Natural Gas Pipeline Explosions: Can They Be Prevented? Can Risk Be Minimized?

Natural Gas Pipeline Explosions: Can They Be Prevented? Can Risk Be Minimized?

The recent explosion of a TransCanada pipeline on Nixon Ridge in Marshall County, West Virginia begs some obvious questions and answers. When the pipeline was first placed in service less than 6 months ago, a TransCanada spokesman stated:

“We’re looking forward to generations of safe operations,” he added. “This is truly a best-in-class pipeline and we look forward to many years of safe, reliable, and efficient operation on behalf of our customers.”

-TransCanada Scott Castleman, 6 months ago in January.

The pipeline exploded in the first week of June just after 4 AM in a fireball fed by pressurized gas that could be seen for up to 20 miles away. Although that pipeline was shut-in as soon as possible the fire in the surrounding countryside burned for another hour or so, singing several acres of forest. What happened? The cause of the explosion is of course still under investigation. Corrosion is often the culprit in pipeline leaks and explosions in old pipelines, but this is a new pipeline presumably with standard anti-corrosion measures built in.

Chemist Richard Peekema notes that although the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which investigates pipeline explosions, has determined that many are caused by mechanical failure of defective pipe, one might also conclude that they are caused by “explosive ignition of accumulated gas leaks from pipeline defects into surrounding air spaces.” This assumes that the pipes leak first then explode. An explosion requires two things: a leak of gas and an ignition source or spark. Other potential causes are improper installation (usually ineffective welding), excavation that disturbs a pipeline, and ineffective safety equipment. An explosion can become far worse if safety valves to shut off compromised pipelines are not there or are defective. Adequate leak detection and repair (LDAR) is very important for preventing potential explosions.

Newer high volume and high-pressure pipelines may cause larger explosions, higher flames, and larger ‘incineration zones’ around the explosion. This is one argument environmentalists use against these large high-pressure pipelines. If the zones of incineration from a potential explosion are larger then this suggests that setbacks from homes and other structures should be larger as well. I live about 500-600 ft from a transmission pipeline, so I wonder what the incineration zone would be here. Explosions may lead to fatalities, injuries, property damage including houses and structures burning down, and forest and brush fires. Often people are evacuated during an incident.

Statistics from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) show that in the U.S. in the last 20 years (1998 through 2017) there have been 807 serious pipeline incidents (+40 per year on average), 306 fatalities (+15 per year on average) and 1262 injuries (+63 per yaer on average). Although the number of incidents has dropped slightly over the time span the number of fatalities and injuries has remained fairly constant. Thus far, there is no evidence that there are more incidents, fatalities, or injuries since the advent of “fracking” and with more high-pressure, high-volume transmission pipelines. Some pipeline incidents are caused by third party excavation so this does not just reflect just natural damage or leaks due to faulty installation or welding. Both the PHMSA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigate pipeline ruptures and assess fines.

Wikipedia has an extensive list of pipeline leak, spill, and explosion incidents in the U.S. The U.S. has by far the largest network of natural gas, oil, gasoline, natural gas liquids, and jet fuel pipelines in the world. They count about 3200 significant or serious pipeline accidents since 1987. That averages to over 100 per year. These include oil and other liquids pipelines, compressor-station incidents, excavation damage, and distribution lines (distribution lines are small but urban ones can be extremely old and unsafe - some made of cast iron – many currently being replaced) so do not reflect just natural gas events. According to Wiki the causes of pipeline leaks and ruptures include bad welding, foreign material contamination into a weld, cracked pipe due to manufacturing defects, cracked pipe at a bend in pipe, external corrosion, internal corrosion, a corrosion crack at a weld, gasket failure, valve failure, external bacterial corrosion in wet shale, environmental cracking, dented pipe, excavation, mismatched pipe, landslides, and even pipe thought to be damaged in transport. Contributing factors have included rocky backfilling, not enough inspection and pigging, lack of external coating on old pipes, inadequate past repair, landsliding, and other earth and soil movement. Pressure testing with nitrogen can also cause pipe bursts but not explosions.

Pipeline “smart pigs” are used to inspect internal and external irregularities in pipes and welds. They can measure degree of internal or external corrosion and corrosion pitting. Some old pipes do not have external coating that protects against corrosion. Some of those have been ordered to be replaced. These days there is cathodic corrosion protection on new pipelines and some older lines are dug up and equipped with it. Pigging operations can also be dangerous if a pipe has a pre-existing leak and people have been killed during pigging.

If a pipeline accident were to occur resulting in significant loss of life due to the line being to close to people and habitations then public outcry might change and setback requirements (which may vary by state but I’m not sure) would likely be increased. There seems to be no indication thus far that high-pressure lines and those with larger volumes are more likely to explode. The bigger pipes have thicker walls and are pressure tested before being placed in service. Environmentalists against pipelines have jumped on the danger of big high-pressure lines carrying “fracked gas” (as if it were different from non-fracked gas – anyway most gas is now fracked gas and that will increase).

I wonder what the likelihood would be of say a mile section of pipeline exploding. One might simply divide the number of explosions by the number of miles of pipeline. The PHMSA lists that there are 300,635 miles of transmission pipelines in the U.S. (as well as 927,011 service miles, 18,358 gathering miles, and 1,308,665 distribution miles – so 2,554,668 miles overall) and we assume about 50 transmission line explosions per year (guesstimate – probably less actually), then there is about a 1 in 700 chance that a pipeline will explode in a given year within about a mile from anyplace. If incineration zones are 500-1500 on avg. (another guess – say 1000ft avg) then that means that about 1/5 or 20% of the section within each mile will be in an incineration zone. This suggests that the risk of a section of pipeline being in an incineration zone is about 1 in 3600 in a given year. If we extrapolate that to a 30-year period that would be 1 in 120 so less than a 1% chance that a given section of pipeline will be part of an incineration zone in a 30-year period. So, the overall risk is small, but the results could be catastrophic. One might say that the risk of getting in a car accident is greater, probably much greater, than having an explosion occur nearby and certainly very far greater than getting hurt in one. Even so, it is possible. These explosions happen and can be disconcerting and possibly horrific to experience close up. People do die and get injured. Houses and barns burn down, Forest and brush land is burned – even if the risk of it happening to a certain person or place is small.

Addendum – I also see from the PHMSA site that about 10-12 % of the incidents were transmission lines and 15% of the fatalities – that means that my numbers over-estimate the risk by more than triple. Meanwhile over 80% of the incidents and over 70% of the fatalities are from distribution lines. This means that even though environmentalists call transmission lines “buried bombs” they are far less likely to explode and one is far less likely to die due to on exploding than for distribution lines. Thus, if they are truly interested in saving lives and lessening incidents they would be better off promoting replacement of old distribution lines than protesting against transmission lines. Graph below shows that transmissions pipeline explosions have not increased in the last 20 years (and through the advent and normalization of “fracked gas”) nor have fatalities.

References:

Causes of Natural Gas Pipeline Explosive Ruptures (Abstract) – by Richard M. Peekema, Ph. D., in American Society of Civil Engineers - Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice, Vol. 4, Issue 1, Feb. 2013

Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration 2018 (website/portal)

https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/data-and-statistics/pipeline/pipeline-incident-20-year-trends

List of Pipeline Accidents in the United States in the 21^st Century, in Wikipedia

Environmental Regulations: Burdens, Overreach, Efficiency, Reform, and Certainty/Uncertainty: The Search for Effective Yet Sensible Regulation of Industry

Environmental Regulations:  Burdens, Overreach, Efficiency, Reform, and Certainty/Uncertainty: The Search for Effective Yet Sensible Regulation of Industry

Environmental Law is a subject that is quite debatable. Most often the challenge is to compare costs vs. benefits and to set boundaries between what constitutes acceptability and what constitutes environmental harm. With climate change and carbon emissions the challenge also very often includes the desirability of emissions mitigation or reduction.

There are different approaches to environmental regulation at all levels from federal to state to local. The approach of hardcore American liberals like Bernie Sanders is to super-regulate and punish polluters and carbon emitters. The approach of hardcore American conservatives has been to de-regulate. Obama’s approach was to regulate in some innovative ways such as the Clean Power Plan and in some specific ways such as the Waters of the U.S. Rule, and federal mandates for methane emissions reduction at oil & gas facilities. The right argued that he went too far, the far left that he did not go far enough. The Trump administration EPA under Scott Pruitt is attempting with significant success to undo most of the Obama era rules and to redefine the role of the EPA itself, charging that the culture had become too anti-industry. Now it is often seen as too pro-industry. It is a delicate balance for sure. Some on both sides favor regulation at state levels rather than federal. There are practical reasons for this including geography and regional natural resource endowment. Of course, if some states have more stringent regulations than others there will be outcries. Resource states grapple these days with rules about oil and gas severance taxes, forced pooling/co-tenancy of leases for drilling horizontal wells, state methane emissions mandates, spill prevention and containment, coal ash impoundment regulations, mountaintop removal mining overburden deposition regulations, etc. An example would be EQT, the largest American natural gas producer who drills wells in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. They are drilling long lateral wells to optimize economics. In Pennsylvania they can benefit from forced pooling of leases when a certain percentage (I believe it is 75%) of leasers in a unit agree to lease so that the other leaseholders at that point would be compelled to lease. That way a small holdout of one or two landowners can’t block development. Before the state of West Virginia approved such a practice this year – which they refer to as ‘co-tenancy’ – they would be able to block. For that reason, EQT favored developing Pennsylvania wells instead of West Virginia wells.

Of course, the ideal situation is to have regulators as a non-biased independent third party. However, in reality that is difficult to achieve. Regulators, industry people, and academics meet at conferences, talks, and society meetings and sometimes become friends. These meetings are educational, useful, even essential for all parties. Regulatory issues may be discussed. However, this is not to say that they are making deals simply by being friendly. Anti-industry people could also attend such meetings but they are less likely to be friended if they have strong positions against a majority of attendees. Charges of industry people becoming cozy with regulators or even the ubiquitous charges of “revolving door” policies where former regulators become industry people or lobbyists or vice versa may well be true but if you think about it they usually have the best qualifications. So, the potential for pro-industry bias is stronger than for anti-industry bias. There has to be some collaboration between regulators and industries and much of that is scientific and knowledge-based. While people from environmental organizations sometimes attend conferences, they tend to be less tuned into the science and engineering of the various industries. While there are some anti-industry activist scientists, typically academics, most have been controversial and less knowledgeable of industry and the changes within industry. It would be imprudent and potentially disastrous to have regulators making rules who do not have a solid understanding of the industries they regulate.

Regulatory burdens are real. If complying with new regulations makes a marginally profitable project unprofitable then that project would either have to be scrapped or more likely continued to be run at a loss. Since industries like oil and gas are subject to the volatile whims of commodities prices they have experience running projects at a loss while assuming future profit from recovering commodities prices. One example is a small refinery project operated by one of the majors where new methane leakage rues would require that project to be run unprofitably – at least for a time – although one would think that after initial investments in the “pollution controls” to capture methane the project would eventually return to marginally economic.

Scott Pruitt calls his approach “cooperative federalism” but it has been called a corrupt form of cooperative federalism, which environmental hawk Senator Sheldon Whitehouse calls “cooperative corporatism.” Cooperative federalism would involve the EPA collaborating with states to regulate but Pruitt has preferred to collaborate much more with industry and has been at odds with states that have strong regulations like California. As in much of American politics he (and many other politicians of both parties) is heavily funded by those industry interests. They have tended to simply ask industry how it would like to be regulated and try to get there. Trump’s Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has also sought to make his department friendlier to extraction industries. This is also true of West Virginia governor Jim Justice, who is actually a very wealthy coal executive. They have sought to decrease “regulatory burden” on a rather unprecedented scale, although some of that is practical. Justice wants to make permits easier and less burdensome to obtain. That is rather practical in several cases where some permits, especially those involving multiple federal agency sign-offs, can take years, sometimes many years. This is true of hydro-electric projects as well as fossil fuel projects. The time factor can affect companies’ financing if there are long periods of “regulatory uncertainty.” Companies can lose large sums of money if regulation denies their projects going forward. For example, before the state of New York placed a moratorium on fracking (nearly a decade ago) there were several companies who had spent significant sums of money leasing and test drilling. They totally lost their investments as did landowners who stood to profit and local people who could have been hired for work. New York state’s environmental regulator also continues to deny pipeline permits, typically for issues that would temporarily affect water quality (sedimentation and erosion). New York is an example of anti-industry bias while Justice and Pruitt are examples of pro-industry bias. Rules often change with differing political administrations at all levels so regulatory uncertainty is often a function of change in political power, at least in recent times. Some companies, typically the oil majors, tend to favor some rules they see as financially do-able because they offer regulatory certainty which helps them plan better. They have tended to favor methane leakage rules and carbon taxes for these reasons. Since they plan projects on time scales of several years to a decade or more, having knowledge of the regulatory climate ahead can help them plan successfully. This is true of most companies where regs can make or break project economics.

Pruitt has also often touted ‘regulatory certainty’ as a reason for changing rules but so too did his predecessor Gina McCarthy and probably others before. Others claim his policy of undoing every Obama rule is creating the opposite, regulatory uncertainty, since any new administration, especially a Democratic one is likely to change things again. Logic would dictate that in order to create certainty there would have to be some middle ground found between the views from the left and from the right. Some level of compromise would be required.

Environmental protection has long been recognized as a public good. The usual issue is quantifying a boundary between acceptable and unacceptable environmental harm and impact. Some form of cost-benefit analysis is required to estimate where the baseline should be. Often, the individual companies in the industries participate in gathering the information that is used to set regulations. That aspect of what has been called ‘self-regulation’ is rather non-negotiable since the companies are usually by far the most qualified to do it. Other aspects of self-regulation such as frequency of reporting, monitoring of carbon emissions accounting is now strongly suggested by many corporate boards. Some are suggesting carbon contingency plans as well. This is happening with energy companies as pipeline builder/operator Kinder Morgan shareholders just approved non-binding measures to require just this. Kinder Morgan’s first response is that they will study and consider.

New facilities are also regulated by state requirements as shown by the control the state of New York has wielded regarding fracking and pipelines. Another example is the repeated denial of coal export terminal proposals on the West Coast to export Western coal. It is another case of being landlocked. In some cases involving international infrastructure projects the Feds may overrule as in the Keystone Pipeline which is set to deliver tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast. But most infrastructure projects are ceded to states to rule on them where applicable. At least they have veto power. Although the US EPA is often credited as being more stringent in requirements than states that is not always the case. In the case of the coal export terminals several interior coal states are going to federal court to say that the state of Washington’s denials were too ‘broad’ and that their access to international markets is being hindered on policy grounds. With global issues like climate change it is harder to justify coal but who gets to make those decisions and where and when are all up for debate. Though Washington state regulators did cite carbon emissions as one reason for the denial there were perhaps other reasons that were more significant such as an increase in local diesel fumes from the additional 16 coal trains per day expected to arrive at the terminal and impacts to the Columbia River. A similar situation is occurring in Oakland, California where plans to build a coal export terminal at the Oakland Army Base has been battled out in the courts and a federal judge has recently struck down bans on the terminal and associated coal trains that would bring the coal. Environmental justice advocates say the trains would bring coal and its fine particulate matter, presumably coal dust as well as diesel fumes through poor and minority neighborhoods of West Oakland where the export facility would be built. Pruitt is also in the process of ceding the management of coal ash slurry waste to states. In a different direction the EPA is being sued by 17 states for relaxing the national fuel standards set by the Obama administration. In that case there is consensus that a national standard helps auto-makers so ceding to the states is not recommended but California especially does not want to relax its standards and negotiations are underway. If the automakers end up like the utility companies they may continue to plan for stricter fuel standards regardless (assuming future administrations will go for stricter ones) much as the utility companies continue to plan for decarbonization.

Another issue with regulator and industry contact is claims of conflicts of interest. Of course, that is bound to come up and be invoked by those who seek to further regulate but in most cases it is simply not a big problem. Since regulators and industry have to co-ordinate and work together it is not unusual for potential conflict of interest situations to arise but that certainly does not mean cooperation equates to conflict of interest. While environmental protection is obviously a public good so too is fairness toward industry through sensible regulations. Claims of ethics violations often involve (at least nowadays with the Trump administration’s friendliness toward industry and deregulation agenda) former lobbyists and anti-regulation advocates being picked to run and staff regulatory agencies. While this may seem a slap in the face to those who see regulators as “opposed” to industry it need not be the case. In the Trump administration case it can certainly be argued that they are too friendly to industry and too eager to deregulate. Qualifications are another issue. Political appointees, including cabinet-level officials like Pruitt, can be seen as unqualified but of course, they have qualified staffs that they can rely on. Too many appointees can be seen as fostering too much of an agenda-driven focus.

Unfortunately, it is also true that sometimes states, industry, and industry advocacy groups will impede regulations for less noble reasons. An example there is perhaps the slowness which states, particularly Oklahoma and Texas, acknowledged that wastewater injection and in some cases pressure pumping water in the hydraulic fracturing process were inducing seismicity, causing small earthquakes. At first, the industry and groups simply denied that these were the cause – even though water injection has long been known to cause faults to slip. With more science and monitoring it became quite clear that this was the cause. Injection well operators were sometimes also at fault by not properly regulating injection pressures. In response, affected states have developed much better seismicity monitoring systems and regulation of injection pressures, water volumes, and in some cases injection zones. Incidentally, in some states the EPA manages wastewater injections while in other states they cede this authority to the states if they see the state policies as adequate.

Apparently, Pruitt’s EPA reorganization involves taking significant resources away from enforcement of environmental rules, presumably fines and other punitive actions. While some say this is effectively a license to pollute, others note that state regulatory agencies are also in play as well as giving the industries opportunities to self-regulate responsibly. Recently, the Ohio EPA as well as the Pennsylvania DEP have issue large fines against Energy Transfer Partners for significant violations involving the Rover Pipeline and Sunoco Logistics Mariner Pipeline respectively. Remedial action was coordinated with FERC which regulates interstate natural gas pipelines. So, despite federal EPA restructuring the state regulators are still regulating and enforcing quite effectively. The simple fact that the Western states can ban coal export terminals (although currently being challenged at Fed level) or that New York and a few other states can ban fracking and block pipelines (currently unchallenged at Fed level but pipeline blocks being considered for challenge) shows that state control in environmental matters is pretty strong, currently.

My own view is that environmental monitoring is important and that samples should be collected and analyzed – of air and water, and soil where applicable – at regular intervals and at places where contamination is more likely. This should be done not as a way to police industry as environmental activist citizen science advocates like to do, but as a general way to monitor the environment in a non-biased way. If monitoring finds contamination issues, then further studies can happen. Some regional organizations manage sampling and analysis systems. One is ORSANCO, the Ohio River Sanitation Commission. The Ohio River is considered the most polluted inland water way in the U.S. I grew up along this river spending much time near it. I saw a few large fish kills. Although such fish kills may occur from algae blooms they may also occur from spills related to oil and gas or coal mining activity. Mercury levels are often high due to coal-burning power plants and mercury advisories regarding the safety of eating fish caught from the river are often in effect. Recently, ORSANCO has been considering ceding its sampling and analysis authority to the states, the various DEPs, and the federal EPA. I tend to agree with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition that this may not be in the best interest of the public, but I don’t know all the details. The 2014 MCHM spill on the Elk River in Charleston (which flows into the Ohio River nearby) and the developing petrochemical hub along the Ohio River and its tributaries does suggest that an adequate monitoring system for spills should be in effect.

Environmental issues should be debated by the experts as well as the interested parties: states, feds, industries, experts from industry and academia, the more rational environmental groups, and local citizens potentially affected. It should be a collaborative problem-solving approach rather than political maneuvering. The co-opting of the public comment hearings process by radical environmental activists showing up at hearings not to voice specific concerns and help steer the process but to protest the various projects on general principles (particularly pipelines these days) only serves to erode the processes put in place where citizens can voice specific concerns relevant to the project.

References:

6 States Join Battle Over the Largest Proposed Coal Export Terminal in the U.S. – by Natasha Geiling, in Think Progress, May 14, 2018

Records Reveal Interior Official Met With Former Employer, a Koch-Funded Group Suing the Department – by Mark Hand, in Think Progress, May 14, 2018

Can Oakland Still Stop the Coal Trains? – by Nathanael Johnson, in Grist, May 17, 2018

Ohio River Pollution Control Standards Are in Jeopardy: Comment by February 24 – by Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Feb, 20, 2018

Gov. Justice Order to Expedite Permit Process Could Benefit Business, Oil Gas Industries – by Rusty Marks, in WV News, April 23, 2018

Scott Pruitt’s Guiding Philosophy is ‘Cooperative Corporatism,’ Per Senator – by Mark Hand, in Think Progress, April 10, 2018

Nothing Certain in Search for ‘Regulatory Certainty’ at EPA – by Nathan Rott, in NPR, May 22, 2018

Gas Technology Institute vs. Environmental Defense Fund: Who is Right About the Global Warming Potential of Methane Emissions from the Oil & Gas Industry?

Gas Technology Institute vs. Environmental Defense Fund: Who is Right About the Global Warming Potential of Methane Emissions from the Oil & Gas Industry? (Plus Insights from the GTI White Paper about Atmospheric Methane Trends)

A recently published Gas Technology Institute whitepaper attempts to quantify how much atmospheric methane contributes to radiative forcing and global warming. The sources used were the NOAA’s annual greenhouse gas index (AGGI), the Global Carbon Project (GCP), and the U.S. EPA. All are 2016 data. Their conclusions are that methane contributes to 16.7% of radiative forcing. They also conclude that roughly 52% of that is anthropogenic so that human activities produce about 8.8% of radiative forcing via methane. Fossil fuels, which include oil, gas, and coal contribute about 3.1% of radiative forcing. The U.S. natural gas industry, according to EPA numbers, contributed 1.2% of global methane emissions and therefore (16.7 x 0.012) = 0.2% of total radiative forcing. While this is still a lot of methane it is miniscule in terms of the total radiative forcing. Thus, when U.S. natural gas industry methane emissions are invoked as a major source of global warming this is generally overestimated. They are, however, a significant source of anthropogenic methane emissions. 1 unit out of 500 units does not constitute a major source. I unit out of 8 might. Regardless, it is still important to reign in methane emissions. The paper also notes that CO2 emissions are rising a lot faster relative to methane emissions so that the percentage of radiative forcing from methane relative to the total radiative forcing has been falling steadily and continues to do so. Thus, although methane emissions from natural gas are increasing due to more development their relative contribution to global warming has been steadily decreasing. The paper even utilized the more conservative (yielding higher emissions) “top-down” approach to emissions, which give contributions from fossil fuels a few tenths more percentage points than “bottom-up” approaches.

In terms of vastly increased U.S. natural gas production the emissions have not risen in tandem due to better recovery and less leakage. As the paper notes:

“Notably, despite the significant growth in U.S. natural gas production in recent years, studies by NOAA and others indicate that recent increases in atmospheric methane concentration are mainly from biological sources and less from fossil fuels.”

In late 2016 a paper came out in the American Geophysical Union that argued that due to “short-wave forcing” the 100-year global warming potential (GWP) of methane is actually 14% higher than the accepted IPCC value. If my math is correct that would mean that the U.S. natural gas industry might be responsible for 0.228 % rather than 0.200% of global radiative forcing. While that would be a slight increase it is not very significant in terms of the total. Greenhouse gas radiative forcing estimates are considered in general to have a 10% margin of error so there is considerable uncertainty. The short-wave effects for CO2 and nitrous oxide were within the margin of error while the methane was slightly beyond.

Illissa Ocko of the Environmental Defense Fund has argued that this change is significant enough to warrant more scrutiny. She notes in one article that atmospheric methane is responsible for about a quarter of the warming we are experiencing today. That is a bit misleading since historically methane was higher relative to CO2 and continues to drop relative to CO2 so that the contribution from methane  emissions today is about 16.7% and of that  just slightly more than half is anthropogenic. Even though the GWP of methane may well be very slightly underestimated the contribution from the U.S. natural gas industry it is still not a major source relative to the whole.

Ocko argues that there were three “misleading mistakes” in the GTI whitepaper. The first she calls ‘systematic undercounting.’ This involves methane’s heat-trapping effects via oxidation of methane to tropospheric ozone, stratispheric water vapor, and carbon dioxide – all of which also trap heat. These effects she says amount to about a third of methane’s heat-trapping effect. The mistake is made she says, by counting methane concentrations rather than total emissions – some of which is oxidized to the other heat-trapping gases. She cites an IPCC paper for this reasoning but there are significant uncertainties mentioned in the paper. The second mistake she notes is that anthropogenic methane emissions are underestimated in the GTI paper. Here she says that the GTI paper’s 8.8 % of methane emissions being anthropogenic is wrong and that it should be 25% - she may mean percentage of global anthropogenic methane emissions that come from global gas industries. She gives no evidence here – I think she could be referring to historical effects of methane on warming – which would be higher since methane was in the past higher relative to the total than it is now. Certainly, if natural sources of methane have remained constant over time, the “new” warming is mainly due to anthropogenic sources. One might then say that the anthropogenic portion of the total went from zero to the current percentage - her problem may be that the paper concentrates on percentage of total radiative forcing, natural plus anthropogenic. Certainly, the anthropogenic methane emitted is a higher percentage within the total anthropogenic greenhouse gases emitted or of the anthropogenic component of radiative forcing. Thus, she can argue that since there was natural methane before industrialization and other human impacts like expanded agriculture, that the anthropogenic impacts ids greater. The third mistake she argues is similar – that fossil fuel’s share of total methane emissions at 18.8% is also 30% of anthropogenic methane emissions. Thus, in terms of anthropogenic methane emissions she argues that the numbers are 3-4 times too low. It would have perhaps been better if the GTI paper would have included relative percentages of radiative forcing from anthropogenic-only sources. Below is the graph from the GTI paper showing relative percentages of the total:

Ocko also notes that:

“The fact is, methane emissions from the oil and gas sector represent the fastest, most cost-effective opportunity we have to slow global warming right now, in our lifetimes. Most of the solutions are already being deployed in some places, as they are simple and straightforward. Many pay for themselves in just a short time. All of them together will make a huge difference. The actual numbers prove the case.”

The bottom line is that depending how the data are presented neither is right or wrong but both emphasize biases. The GTI presentation as percentage of total global radiative forcing tends to reduce the impact of natural gas development. Presenting the data as percentage of total anthropogenic would probably have been better or both could have been presented. One might legitimately claim that the GTI's numbers have deliberately downplayed the impact of leaked methane since if you present the same data as percentages the anthropogenic methane emissions total the numbers suggest that the US natural gas industry is a significant (borderline major) source and that efforts to lower that amount can bear some fruit in terms of climate impacts. The percentage from US nat gas from the same data amounts to 13.6 % of the total of all anthropogenic methane sources and that is in radiative forcing. Graph below depicts those percentages. It is a sizable chunk of anthropogenic methane emissions. One might also present the data in terms of percentage of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions which would give a lower amount. However, GTI's choice of using radiative forcing of oil & gas methane relative to all radiative forcing combined, both natural and anthropogenic, is inherently a trick of numbers although one needs to know those numbers as well. For example if pre-Industrial CO2 atmospheric concentrations were at 280ppm and are now at 410ppm that would mean that about 69% of the radiative forcing of CO2 is natural and 31% anthropogenic. In contrast, 52% of methane emissions are anthropogenic so a higher percentage of emitted methane is anthropogenic than emitted CO2. That means that comparing to the total emissions of all sources, natural and anthropogenic, will shrink the contribution from anthropogenic methane sources. It is a trick of number bias, but one it is good to keep in mind. Global warming detractors will often say that a mere 0.04% of our global atmosphere is composed of CO2. How could that possibly affect global climate? Well, it does it just as gradually by adding 0.003 deg C on avg. annually to the avg. global temperature - which has climbed about 0.5 deg C since the beginning of the Industrial Age (roughly and from my faulty memory). Thus, even small numbers can be significant over time. It's all a matter of perspective. The prevailing theory of climate change and global warming is a grand combinative effect based on both observation of the past and present and modeling of the future. There are significant uncertainties but many relative effects are reasonably understood. To recap US natural gas (by far the largest natural gas development and production system in the world) makes up 0.2% of total global radiative forcing but 13.6% of global anthropogenic methane radiative forcing according to the same data. Obviously, there is a big potential perceptive difference depending how the data is presented and work toward mitigating methane leakage should continue.

References:

Contributory Role of Atmospheric Methane and the Natural Gas Industry on Global Warming Radiative Forcing – by Gas Technology Institute – Center for Methane Research (2017)

Industry-Backed White Paper Low-Balls Oil & Gas Methane Impact – by Ilissa Ocko, in Environmental Defense Fund (blog), Feb. 28, 2018

Radiative forcing of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide: A significant revision of the methane radiative forcing – by M. Etminan, G. Myhre, E. J. Highwood, K. P. Shine – in Geophysical Research Letters, Dec. 27, 2016

New science suggests methane packs more warming power than previously thought – by Ilisswa Ocko, in Environmental Defense Fund (blog), Feb. 7, 2018

A Review of Climate Scientist Michael Mann's Talk: A Return to the Madhouse: Climate Change Denial in the Age of Trump

A Review of Climate Scientist Michael Mann’s Talk: A Return to the Madhouse: Climate Change Denial in the Age of Trump

As the talk’s title suggests it was mostly about the political aspects of climate change and Mann’s informed views but I did think there would be more science. There was some but only one graph shown by the man who formulated the famous “hockey stick” graph.

He began with superstorms, noting that Irma was the most potent hurricane on record in terms of wind speed while Harvey broke records for the amount of rainfall in a storm and Maria was the most destructive ever to Puerto Rico. He pointed out a paper he recently co-authored that calculated that the chances of the last 3 or 4 years to be the warmest on record had about a 1 in 4000 chance naturally so anthropogenic climate change is likely the main factor. He did note that talk about individual storms being caused directly by climate change was an incorrect way to depict extreme weather events – I agree – but that the correct depiction was that it may make storms stronger – more heat = more moisture for storms and so exacerbate storms. He talked about droughts and wildfires as well, noting that the recent extremely destructive Thomas Fire in California was completely out of season. Of course, there are many other factors in fires – human developments, previous forest and fire management, forest health, amount of fuel in the forest, etc. so most fires are not likely even connected to climate change let alone caused by it. He said that the recent California drought was the worst in 1200 years – not sure that is correct – it may be – but certainly there were far worse droughts in that area before that as the geologic and tree ring records show.

He talked about ‘false balance’ in journalism where an opposing view, even if way in the minority among scientists, is given equal weight in news stories. He talked a lot about the “deniers,” especially the ones in politics and congress.

He talked about being harassed by Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli who tried without success to summon his emails when he worked at the University of Virginia in order to go through them to find mistakes and proof of political manipulation of data. The Virginia Supreme Court and other bodies were of course right to thoroughly rebuke Cuccinelli although he came very close to becoming governor after that.

He talked about the military being on board about climate change being a major threat – or rather a ‘threat multiplier.’ He mentioned a major drought in Syria being a major influence in the development of the war there but I doubt that was much of an effect and I think its mainly a political ploy to claim that.

I must admit I was a bit disappointed by his advocating for certain people and organizations that have questionable integrity and excess of bias such as Bill McKibben, the Sierra Club, and 350.org. Although he disclosed that he worked with Hillary Clinton’s campaign and helped add a pro-carbon tax position to the Democratic platform he seemed to see her as someone less committed on climate change that he thought he could move to the left – he said as much. So regardless of his scientific knowledge he falls into the “progressive” camp and his opinions on various aspects of climate change support that. In addition, he is giving political talks in swing states - he also said as much. Thus, his presentation is quite politicized. His most recent book from 2016, published just before the election, included as co-author a Washington Post political cartoonist who often used climate change as a subject.

When asked about how we could get there with renewable energy he invoked the study of Stanford engineer Mark Jacobson who was recently rebuked in a Proceedings of the Nation Academy of Science paper with 22 authors. Jacobson claimed he could design the U.S. to be run entirely on wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, and storage by 2050. The authors explained in detail how Jacobson’s paper made incorrect assumptions and assumed immature technologies would mature, and other errors. Mann said that Jacobson’s calculations were conservative, presumably because Jacobson said it. His immediate mention of Jacobson’s study “only” also put him squarely in the far left camp.  

Mann seemed a bit inflexible in his view that stopping the burning of fossil fuels was the only solution. He talked about the political will to do it but we are far far far away from that. He praised the Paris accord as a good first step. He made an off-color joke about Trump “pulling out.” He praised Obama’s Clean Power Plan and I agree it was a good proxy for a carbon price done by state and flexibly – at least for the power market. Even though many things have been rolled back by the current administration the utility companies are still focused on decarbonization as a long-term trend. He also noted that the U.S. will likely meet our initial commitments in the Paris Accord anyway. He did not mention, however, that the main reason for that is gas replacing coal in power plants along with some efficiency improvements and adding renewables, When asked about natural gas and fracking he immediately invoked methane leakage, yet another indicator that he was most influenced by the far left since the best science indicates that methane leakage from natural gas systems is less than often depicted and can be mitigated further. Just like the utility companies staying focused on decarbonization many oil and gas companies are staying focused on mitigating methane leakage as it can be cost-effective and good for public relations. He did not mention cows, landfills or deforestation at all as methane sources.

He said that the debate should not be primarily about whether climate change is real that we should be beyond that and the debate should be about things like what role should nuclear and natural gas have. I basically agree here. He did not address the question of how much of climate change, mainly temperature rise, is due to humans and how much is a part of long or short-term natural cycles. There is some uncertainty there., although that should not affect mitigation efforts. He did not address questions of climate sensitivity nor did he mention satellite data. He did say the notion of a global warming “pause” is bogus. As I understand it the so-called ‘pause’ is based mainly on satellite data which is not in accord with surface for global average temperatures. Perhaps he should have explained why he thinks it is bogus.  

He talked about the stages of climate change denial, things like pointing out the good parts of CO2 – actually there are good parts like increased plant growth and less freezing and longer growing seasons in some areas – he said that the implications were overwhelmingly bad or undesirable – likely true but he seemed to ignore any good outcomes. Another stage was saying that technology will come to the rescue – Bjorn Lomborg has said as much – and this seems to invoke geoengineering such as injecting aerosols into the stratosphere or putting iron oxides into the ocean. The complexity of the regional climate systems could be affected and he thinks the climate models show that most effects on those systems would be negative to people.

Talking about geoengineering he emphasized unintended consequences and while that may be the case we may be currently swimming in a soup of unintended climate consequences from all the things we do – deforestation, agriculture, fossil fuels, particulates, etc. He said he advocated more money for geoengineering research  and I agree but then indicated that he wanted that so that geoengineering solutions could be disproven. He said that some people saw geoengineering as “the” solution to climate change but most see it as only part of the solution to be used only if deemed necessary. There may be more benign forms of geoengineering we can do.

I agree with him that we need more money appropriated for renewable energy research. I also agree that the current administration seems hell bent on reviving coal and re-invigorating fossil fuels across the board. Scott Pruitt’s re-organization of the EPA and its mission has been a target for complaint and I agree he has gone too far. However, I do think many things are better regulated at the state level and that under Obama there was also some politicization of the EPA, though not nearly as much as now. Rick Perry’s efforts at reviving coal and nuclear have been rather embarrassing failures with the FERC unanimously rejecting the bid to prop up failing plants, especially with the PJM market’s own study that said coal is not at all necessary for baseload power even though it is used during cold weather events due to gas price spikes due to immediate availability of gas – in some areas this is strictly due to lack of gas pipeline capacity.  

He did not mention adaptation to climate change at all. That is something we need to work on regardless of how much climate change is anthropogenic and previous work on that could have lessened Harvey flooding in Houston and other places. He did not mention access to inexpensive energy being important for developing countries – more important than climate change mitigation for them.

Overall, I think the far leftists would say it was a great talk, the centrists like me not so impressed, those on the right seeing it was all politics, and those on the far right seeing it as another liberal conspiracy, like the very concept of global warming/climate change. They will see it that way as long as the solution continues to largely involve income redistribution, more taxation on wealthy countries that emit more – ie. the U.S. - and punishing fossil fuel companies. While Mann may be a Ph. D. expert in atmospheric physics he is not a policy expert and the same is true of others in his camp like Jim Hansen. They may be right – it may be best to act now and do it wholesale – but the personal and political upheaval necessary to codify the political will might cause significant social problems. People will not be happy to be paying more for energy, especially the poor. Convincing a majority of people that massively curbing fossil fuels right now is a daunting task. The most sensible scientific solution (weaning away from fossil fuels, also the most expensive solution) does not necessarily translate to the most sensible political solution.

Ecomodernism: A Rational, Sane, Optimistic, Generally Pro-Business, and Technological Approach to Environmental Protection

Ecomodernism: A Rational, Sane, Optimistic, Generally Pro-Business, and Technological Approach to Environmental Protection

Pragmatic approaches to environmental protection are pretty much required these days to optimize environmental protection as well as optimizing economic activity. In April of 2015 colleagues associated with the Break Through Institute launched the Ecomodernist Manifesto, a short essay advocating for a new pro-technology and optimistic approach to environmentalism. It has been described as center-left politically. Ecomodernists are also known as ecopragmatists.

One of the main goals of the ecomodernist approach is to decouple economic growth from environmental impact primarily through technology. In their 2007 book, Break Through, Nordhaus and Shellenberger note that conservatives tend to idealize the market while liberal environmentalists tend to idealize nature undisturbed. These are the two extreme poles and a pragmatic approach would have to bridge the two, acknowledging the importance and value creation of markets as well as the importance of environmental protection. One of the main arguments of ecomodernism is that technology aided by smart and sensible environmental protection have steadily improved lives, reduced poverty, enabled prosperity, and protected the environment. Through these means we are now able to do more with less, reduce waste, and optimize many processes. They advocate that a ‘politics of limit’ and austerity be replaced by a ‘politics of possibility’ and willingness to solve problems pragmatically rather than ideologically. They have argued that economic prosperity leads to upward mobility on Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’ so that when basic necessities are met people can focus more on the value of environmental protection as is happening now in China in response to the environmental problems caused by their high rate of economic growth.

Critiques of Ecomodernism

Since ecomodernism advocates a paradigm that essentially replaces traditional environmentalism it is no surprise that fierce criticism has come from the traditional far-left, more radical faction of environmentalists, including George Monbiot. The critiques I have read were entirely unconvincing and I think they show a bit of what is called “butthurt,” with apologies for lack of a more accurate term. The title of Monbiot’s critique is telling: Meet the Ecomodernists: Ignorant of History and Paradoxically Old-Fashioned. Perhaps there is disgruntled-ness and lashing out because they realize their long-held dogmatic monopoly on environmental thought is beginning to fade. There are, however, a few quasi-legitimate complaints. Even so, the data supports the fact that technology continues to improve efficiency and environment, as well as optimize resource use and that draconian environmental laws threaten the continuation of those improvements. Nordhaus and Shellenberger also showed some flair and perhaps a bit of pomp in “launching” ecomodernism. Around 2007 they presented their essay, The Death of Environmentalism, by handing it out at a prominent environmental conference. In 2015 they had a media event launch of ecomodernism in the U.K. which no doubt brought on the ire of Monbiot and others.

Monbiot mostly disputes the benefits of urbanization and agricultural intensification, arguing that small-scale agriculture that utilizes more human labor produces higher yields. The data are against him. He argues that urbanization leads to greater consumption which may be true in a small sense since poor rural people in developing nations are not known for heavy consumption due to their poverty! They may consume less but they also suffer more with less medical care and less ability for basic human comfort. People in urban environments are far more energy efficient simply due to density and occupy less land, use less energy and virtually every other resource per capita than non-urban people – at least in developed nations. The ecomodernists acknowledge that poor rural peoples in developing nations will continue to move to the cities and there use more resources than they had in the past but also acknowledge that they should have a right and a path out of poverty and lack of opportunity. Monbiot’s arguments there are quite weak.

Environmentalists who seek to punish the poor in developing nations by restricting their access to modern energy and agricultural systems on the grounds that those systems increase pollution and climate disruption are hypocritical and authoritarian. One might call such a notion ‘regulatory authoritarianism.’ Monbiot also invokes the issue of the income inequality exacerbated by modern capitalist systems which is a separate issue from modernization in general. He mentions further ecomodernist critiques by Chris Smaje which turn out to be basic critiques against capitalism in general showing the socialistic bent of much environmentalism, from Europe in particular. He seems to favor hunter-gatherer primitivism and see only the negative effects of capitalism. He makes a fair argument about relative decoupling vs. absolute decoupling – noting that the ecomodernists seem to focus more on relative decoupling whereby less resources are used per unit of output rather than absolute decoupling whereby total output reduced and corresponding total resource use and total emissions are reduced as well. I think the ecomodernists address this problem by suggesting that developed nations are on the cusp toward absolute decoupling (though not there yet) while developing nations still have a long way to go and we should be content with relative decoupling in their cases – especially as they may benefit as “late adopters of resource-efficient technologies.” They note rightly that reduction of poverty in developing nations is more important than climate change mitigation or resource depletion. Smaje again notes that modernization leads to inequality but that can be addressed by other means like more social welfare and higher taxation on the super wealthy. He also favors a return to a labor-intensive economy from an energy-intensive economy, which seems rather insane since much of the poor in the world suffer due to the lack provided by intense labor relative to intense energy.

The ecomodernist website www.ecomdernism.org provides responses to several critiques of the Ecomodernist Manifesto, including critiques by Clive Hamilton, Daniel Ben-Ami, George Monbiot, and several others.

The Break Through Institute (A Pragmatic, Non-Partisan [Probably Center-Left] Think Tank)

Legendary Harvard experimental psychologist Steven Pinker has embraced ecomodernism and really offers some well-presented data in support. His balanced approach criticizes both far left pessimistic radicalism and far right anti-environmentalism. Pinker argues that the environment has improved in recent years and decades due in no small part to technological advancements, in addition to regulations. Ecologist, Author, and Whole Earth Catalog founder Stewart Brand is also a co-author of the Ecomodernist Manifesto and advocates for more realistic rather than idealistic environmental goals. He has advocated in favor of geoengineering, genetic engineering, and nuclear energy. Another co-author is Mark Sagoff, an expert in environmental law and philosophy and author of The Economy of the Earth. Authors Mark Lynas, Martin Lewis, Rachel Pritzker, and food ag expert and author Pamela Ronald are also ecomodernists.

The ecomodernists note that population growth rate has peaked and slowed and is now more related to longer lifespans and lower infant mortality rather than to fertility rates. They predict that population could peak and begin to decline a bit by mid-century. There is now ample evidence that modern agriculture can meet the food demands of the global population, especially with emerging biotechnology, concentrated agriculture that uses less land, and increasingly mechanized agriculture. These also have the potential to free up human labor resources that in the past have been mired in inefficient, labor-intensive, and low-paying agriculture. We can now produce more food per unit of land, per unit of water, and per unit of nitrogen fertilizer added (especially if nitrogen is applied in a smart manner). From the Ecomodernist Manifesto:

“As demand for material goods is met, developed economies see higher levels of spending directed to materially less-intensive service and knowledge sectors, which account for an increasing share of economic activity. This dynamic might be even more pronounced in today’s developing economies, which may benefit from being late adopters of resource-efficient technologies.”

“Taken together, these trends mean that the total human impact on the environment, including land-use change, overexploitation, and pollution, can peak and decline this century. By understanding and promoting these emergent processes, humans have the opportunity to re-wild and re-green the Earth — even as developing countries achieve modern living standards, and material poverty ends.”

They note that agricultural intensification along with the development of cheap, accessible, energy-dense, and scalable modern energy systems has the potential to ‘re-wild,’ to reverse deforestation trends and overall environmental impact. Low-yield (often organic) agriculture (high land use per unit of produce) and renewable energy (high land use per unit of energy production) can and often do work against these goals of rewilding and deforestation. Again from the Ecomodernist Manifesto:

“Ecosystems around the world are threatened today because people over-rely on them: people who depend on firewood and charcoal for fuel cut down and degrade forests; people who eat bush meat for food hunt mammal species to local extirpation. Whether it’s a local indigenous community or a foreign corporation that benefits, it is the continued dependence of humans on natural environments that is the problem for the conservation of nature.”

“Conversely, modern technologies, by using natural ecosystem flows and services more efficiently, offer a real chance of reducing the totality of human impacts on the biosphere. To embrace these technologies is to find paths to a good Anthropocene.”

  

Ecomodernist Focuses (according to my own observations)

1)      Climate pragmatism that prioritizes energy access and energy modernization, particularly for developing nations, over clean energy development. Access to the least expensive modernized energy systems moves more people out of poverty faster and is thus better for improving lives and the earth overall as reduced poverty, migration to cities, and lower population growth are often the results.

2)      Generally favors nuclear energy development as a means to abate climate change even though the current hurdles of cost, environmental safety assurance, and safety against sabotage are daunting. If requirements to prevent global avg. temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius by 2100 and by 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050 are to be realized then wind and solar alone will be far inadequate and required drawdown of coal, oil, and natural gas usage cannot happen without something to replace them.

3)      Goal of updating the predominant environmental paradigm and philosophy away from Romantic emotional pessimistic idealism to one of Enlightenment rational optimistic realism. Acknowledging the positive role of technology and economic prosperity in environmental protection.

4)      Acknowledgement of the usefulness of mechanized agriculture and biotechnology in increasing food yields so that hunger can be abated, farmers can be more successful, land use per unit of food can be decreased, environmental destruction can be minimized, and food can be more available and inexpensive. This is in contrast to the anti-GMO, anti-mechanized agriculture stance of the prevailing environmentalist paradigm. In fact, a very good argument can be made that anti-GMO sentiment that spread from Europe to Africa and other developing regions has slowed down the food production in those areas needed to abate hunger.

5)      Rejection of fatalistic environmentalism where progress and technology are seen only as destroyers of nature but not as means to mitigate environmental problems. The ecomodernist goal is to decouple human development from environmental impact through the wise use of technology and planning. Especially rejected are ideas that emphasize limits to growth and degrowth. Ecomodernists instead see smart growth – growing the economy while simultaneously reducing impact and improving quality of life.

6)      Acknowledgement that adoption of modern energy systems in the developing world have the potential to significantly reduce deforestation, indoor air pollution, and poverty.

The notion of ecopragmatism from Daniel Farber’s 1999 book Ecopragmatism: Making Sensible Environmental Decisions in An Uncertain World is that knowledge changes and sometimes there is over-regulation as well as under-regulation and there is always a balance between costs and benefits. The Europeans and many of the radical environmentalists favor The Precautionary Principle which favors non-action over action that might cause undue environmental harm regardless of the benefits of that action. Thus, the Precautionary Principle has the potential to do more harm than good in some circumstances. Biotech is one obvious example. European disdain for genetically-engineered crops is rooted in the Precautionary Principle. European-influenced anti-GMO and genetic engineering has influenced the leaders of African countries who have a real need for such innovations even today after decades of use among billions of people and animals has proven GMOs safe. This should not be happening today – hungry people being denied healthy food for ideological reasons rooted in fear-mongering overly cautious approaches to environmental impact.

In conclusion, I think that ecomodernism as a new environmental paradigm offers a sensible ‘reset’ from the prevailing environmental “myths” of the past which are often rooted in anti-capitalism, anti-technology, and fear-mongering about environmental impact. That is not to say that vigilance against environmental impact does not need to be pursued but rather that regulations need to be smart, sensible, and well-considered and less influenced by the concerns of radicals.

References:

An Ecomodernist Manifesto – by multiple authors, April 2015, at www.ecomodernism.org

Break Through: Why We Can’t Leave Saving the Earth to Environmentalists- by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger – (Mariner Press, 2007, 2009)

Meet the Ecomodernists: Ignorant of History and Paradoxically Old-Fashioned – by George Monbiot, in The Guardian, Sept. 24, 2015

Dark Thoughts on Ecomodernism – by Chris Smaje, August 12, 2015, in The Dark Mountain Project, blog at dark-mountain.net

Nature Unbound: Decoupling for Conservation – by Linus Blomqvist, Ted Nordhaus, and Michael Shellenberger, pdf available at Breakthrough Institute, 2015

Enlightenment Environmentalism: The Case for Ecomodernism – by Steven Pinker, in The Breakthrough Journal, Jan. 17, 2018

Climate Pragmatism (Rightful Place of Science -series) – edited by edited by Jason Lloyd, Daniel Sarewitz, Ted Nordhaus, and Alex Trembath (2017 - Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes, Arizona State University

Ecomodernism: a response to my critics – by Chris Smaje, in Small Farm Future (blog), Sept. 7, 2015

Ecopragmatism: Making Sensible Environmental Decisions in An Uncertain World – by Daniel A. Farber (University of Chicago Press, 1999)

The Shocking Russian "Collusion" of Massachusetts' LNG Imports from the Russian Arctic Enabled by Those Against Domestic Pipelines: Clear Environmental and Climate Hypocrisy

The Shocking Russian “Collusion” of Massachusetts’ LNG Imports from the Russian Arctic Enabled by Those Against Domestic Pipelines: Clear Environmental and Climate Hypocrisy

OK the collusion part is rather indirect and an attention-grabbing headline but it is true that Everett LNG import terminal near Boston, Mass has taken a couple shipments of LNG, part of which has come from the Yamal export terminal in the Russian Arctic, a project in which the majority shareholder is actually under sanctions by the U.S. in response to Russian aggression in the Ukraine.

One might ask the question: Why does Massachusetts need LNG from Russia, Qatar (some of the gas from those shipments also likely came from Qatar), and other countries when there is a huge gas field a few hundred miles away with so much excess gas that the price is very cheap compared to the global market? Well the answer is simple: lack of gas pipeline infrastructure to supply the gas to the New England region where 50% of electricity is produced by natural gas. In the future new gas power plants are slated to be built and more coal, fuel oil, and nuclear plants are slated to be retired so that by 2024 the issue of serious lack of natural gas availability is expected by system operator ISO New England to be a major problem resulting in high consumer electricity prices and possibly rolling blackouts. They also note that they barely escaped rolling blackouts this year during the polar vortex cold spells. Luckily they were saved by switching to burning fuel oil in the dual-fuel plants that can burn both gas and oil and the LNG shipments. However, at one point they were dangerously low on oil supplies. They were also dangerously close to air pollution emissions limits from burning the oil. New York governor Andrew Cuomo is also to blame since he and his state environmental review people have for years routinely blocked pipelines slated to go through his state – which is a necessity for the New England states since New York has them landlocked.

Quoted from the Boston Globe article referenced below:

“To build the new $27 billion gas export plant on the Arctic Ocean that now keeps the lights on in Massachusetts, Russian firms bored wells into fragile permafrost; blasted a new international airport into a pristine landscape of reindeer, polar bears, and walrus; dredged the spawning grounds of the endangered Siberian sturgeon in the Gulf of Ob to accommodate large ships; and commissioned a fleet of 1,000-foot icebreaking tankers likely to kill seals and disrupt whale habitat as they shuttle cargoes of super-cooled gas bound for Asia, Europe, and Everett.”

In terms of environmental performance the Environmental Performance Index has the U.S. in the top tier (top 15%) while Russia is near the bottom. NIMBYism is big in the U.S. northeast with significant resistance to local fossil fuel projects compared to the rest of the country. Gavin Law of energy analysis firm Wood MacKenzie notes that LNG has 5-10% more carbon emissions in its life cycle than pipeline gas mainly due to the energy expended in liquifying and then re-gasifying but it is unclear whether that includes shipping it from the other side of the world - since most LNG tankers burn onboard LNG for fuel. LNG shipments are best shipped as locally as possible. Oddly enough, it is illegal to ship gas from U.S. export facilities to U.S. import facilities due to the 1920 Jones Act which cites where the ships are made and what nationality are the crews – “none of the world’s fleet of almost 500 tankers meets the requirements of the 1920 Jones Act, which mandates that vessels moving between U.S. ports be built and registered in the country and be crewed by Americans.” That seems a little bizarre to many people.

Since the excess greenhouse gas emissions are not produced within the northeastern states’ borders they don’t appear in their accounting and this is of course a deception. This is important because the main reason cited for denying pipeline infrastructure is carbon emissions. A recent energy bill in Massachusetts has continued to inexplicably maintain that pipelines are not necessary and sees winter-only global LNG shipments as fine. They hope to build new renewable capacity, including some offshore wind and bring more Canadian hydro-power via new transmission lines but these projects will take years and it is unclear if they would even offset the plant retirements.

Also from the Boston Globe article are some words from Obama Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz:

“Natural gas has shown itself to be an important bridge to a clean energy future,” said Ernest J. Moniz, the former secretary of energy in the Obama administration. “For New England, expanding the pipeline capacity from the Marcellus” — the area of shale gas production in Pennsylvania — “makes the most sense.”

“Life cycle emissions for LNG imports to Boston certainly are higher than they would be for more Marcellus gas,” he said.

Nearby New Jersey (not officially a part of New England) has also been facing difficulty and opposition getting the Penn East Pipeline built. They fortunately are not landlocked by New York but they are subjected to winter price spikes due to lack of pipeline capacity. The pipeline offers hope of mitigating spiking winter prices and of lower overall pollution and carbon emissions

Meanwhile, no one has really explained why a Russian company under sanctions has been able to sell their product, LNG, on the U.S. market. One uncertainty is that the Russian gas was first delivered to European LNG storage tanks where it is mixed with other gas from places like Qatar, Algeria, and Trinidad and taken from there on a different ship to the U.S. Apparently, such a scenario allows them to duck the sanctions – so the question is why have sanctions if they can be worked around?

References:

Our Russian ‘Pipeline’ and Its Ugly Toll – by Editorial Board, in The Boston Globe, Feb. 13, 2018

Why the U.S. is Buying Natural Gas from Russia: Quick Take Q and A – By Rob Verdonck and Anna Shiryaevskaya, (Bloomberg QuickTake), in Washington Post, Jan. 22. 2018

Letter: Penn East Pipeline Means Lower Energy Costs for NJ – by Michael Drulis, in Mycentraljersey.com, Feb. 19, 2018

New ISO-NE report warns fuel supply could harm reliability – by Peter Maloney, in Utility Dive, Feb. 14, 2018