Fracked Methane Gas is an Immense Climate Change Threat

 

While the fossil fuel industry continues to label methane “clean” fuel, New York State has recently taken steps to recognize the dangers inherent in this gas. New York’s actions are in opposition to the recent attempts by the federal government to ignore and suppress studies of the issue. How fracked methane affects climate change becomes extremely important as carbon taxes are now being discussed on the national level.

 

The February 2017 research article, “The recent increase in atmospheric methane” by A.J. Turner (of Harvard University) and his colleagues, reveals the dangers of high-volume gas fracking. This study documents a staggering 30% increase in global methane emissions in the last decade, most of it coming from the United States. Satellite imagery and ground-based measurements were utilized in the study. The increase in fracked emissions is largely due to high-volume shale gas drilling in the US. This dangerous release of the greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere is apparent to the scientific community.

 

Fracked methane gas is not “clean” despite the claims of the oil and gas industry. The industry’s claim is based on the fact that methane combustion releases only 60% of the carbon dioxide of burning coal. However, methane is at least 100 times more potent retaining heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide in the first ten years of its release.

 

According to studies by Robert Howarth of Cornell University, the practice of high-volume, horizontal shale gas drilling appears to leak up to 12% of extracted methane from venting, storage and pipeline distribution. Measurements by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration have found leakage rates of 2.3% to 17% of annual fracked methane production in California, Colorado and Utah. Any leakage of methane above 2% makes the process of gas extraction a more dangerous source of climate change pollution than does burning other fossil fuels.

 

Governor Cuomo announced, in his January 2017 State of the State message, a study to inventory methane gas emissions and identify methods to capture or eliminate its release. In May, the governor announced a NYS “Methane Reduction Plan” of 25 actions to reduce methane emissions released by the oil and gas industry, from landfills and from the agricultural sector. While the plan seeks to measure methane releases from many sources, it’s important that it recognizes methane releases from existing and proposed gas infrastructure, including methane leakage in utility and customer-owned pipelines. The plan will also address the detection of leaks in residential areas and establish more robust monitoring methods. If done properly, these studies may become an important tool to open the eyes of the public to the disastrous effects of gas and oil infrastructure in the state.

 

The new presidential administration has given a green light to disregard and deny the destructive effects of high-volume fracking and methane emissions. In one of his first acts as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt canceled a regulation requiring methane leakage to be measured by the fracking industry, saying it was too costly to business. At the same time, the EPA’s website has had scientific information on methane, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change altered or removed. The Agency’s mission statement has been amended to remove the phrase “science-based.” Fossil fuel industry personnel have been placed on EPA review panels. The proposed federal budget halts funding for four government space programs that provide accurate global measurements of atmospheric and ocean warming changes.

 

Economic sanctions enacted by the Obama administration on Russia, for its military actions against the Ukraine, placed on hold a $500 billion oil and gas drilling joint venture between ExxonMobil and Russia in the Arctic. Former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson is now our secretary of state. Should economic sanctions be curtailed, ExxonMobil will be the financial beneficiary of this enormous oil and gas drilling partnership agreement.

 

At the time carbon taxes and carbon caps were first discussed over ten years ago, the industrial practice of high-volume, horizontal drilling for methane gas did not exist. Expansion of fracking was permitted under the Bush-Cheney administration when the high-volume fracking industry was excluded from parts of the Clean Air, Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts. According to Marcellus Drilling News, ExxonMobil is currently the largest producer of fracked methane gas in the United States. ExxonMobil has recently indicated that it might support a carbon tax.

 

With the 30% increase in global methane in a decade caused by fracking, it’s extremely important that the release of the greenhouse gas methane be accurately included in the establishment of any carbon tax or carbon cap mechanism. A carbon tax that does not considere methane leakage will only encourage the production of a greenhouse gas 100 times more potent than carbon dioxide — and stuff the ExxonMobil coffers.