to undertake a national energy rejuvenation project rather than locking ourselves into a fossil fuel future.
Tipping points happen on the short term horizon
In an otherwise important article, John discounts the Cornell study in a pretty unseemly ad hominen way because it emphasises the short term (20 year) horizon.
But the study shows fugutive emissions look very worrying even on the 100 year horizon.
Moreover, we most definitely should be worried about the short term (especially: short term from the /end/ of the life of these rigs.) That's when the methane pours out of the permafrost, the icecaps shear off into warming seas, key nodes in ecosystems begin their irreversible decline...
Global Warming or Imminent Fossil Fuel Depletion
Electricity production accounts for less than one third of current global primary energy consumption. It is not just electricity production we need to worry about replacing. By 2050 most of Earth’s fossil fuels will be depleted, currently supplying 88% of our primary energy needs (http://camwest.pps.com.au/renewable-energy/).
We need to get renewable energy production up to 50% of our current primary energy needs by around 2030 when fossil fuel production will be in serious decline to have any probability of maintaining modern societies.
That level of renewable energy production investment will have dramatic effect on Global Warming, but more importantly help conserve our fossil fuels for the uses that require their chemistry for the production of necessary materials; fertilisers, petro-chemicals, plastics, metals etc.
Dan
Confusion between CSG and Shale Gas
The discussion in Australia has not at all been helped by the confusion, in some cases deliberate, between shale gas extraction and CSG extraction, in terms of fraccing, water use or production, cross contamination between artesian reservoirs and fugitive emissions. Given the paucity of data on most of these issues on the public record from Australian operations (which are almost entirely CSG) compared to the information bandied about from the US (large proportion of shale gas), the public doesn't have much to go on!
All-out opposition to what?
It's pretty obvious we need to phase out coal use ASAOECC (as soon as our economy can change). CSG might be an appropriate substitute in the short term - as in this decade, no longer than that.
Can climate science inform the discussion? Well, yes it can.
Climate science tells us that we shifted atmospheric CO2 out of range of interglacial pattern climate early in the 20th century, when we pushed atmospheric CO2 well past 300 ppm. (Explainer: the Holocene Epoch, within which all recorded human history has taken place, was the last Pleistocene interglacial warm period; we have entered the Anthropocene, when climate is dominated by human impacts).
If we want to keep sea levels roughly where they are at present, we have to restore atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations to not much higher than pre-Industrial levels ASAOECC. This means we can't even use CSG for very long.
Reporting frameworks yet to catch up
Being someone who manages greenhouse data for many oil and gas operators, there is poor understanding of the scale of fugitive methane emissions from the CSG industry and the prescribed venting and fugitive accounting methodologies under the NGER Act are yet to catch-up.
Other Tyndall conclusions
Just to summarise what I thought were the other key conclusions of the Tyndall report:
"There is a clear risk of contamination of groundwater from shale gas extraction. It is important to recognise that most problems arise due to errors in construction or operation and these cannot be eliminated. The US EPA research should provide important new evidence in understanding this issue
Very significant amounts of water are required to extract shale gas and this could put severe pressure on water supplies in areas of drilling.
Very high standards of hazard management will need to be maintained at all times if surface pollution is to be avoided."
The report also lists a couple of dozen chemicals used in the process, including 14 carcinogens and 7 mutagens. So, given that mistakes will be made, leaks will happen and we don't know what the consequences will be but they could be pretty nasty long-term, let's not have this going on in prime agricultural land. It just doesn't make sense.