China’s Shale Gas Potential is No Panacea for China’s Coal Demand
May 22nd, 2013 by Jonathan Banks, Senior Climate Policy Advisor, and Ming Sung, Chief Representative, Asia-Pacific
The recent boom in shale gas in the United States has led to a host of outcomes that many did not see coming. The massive quantities of natural gas, combined with traditional gas production, that this boom has brought to market has dropped the price of natural gas dramatically. So the low price of gas, combined with a surplus of underutilized gas-fired power plants and very old, inefficient coal-fired power plants, has resulted in a reduction in coal-fired power generation. This of course is being applauded for its air quality benefits as well as its potential climate benefits, but that depends of course on how much methane is coming out of the natural gas system.
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The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology has some excellent advice for the President on climate change
May 13th, 2013 by Armond Cohen, Executive Director
Two months ago, President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology issued a nine-page open letter to the President outlining six critical, common-sense pathways for the Administration to address global climate change during his second term. Released without much fanfare, the letter appears to have disappeared from public view, and review. Too bad, as we believe it contains some outstanding recommendations for this Administration,. Here’s our take on the Council’s letter:
While the Council calls for bold actions in six key areas, several of their imperatives stand out as most relevant to our work, particularly recommendation number two: “Continue efforts to decarbonize the economy, with an initial focus on the electricity sector.” This strategy is consistent with the Administration’s stated short-term goal of reducing economy-wide GHG emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 as well as the long-term goal of reducing GHG emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050, a goal called for by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the planet will have to face the worst consequences of global climate change. Towards this goal, the Council makes three essential recommendations:
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Reducing the Shale Gas Footprint Through the Center for Sustainable Shale Development: A Good Start, But No Substitute for Tight Federal and State Regulation
March 22nd, 2013 by Armond Cohen, Executive DirectorThis week, CATF joined three Pennsylvania environmental organizations – the Pittsburgh-area Group against Smog and Pollution, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, and Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future, as well as the Environmental Defense Fund, in endorsing a set of fifteen water and air protection standards we developed with several large shale gas producers in the Marcellus region: Chevron, Shell, EQT and CONSOL. Also endorsing the standards were the Pittsburgh-based Heinz Endowments, the William Penn Foundation, and several independent parties, including former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, former EPA head Christie Whitman, Carnegie Mellon University President Jared Cohon, and Jane Long, an academic expert on climate and subsurface risk management.
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Black Carbon: Definitive Report Well Worth the Wait. Should be Spur to Action
January 15th, 2013 by Ellen Baum, Senior Scientist
Thirteen years after Jim Hansen described the significant role of black carbon for climate stabilization,1 in a comprehensive assessment of black carbon and climate released today a team of 31 world-wide experts have confirmed the importance to combating global warming by reducing black carbon from targeted pollution sources. The authors of the study, Bounding the role of black carbon in the climate system: A scientific assessment, have developed a best estimate of black carbon’s direct influence on atmospheric warming that is almost two times higher than most previous work, including the estimates in the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — from 0.34 W/m2 (0.27°C) to +0.71 W/m2 (0.57 °C)2.
The Clean Air Task Force welcomes this paper, which was four years in the making and adds more certainty to a number of questions about the effectiveness of controlling black carbon as a climate mitigation strategy. A particular thorny issue – the effects of black carbon on clouds– remains complicated, but the study concluded that black carbon is not having a strong cooling influence on clouds, which strengthens the case for mitigation efforts. When all effects of black carbon (BC) are included i.e., the effects on snow and clouds, the best estimate of the climate forcing impact of black carbon is stronger than previous estimates – at a total forcing: 1.1 W/m2 (0.88 °C) or two-thirds of the warming to date from CO2.
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Obama’s Second Term Climate Priorities
January 10th, 2013 by Armond Cohen, Executive DirectorThis posting originally appeared in the National Journal’s Energy and Environment Expert Blog.
In recent statements, President Obama has ranked addressing climate change one of his top three priorities for his second term. Win, place or show, the President has already offered up a two-track course forward: first, take immediate action on near-term greenhouse gas emission reductions; and, second, simultaneously launch a conversation on how to put the U.S. on a longer term path to both avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and promote economic growth and job creation.
We have already made progress on the first track. In 2009, the President committed the United States to a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and an 80 percent reduction by 2050. The U.S. currently is within striking distance of the 2020 goal for carbon dioxide, partly due to the Obama Administration’s leadership in setting fuel economy standards for cars and trucks. But much of the forecasted carbon dioxide reduction is due to the economic slowdown and to the historically low price of natural gas. But we can’t rely on natural gas prices remaining low forever and we want economic growth. We must work to meet U.S. climate goals based on smart choices, not chance.
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Seismicity and carbon storage: MIT responds to Zoback
December 19th, 2012 by Bruce Hill, Ph.D. Senior Scientist / Geologist
In the December 2012 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a published letter by MIT researchers Ruben Juanez, Howard Herzog and Brad Hagar provides several cogent geophysical counter-arguments to a 2012 PNAS Perspectives piece by Stanford researchers Mark Zoback and Steve Gorelick. The two had questioned the viability of sequestering commercial volumes of captured CO2 due to an attendant potential risk of induced seismicity. Zoback and Gorelick maintained that much of the deep basement rock across North America is at critical stress–a point at which a perturbation, such as commercial CO2 injections, could cause failure and induced seismicity.
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The Time is Now
December 10th, 2012 by Ann Weeks, Senior Counsel and Legal Director
Happy Holiday Season! As CATF advocates look forward to the coming year, we are hard pressed to think of better near term opportunities for climate pollution control than those presented by three EPA regulatory processes – in each case, the Agency has until now put down only one foot. We strongly urge the Administration to jump in with both feet in 2013, to finalizing carbon dioxide performance standards for new power plants that burn fossil fuels, and issuing proposals to both regulate this pollution from existing fossil fuel power plants, and also to regulate methane from oil and gas operations.
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The Dash for Gas – No Climate Cure Without CCS
October 29th, 2012 by John Thompson, Director, Fossil Transition Project, and Camilla Svendsen Skriung, Global CCS Political Advisor – Zero Emission Resource Organisation (ZERO)This posting originally appeared in the Global CCS Institute’s Insight blog.
With the advent of unconventional gas technologies, the energy industry has turned toward natural gas as an alternative to coal, a step to energy independence and a solution to climate change worldwide. However, without CCS, natural gas will be unable to achieve needed reductions from the utility sector without carbon capture and storage (CCS). Coal with CCS is in fact better than gas without CCS.
Switching from coal to natural gas without CCS won’t solve the climate problem. By mid-century, virtually all of the CO2 emissions from the power sector must be virtually eliminated. Yet without CCS, that goal cannot be achieved. The best natural gas can do, absent CCS, is a 50 per cent cut in carbon dioxide relative to coal, and that assumes no leakage of methane, a very powerful climate forcing gas. While a 50 per cent reduction is helpful, it’s only a half step and a solution that may, in fact, delay the development of CCS technology.
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Without Critical Policy Shifts, Abundant Natural Gas Will Not Help Slow Climate Change
August 14th, 2012 by David McCabe, Atmospheric Scientist
The boom in natural gas production from shale and other unconventional resources is exciting many policymakers and commentators due to the economic and energy security advantages from plentiful domestic natural gas. Many also argue that this abundance of gas, which burns cleaner than coal, will allow us to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions and help create a “bridge” to a low-carbon economy. But without critical policy shifts in the US and abroad, unconventional gas probably won’t decrease GHG emissions or slow warming, even over the short term, and it could undermine our efforts to reduce climate pollution.
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Curb Methane Emissions
July 23rd, 2012 by Jonathan Banks, Senior Climate Policy Advisor, and Conrad Schneider, Advocacy DirectorThis posting originally appeared in the National Journal’s Energy and Environment Experts blog.
For several weeks now the public and the media have cast increasing attention on Arctic oil and gas drilling, specifically regarding the plans of Shell to explore in the Arctic waters off the coast of Alaska. This is, pardon the pun, only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Arctic oil and gas development. Around the Arctic, efforts are ramping up in Russia, Norway, Greenland and Canada to stake a claim to one of the last great reserves of undiscovered oil and gas. According to the United States Geological Survey, the Arctic holds one-fifth of the world’s undiscovered, recoverable oil and natural gas; 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,669 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
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