PNAS Studies Reveal Methane Leaking At a Much Higher Rate From Fracking Wells

[bobabode]

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/10/1316546111

http://www.latimes.com/science/scien...,2417418.story

[Boreas]

Terrific!

John

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by Boreas

Terrific!

John

It's only twenty to thirty times as bad as CO2 as a greenhouse gas.

[bhunter]

Originally Posted by bobabode

It's only twenty to thirty times as bad as CO2 as a greenhouse gas.

You're right, it is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. Fortunately, it also has commercial value and it's not in anyone's interest to leak a lot of it.

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by bhunter

You're right, it is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. Fortunately, it also has commercial value and it's not in anyone's interest to leak a lot of it.

Except the drillers. For all the hyperventilating on the right about the EPA's onerous oversight of the petro industry, this suggests they are at best a paper tiger and at worst simply taking their cues from the industry they are charged with overseeing.

[Wasillaguy]

Originally Posted by bobabode

Except the drillers. For all the hyperventilating on the right about the EPA's onerous oversight of the petro industry, this suggests they are at best a paper tiger and at worst simply taking their cues from the industry they are charged with overseeing.

That's just not fair. Everybody knows the gov and it's regulators are taking excellent care of us.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by bhunter

You're right, it is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. Fortunately, it also has commercial value and it's not in anyone's interest to leak a lot of it.

As Bob said, the frackers don't seem to be in the least interested in collecting the methane. That tells me that, these astute capitalists have determined that the trouble and expense of collecting this "bi-catch" wouldn't yield a profit.

And, of course, the amount of methane released due to fracking pales in significance when compared to the amount released from the sea floor by our warming oceans and thawing permafrost. Oh, well, at least we know what's going to kill us all off. It's a comfort of sorts, I suppose.

John

[Oerets]

From what I have read and seen reported there is NO SAFE WAY to FRACK PERIOD!



Barney

[Wasillaguy]

http://www.sunaware.org/wp-content/u...toverview1.png

[bhunter]

Using gas rather than coal has also had a big benefit by lowering CO2 emssions. There is no way to eliminate the use of fossil fuels regardless of the desires of the environmental fringe.

The International Energy Agency has just released some data that green-minded fans of shale gas should appreciate. The organisation's latest figures show that America's carbon-dioxide emissions from generating energy have fallen by 450m tonnes, more than in any other country over the past five years. The turnaround has been welcomed by many, and Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief economist, ascribes much of the credit to a shift away from dirty coal towards cleaner gas, according to an article in the Financial Times.

The importance of coal in America's energy mix has indeed tumbled since 1997, from almost half of electricity generation to just 36.7% in February, according to America's Energy Information Administration (see chart). This has come about mostly because of an increase in the use of natural gas (from 21.6% to 29.4% over the same period) rather than renewable energy (from 8.3% to 12.1%)

http://www.economist.com/blogs/schum...xide-emissions

Climate scientists have long regarded that 400 number as the symbolic threshold. One step beyond, and it would be virtually impossible to put the brake on human-generated climate change. The bad news escalated last week when the International Energy Agency reported that global emissions of carbon dioxide rose 1.4 percent in 2012, the largest annual increase on record.

The good news, by contrast, is that while CO2 emissions rise elsewhere, in the United States at least they have been going down, and are now at their lowest level in more than two decades. “Over the last four years,” Obama boasted in his State of Union address, “our emissions of the dangerous carbon pollution that threatens our planet have actually fallen.”

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debat...silver-lining/