Of interest25 Sep 2018 08:13
Methane is a principal component of natural gas, and a number of recently published studies have highlighted the fact that gas leaks from the wellhead to the consumer are far higher than had previously been thought. The furore over the damaging nature of gas leak toxic emissions, and in particular methane, in relation to climate change reached a turning point at this year's World Gas Conference in Washington in June, where tackling methane was viewed as being "part of business as usual". A series of major IOC CEOs stated at the conference that reducing gas leaks is now a major priority, which is perhaps not surprising when one considers that methane has a global warming potential of up to 86 times greater than carbon dioxide over a twenty year period.
These gas leaks do not just occur from operating wells, they also occur from abandoned wells of which there are estimated to be three million across the USA. Such is the scale of the problem that there is growing concern that methane leaks from gas infrastructure even have the potential to reverse the perceived environmental benefits of natural gas when compared to dirtier fossil fuels, such as coal. The Environmental Defence Fund ('EDF') made the case that, although gas fired power plants produce much lower carbon dioxide emissions than coal-fired plants for the same electricity generation, methane leaks could cut that advantage out completely if just more than 2.7% of gas production escapes on its journey from well to power plant. Above that level gas is actually worse than burning coal.
I didn't know this.
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