methane

September 22, 2023

Booming natural gas exports threatening Gulf Coast fishing communities

By Shannon Kelleher

Most mornings, Nathan Berwick rises well before dawn at his home in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, setting out on nearby Lake Charles in a small fishing boat to check his crab traps. If it’s not too hot and the water is calm, Berwick’s family occasionally joins him on the boat. His eleven-year-old daughter enjoys playing with baby crabs that fall from the traps as Berwick hauls them from the water.

Berwick comes from a long line of crabbers dating back to the 1820s, when his ancestors first arrived in the heel of the Louisiana boot – the state’s southwest corner.

“Thirty years from now I want my children to be able to say, ‘this is my home, this is where eight generations of Berwicks have lived,’” he said.

August 31, 2023

As hydrogen projects accelerate, fears mount about environmental impacts

On a recent hot August evening, residents of the tiny rural community of Universal, Indiana packed into a public meeting to barrage operators of a proposed fertilizer plant with an array of concerns about what risks the project may pose for their health and the surrounding environment.

One after the other, worried residents quizzed officials with Wabash Valley Resources about their plans to construct what would not just be a fertilizer plant, but also one of the nation’s largest carbon sequestration projects, near their town of less than 400 people.

Wasbash proposes to produce hydrogen and anhydrous ammonia for fertilizer through a process that will capture and store the resulting carbon dioxide created by the plant underground. When the plant is fully operational, Wabash Valley Resources expects to inject and store 1.65 million tons of carbon dioxide into the ground.

Company officials say the operation will be safe, producing affordable and much-needed fertilizer for farmers in an environmentally friendly manner. “While empowering agriculture Wabash Valley Resources will play a vital role in the transition to a greener world, ensuring energy security and supporting a robust economy,” the company states on its website.

May 19, 2023

Vast majority of global methane emissions go unregulated, says new study

By Grace van Deelen

Governments around the world are failing to effectively regulate and mitigate harmful emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas with a climate warming potential more than 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide, according to research published Friday.

Only 13% of global emissions from methane are covered by existing public mitigation policies, the researchers reported in the journal One Earth.

“Significant and underexplored [methane] mitigation opportunities exist,” the authors wrote.

The research comes on the heels of a report issued Thursday from the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) showing that methane emissions from just 1,100 US landfills have a climate-warming effect equivalent to the yearly emissions of 66 million gas-powered vehicles.

Methane makes up about 12% of US greenhouse gas emissions stemming from human activities, including agricultural operations, fossil fuel extraction and use, waste management practices, and decay of organic waste in municipal solid waste landfills. Agriculture is the largest single US source of methane emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Global methane emissions are currently rising faster than at any point since the 1980s. To try to keep global warming from exceeding the warming limit of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit set by the Paris Agreement, global methane emissions must be reduced by at least 40-45% of 2020 levels by 2030, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

May 16, 2023

US efforts to turn farm animal poop into biofuel spark scrutiny

By Shannon Kelleher

Industrial-sized livestock operations have long been known for contaminating the environment and mistreating animals. Now, amid growing government incentives to turn the manure generated at these operations into climate-friendly biofuels, there are mounting concerns that the efforts could make industrial farming bigger and more dangerous.

Critics say government support for the production of biogas through the use of what are known as manure digesters comes with an array of well-documented risks. The digesters break down manure and capture methane gas, which can be used as fuel, but they come with a history of fires, explosions, hydrogen sulfide poisoning, methane leaks, and even drowning.

Methane digesters “exacerbate the dangers that are already endemic to industrial animal farming… where animals are housed in the same location as malfunctioning equipment, flammable liquids, and dangerous manure management practices,” said Alicia Prygoski, strategic legislative affairs manager at the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) animal advocacy group.

“Encouraging mass amounts of manure production, to facilitate the mass capture of the flammable gas that results from its decomposition, is what creates the increase in risks for explosions,” said Prygoski. “All you need is a spark.”

The Biden Administration’s much-touted Inflation Reduction Act includes funding and tax credits incentivizing farmers to install more of these digesters, and the new Farm Bill could include funds incentivizing the practice.

The ALDF and more than 100 other organizations sent a letter in December to US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack calling on the agency to stop any allocation of additional funding from the IRA for the use or expansion of methane digesters or “production of factory farm gas.”

The groups cited a “ballooning factory farm gas industry,” and warned, among other issues, that digesters can “leak methane and manure and can even explode.”

April 3, 2023

Harmful emissions from Gulf oil and gas production far higher than EPA reports, study finds

By Shannon Kelleher

Offshore oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico are releasing far higher quantities of a potent greenhouse gas than regulators have estimated, according to a new study published Monday.

The analysis reveals that the climate change impact of these activities is more than double what official estimates suggest.

The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that 2021 calculations by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – using data from the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) – correctly estimated carbon dioxide emissions but underestimated methane emissions.

The data, which is based on engineering information, rather than on-site observations, failed to capture methane emissions because an older type of shallow-water platform used in offshore drilling often behaves like a “super-emitter,” leaking large amounts of the greenhouse gas, said Alan Gorchov Negron, a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan and first author of the study. These platforms are central hub gathering and processing facilities, which collect oil and gas through pipelines that extend from smaller nearby platforms.

“They’re a fraction of the platforms in the Gulf of Mexico but they contribute disproportionately to the total methane emissions and total greenhouse gas emissions,” said Negron.

“We don’t know exactly why the methane emissions are higher than what the inventory expects,” he added. “It’s either because of unknown emissions or unreported emissions.

March 24, 2023

As US pushes “climate-smart” agriculture, hopes and fears collide

By Keith Schneider

For decades, leading US farm leaders have likened efforts to rein in harmful climate change as attacks on agriculture itself, aligning with oil and gas industry groups to block policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

That stance has slowly been shifting in recent years, and now, fueled by $3.1 billion in federal grants, farm country is poised to shape a new era of “climate-smart” agricultural practices and take a significant role in addressing the dire consequences of a warming planet.

The actions can’t come fast enough. A panel of international scientists warned this month that the world faces a “rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future,” and that the actions implemented over the next few years will have consequences “now and for thousands of years.”

The Biden Administration’s focus on agriculture is just one part of a larger effort to address climate change, but it is a key element. By funding 141 experimental projects, the administration is hoping to push an industry currently responsible for generating 10% of U.S. greenhouse gases, to the front of the nation’s work to reduce carbon emissions.

The first grants from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), for 70 large projects, were awarded in September. A second round of funding, for 71 smaller projects, was awarded in December.

The scope of the climate-smart program is expansive. Grants range from $271,200 to teach climate-friendly practices to immigrant farmers in Iowa to $95 million to encourage grain farmers in 12 Midwest states to use cultivation methods that build soil fertility. In between are projects to expand organic and sustainable agriculture, sequester carbon on pastures where livestock graze, and develop carbon-reducing cultivation methods on farms operated by African Americans and Native Americans.

In all, more than 60,000 farms and 25 million acres of crop and rangeland are involved, with spending reaching all 50 states and Puerto Rico, according to the USDA..

Considerable sums are also earmarked for development of scientific methods to effectively measure whether these climate-smart practices actually meet a program goal of sequestering 60 million metric tons of carbon.

When making the rounds at annual farm conferences across the country over the winter, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack repeatedly declared that a “transformational” new era had opened for U.S. agriculture.

Grant recipients such as Marbleseed, a Wisconsin nonprofit that trains farmers in organic agriculture, say the government support is long overdue. Marbleseed is part of a partnership receiving a $4.5 million, five-year grant to train farmer in 14 Midwest and southern states on how to improve soil fertility.

“We’ve been a tiny voice shouting into the storm for a very long time,” said Tom Manley, Marbleseed program director. “They finally are starting to hear us.”

March 24, 2023

Postcard from California: How a local natural gas ban sparked a national culture war

By Bill Walker

Like some other once-fringe environmental ideas, this one began in Berkeley: In 2019, the staunchly progressive university town across the bay from San Francisco became the first US city to ban natural gas hookups in most new buildings, citing the fossil fuel’s contribution to the climate crisis.

From Berkeley, the no-new-gas movement spread steadily, one local jurisdiction at a time. As of last month, more than 70 California cities and counties had adopted ordinances mandating all-electric utilities and appliances in new construction. Nationwide, nearly 100 cities and counties, including New York City, Seattle and Montgomery County, Md., have moved to ban gas in new buildings.

But in January, the issue ignited a national political firestorm.

An official of the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) said a ban on gas stoves and ovens was “on the table” because emissions of hazardous air pollutants from gas stoves are strongly linked to childhood asthma. Said CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka, Jr.: “Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

A fierce and hysterical backlash erupted, opening overnight a fresh front in the nation’s culture wars, as many on the right framed the idea as one more liberal assault on American freedom.

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December 9, 2022

Postcard from California: Food waste law fights hunger and climate change

By Bill Walker

California produces far more food than any other US state, but we throw a lot of it away. Meanwhile, more than one in five Californians don’t always know where their next meal is coming from. Food insecurity is higher among Black and Latino households, and inflation is making the problem worse.

Now the state is aiming to relieve hunger by reducing food waste – and at the same time, help to address climate change.

A state law that was passed in 2016 but took effect this year, requires businesses and facilities that sell or serve food to donate edible food they would otherwise throw out to local food banks. Grocery stores, wholesalers and distributors had to start donating earlier this year. Restaurants, hotels, schools, hospitals, state office cafeterias and event venues must comply by January 2024.

According to the state agency CalRecycle, Californians send more than 11 billion pounds of food to landfills every year. Nationally, about 80 billion pounds of wasted food goes to the dump yearly, making food the single largest constituent of municipal landfills.

Food rescue
While not all discarded food is fit to eat, the newly implemented law – SB 1383 – requires that by 2025 California will recover 20% of wasted food to feed people in need. Washington State has the same goal, but by mandating fines for non-compliance, California’s is the strongest “food rescue” measure in the country.

Rescuing edible food is only one front in the war on food waste.

August 12, 2022

House vote on Inflation Reduction Act sets stage for big climate gains

With the US House of Representatives positioned to approve on Friday the largest investment by the US government to combat climate change, some analysts are projecting the measures contained in the landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) could reduce greenhouse gas emissions even more than the government has projected.

The measure, which passed the US Senate on Sunday, contains $369 billion earmarked for a range of energy and climate investments over the next decade.

The bill could slash emissions from the electricity sector by as much as 75% below levels seen in 2005 by 2030, according to Kevin Rennert, a fellow at Resources for the Future, based on an initial analysis. Absent the new investment, their forecast predicted that current policies would cut emissions more modestly — about 48.5%. Rennert shared these numbers during a seminar this week sponsored by Resources for the Future.

The US government has said the measures would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030.

The bill expands a tax credit for carbon capture, incentivizes the production of sustainable aviation fuel, provides for grant programs aimed at decarbonizing emissions-heavy sectors, and includes a methane reduction program for oil and gas facilities, among other provisions.