This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Natural Gas: Worse Than Coal & Diesel in Greenhouse Emissions?
By Dian L. Chu, EconForecast
Natural gas has long been touted as a cleaner alternative because natural gas releases about half as much of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide as coal does. Although the natural gas market is in the doldrums right now due to supply glut, with advocates like T. Boone Pickens pitching as the fuel of the future, many market players are betting on increasing natural gas demand from transportation fuels and the generation of electricity to continue for years to come.
Well-to-Wheel: 25% CO2 Reduction
Indeed, the U.S. Congress is considering a bill--Natural Gas Vehicles (Division B, Title XX)-that would push to replace diesel with natural gas in heavy vehicles. Part of the argument is that natural gas is substantially cleaner than diesel--about 25 percent less greenhouse gas emission.
In fact, a working paper by the International Energy Agency (IEA) says this much - On average, a 25% reduction in carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-eq) emissions can be expected on a well-to-wheel (WTW) basis when replacing gasoline by light-duty vehicles (LDVs) running on compressed natural gas (CNG).
Lifecycle Analysis: 60% More CO2
However, not everyone is that certain about natural gas’ green prospect. Dr. Robert Howarth, professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University, indicates that using natural gas rather than diesel in vehicles could actually increase climate change, according to his preliminary finding dated Nov. 15 of a research paper to be under peer review.
“Using the best available science, we conclude that natural gas is no better than coal and may in fact be worse than coal in terms of its greenhouse gas footprint when evaluated over the time course of the next several decades.”
His preliminary analysis includes not only the amount of carbon dioxide from the combustion emission, but also the impact of natural gas leaks from Methane. By adding methane into the “lifecycle” calculation of climate impact, natural gas could be significantly worse than diesel and coal (see graph).
Howarth’s results show that using natural gas would emit the equivalent of 33 grams of carbon dioxide per megajoule--about 60 percent more--than just 20 grams of carbon dioxide per megajoule by using petroleum fuels.
Separately, MIT also came up with a study that on a CO2 equivalent grams per megajoule basis, diesel scored at 10.7 and gasoline at 14.4, with natural gas smacking in the middle at 12.5.
The two studies make different assumptions and therefore yield significantly different results. Although natural gas is the focus for both papers; they illustrate there’s a need for a more thorough study to fully assess the potential full impact before passing legislations promoting any fuel source.
Part of Natural Gas Vehicles (Division B, Title XX) U.S. Senate bill would incentivize the development of natural gas vehicles by providing $3.8 billion in rebates. The rebate costs is to be offset by increasing the amount of money that oil companies pay into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, from 8 cents per barrel to 21 cents per barrel. And this 13 cents delta most likely will end up in our gas tank.
So, in short, in a rush to meet the emission goal, we could be subsidizing something that might or might not yield the climate change result as expected. It is standard practice in business decision process to look at the “total cost of ownership” (TCO) of a new product or service. Legislation should undergo a similarly vigorous evaluation process as well.
Dian L. chu, Nov. 22, 2010 
»
- advertisements -
Do tell:
www.skepticalscience.com
+10000
So, who paid for this study? The American Petroleum Institute?
Battery manufacturers in China and GM
Now there's a communist plot if there ever was one.
RE: Dr. Robert Howarth, professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University caution...specifically regarding that version of Methane-mining relating to hydralic fracture, with injection of ceramic granules to keep the formation darcy-measure-permeable...
FYI there are OTHER ways and means
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=methane-siberia-climate-change
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1o2wiBm5r_M/TOsboz7zEDI/AAAAAAAAByo/waJQDLF5bx...
THIS chart, hence, includes the unintended colateral damage of unburned Methane being released during mining...Howarth's preliminary analysis includes not only the amount of carbon dioxide from the combustion emission, but also the impact of resultant permanent (methane) natural gas leaks thereby. By adding this ADDITIONAL byproduct/unburned/methane into the “lifecycle” calculation of climate impact, natural gas could be significantly worse than diesel and coal (see graph). OBVIOUSLY true...(how to fetch defeat from a winning situation? the beauty of Rhetorical Manipulation...how Plato hated it all...the false narratives, poetry and all that)
Of course ..... from the viewpoint of Malthusian (dismal science) ecology...the best of all worlds would be 0 [zerohedged?] human beings, rather than 6 billion, each 'burning' at idle speed energy each 100 watts/hour...generated by chemical oxygenation of various hydrogen/carbon 'fuels' (food=>'calories') stolen/parasited off the entire living planet and its living beings, and its living Gaia persona...no humans and their industrial activities...we wouldn't have near the CO2 problem, THEN THE current cycle of natural earth orbital-caused re-entry into the continuing ICE Age, which merely PAUSED starting 12000 BC and overdue to re-entry, THEN we could have the proper Ice Age GAIA wants...
Howarth does ADMIT, that indeed, methane, taken out-of-context, does indeed burn with LESS CO2 per energy unit...
http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/howarth/GHG%20emissions%20from%20Marcellus%20...
NO MATTER THATS AS BAD IT GETS, Howarth tried hard, but thats it..so the 100 year CH4 supply compares RATHER WELL with COAL/OIL...
thank you, Herr Professor, Dr. Robert Howarth
"a professor of ecology and environmental biology--" is the same as a professor of voodoo and taints. These are all people who slimed there way to the top in a system that rewards compliance and agreement with dogma. The Fredian analysis of these freaks is a very interesting enterprise. They feel insignificant compared to the successful citizens in the business world, but they are impotent, and they are attempting to kill off all business activity in order to achieve their "neurotic compensation". Very dangerous loonies.
CH4 emissions are completely meaningless. CH4 is oxidized in the atmosphere; it's life-time is much too short to be of any significance.
CO2: 50-200 years
CH4: 12 years
Too short? Try again.
Third blizzard of the year is rolling across the country before Thanksgiving. Thank god for global warming;)
Exactly. It could be extermely ironic that human beings managed to stave off the worst effects of the present; (since approximately 1999), cooling epoch thru putting a small fraction of the natural co2 back into the atmosphere that was there long ago. Meanwhile, our fearless leader of the EPA, had declared that CO2 is a real and present danger to humanity. The only measurable effect of CO2 has been the increase in food crops; about %6 over the last thirty years; If I were God I'd be laughing my head off at these feeble minded emotionally driven "super chimpanzees" who imagine they influence global climate.
The question everyone has to ask themselves before determining the value of any scientific research is who put up the money to pay for the study. I would bet that unions that heavily support coal for obvious reasons would support any work making a case against nat gas as nat gas is not unionized. All scientific works unfortunately have to viewed with an extreme jaundiced eye. Not one democratic politician takes a stance against coal and even offer the myth of "clean coal" I wonder why that is. The fact that environmental studies break along political lines as opposed to just good science should leave all of mankind with a chill.
Right...CNG makes real sense for autos.
If we were actually serious about reducing emissions we would put limits on permitted horsepower...but that would be un-American
there's a simple kit, that will convert a conventional diesel engine, to 70/30 cng/diesel. that would bring the vehicle into compliance for existing emission standards, and then some. no new technology needed. the licensing, to convert existing cars, to cng, is cost prohibitive. $10,000 per model year.
the only question that needs to be asked about any report by any scientist is......can it be trusted? can the peer review be trusted? this is the question for the next 100 years. after the nonsense with the global warming scam and so called scientists cooking the books and attacks against anyone who didn't tow the global warming line, the worst problem with all this crap work is trust and only trust.
Who gives a shit about the CO2 in coal. The issue is the heavy metal and radioactive impurities that are released into the air.
Answer; everyone in the usa and europe has been brainwashed to "care" about the co2. the problem is the brainwashing; fobbed off as a "free press". heavy metal and radioactivity are completely insignificant; but then you didn't have a science major, did you.?
You've clearly already consumed too much Hg.
Yeah, radioactive impurities... Like Urianium and Thorium, which we could instead refine and use for power!
It's amazing the number of people who fall for this hoax. Ever heard of the Stefan–Boltzmann law? Ask Dr Lenzner at MIT for what was done during the moonshot era. It disparoved the whole notion of golbal warming. Ever been to a greenhouse, a real one? Ever noticce they have roofs?
Odd NASA chose to sit on the data until this year, before the whole thing blew up.
There's nothing "odd" about it; as far as NASA is concerned, it's a 6.5 billion dollar a year "industry". Hey, let's do some more "studies". Speaking as a very well educated physical scientist, it makes me sick to my stomache.
I'm tired of this bullshit too. One tragic story is fired NASA scientist, Ferenc Miskolczi, whos
measured facts didn't comply to CO2 scam.
http://www.examiner.com/civil-rights-in-portland/hungarian-physicist-dr-...
Methane leaks from the frozen Siberian ocean floor dwarf the perfessor and BP
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=methane-siberia-climate...
Meanwhile UNG>5.20 may be targeting 26 and then 63
http://stockcharts.com/charts/gallery.html?s=ung
I think the key point here is "Cleaner than What?"
The issues with hydraulic fracturing can exist with oil as well as gas wells. Obviously, it's been significantly more public in gas wells lately, because those are the wells that are being drilled to relatively shallow formations, then frac'd. (In particular, within the Marcellus, this seems to be coming up.) A fracture that causes gas to leak into an aquifer is one that's been done improperly. Whoever is operating the well is significantly reducing its EUR. You often see similar issues when companies overstimulate shallow oil wells in Northern OK.
Neither of these situations compares in any way to a coal mining operations, and companies are liable for whatever surface damages they cause. (If that's replacing cows, or drilling new water wells.)
As far as the original article goes, I'll have to read the study when it comes out, but if methane leaks would represent 2/3rds of the global warming from a NG powered vehicle over 100 years, then for every ~12.5 grams of CO2 emitted by NG vehicles, there would be 1 gram of leaked methane. This would seem to pose a more direct problem for natural gas vehicles, in particular, rather large fires.
All of that being said, I don't think the problem with getting natural gas vehicles is their cost, it's the relative lack of infrastructure.
>>>and companies are liable for whatever surface damages they cause. (If that's replacing cows, or drilling new water wells.)<<<
I certainly agree, but that is not what is happening.
Watch the 60 Minutes segment and you'll see that those individuals with contaiminated wells are having to fight tooth and nail to hold the driller even minimally accountable.
So far, they've only been able to get them to provide bottled water. And the company admits no liability. Whenever they take a shower, they get physically ill from the fumes.
I watched a bit of it, but I can't find a unique identifier for the well, so I can't find exactly what's going on with it.
A lot of times when this kind of thing happens (though, I have no evidence to suggest it's what happend in this case) the land owner took limited or no surface damages, in exchange for an increase in surface rent or lease payments. People with ranches make this mistake pretty frequently.
Based on the kind of fracturing they do in those areas, whoever owns the water well must be right on top of the gas well... the fractures don't go *that* far.
And then there's the exploding water from contaminated wells and dead cows from drinking the shale gas drilling fracking run-off.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7054210n
Yes, natural gas, the "cleaner alternative."
Trust this historical imperative. When the Seven Sisters have completed their program of buying up all the natural gas reserves like XOnMobil (XTO) and CHXaco (ATLS) and CNOOC (CEO) buying 22% CHK reserves....they'll spin that frackin' water back at you like a virgin spring in the hillside. Meanwhile, they'll short the nattys to get them to altar faster than robosigners on steroids.
I don't see anywhere where this a-hole (Robert Howarth) factored in the gas release from drilling for oil or mining coal. Another bogus/biased/self-serving "study" leading to nowhere..........
"In the rush to meet the emission goal--" Complete madness. There is no goal. there is nothing to accomplished. It's raving madness. An enormous amount of harm and financial damage has already been done in Europe and England in the name of this, latest, human delusion. In the 12th. Century everyone in Europe believed in Catholic doctrine; or else they were ritually murdered. In 1905 Lord Kelvin came to American and lectured at American universities to the effect that the theory of the "luminiferous ether" was the most well established theory of modern science; it was the "consensus". This was the same year that Alber Einstein published his papers that proved once and for alll that the "luminiferous ether" did not exist; and in fact was a kind of childish joke. And so it goes, and so it goes.
And what about those people who use the primitive intelligence measuring system of IQ? They seem to miss the fundamental nature of intelligence and existence...well unless maybe they're smart enough to know the con and are just playing along.
Don't worry...his IQ estimate is in base 8 or lower.
Seems like loose talk here. Natural gas has long been described as "cleaner" but that normally meant no particulates, no sulfur compounds, less NO, NO2, and ozone in the exhaust, and no longer-chain volatile hydrocarbons, benzene, etc. escaping from handling the fuel, which are more toxic than methane (see cancer warning on your California gas pump).
To emit less CO2, methane-burning engines or generators would need to be more efficient and extract more energy per gram of carbon than with other fuels, which is possible, but that was never the reason why you see methane-burning buses in polluted cities etc.
For the poster; There's no such thing as "worse than coal" emissions. Co2 is a trace gas. There is no measurable contribution to the warming of the twentieth century; which, of course follows the cooling of the 19th. century, fortunately. Human beings have no credible hypothesis as to why the planet cools and warms; this is not remarkable. Global warming was brought to you by the UN and their bought and paid for research unit in England, in order to increase their power and influence. I know it's difficult to grasp, but it's factually correct that the whole thing is just a human delusion. It's physically impossible that Co2 will ever cause a measurable increase in global temperature.
excessive human spooning+carbon based flatulence=global warming. there's no turning back, baby...the world could end any day now....
IQ, What you fail to consider here is that the earth maintains equilibriums. Too much CO2 bodes well for life that uses it. They thrive, marginalizing the O2 using life (you). They will do great until they choke themselves with O2 down the road.
The earth has maintained a fairly steady temperature for a very long time, while the output of the sun has increased 10%
All I'm saying is Mom finds a way to bring it back to where it ought to be. Are we gonna be part of that plan or will we be found to be the ones that need to go in order to make things right again?
Also, I think that many climate models fail to factor in sun cycles as well as needed. It is my hypothesis that the recent solar minimums have delayed what global warming we were beginning to see. Let's see how hot it is at the next maximum, and then have tea and discuss. (Hopefully not on the beaches of Ohio)
IQ 145, have you considered the tag Fahrenheit 451 instead?
In a nutshell, during the 1600s the CO2 concentration in the Earth's atmosphere was about 180ppm. It has doubled since then. No reputable scientist will deny that the doubling is due to fossil fuel burning by humans.
400 years is an eyeblink in geological time. The Earth's biosphere is an hugely complex system. Nicholas Taleb says complex systems should not be disturbed. We are disturbing it. Apollo 8 took a photo of the Earth from space for the first time and showed us all the beauty and uniqueness of our planetary home. It is our one and only fragile life support system. We should STOP disturbing it!
yes. If we all committed suicide the world would be better.
Just another idiot hack skeptic, I suppose:
http://redwhitebluenews.com/?p=7670
Think. Most ice core data shows CO2 as a result of warming. It makes sense. warm the ocean and it releases CO2. Cool it and it absorbs.
Of course burning a bunch of fossil fuels affects the earth. Good? Bad? yes to both.
IQ 145,
Why is Venus warmer than Mercury?
She is a Hottie! Anyone who studied Roman Mythology knows that!
Do your homework. study. it will be good for you.
It obviously didn't work for you, sub-Mensa.
Do your homework. study. it will be good for you.
ALL the national acadamies of science in the world disagree with you.
"National Academies" are boy's clubs. If you go along with the current opinion you can "belong" be approved of. One of the fifty or so people on this planet that are actually knowledgeable about this subject suggested that protesting members, (of whom there are many), resign; with a public statement. A carefull study of this subject in the light of the history of physical science, reveals immediately that it's a media event. There is a long history of such delusions; or mis-informations. It doesn't matter who disagrees with me, because owing to a life long adherence to the actual principles of hard science, and a willingness to do my homework; I know what the answer is. In other words, God and I make a majority. It's a tradgedy of modern culture that no-one is taught how to think straight. Start by studying Euclidean geometry; and go on from there; in five or six years you'll be able to understad and evaluate the information that's available right now on your computer; assuming of course that you have an IQ of at least 125; if you don't you're just wasting your time. In that case, you can just say your daddy told you so, and this will be correct.
Adherence to hard science? So do tell, what is you branding of National Academies based on? Is a belief of what you think is right or is from experience? Based on what you write, it is clear that you have no idea of what academia is about or how it works.
BTW, drop the monicker, it does injustice to anyone with an above average IQ.
For the record: I was in academia for 20 years, on Wall Street for 4 years. Started University at age 15....I have co-authored well over 25 scientific papers.. and yea, I learned Euclidean geometry at the ripe old age of 13... Non-Euclidean took me a few more years.