Tag
Natural Gas
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Putting Out the Fire: Low-cost Solutions are Available to Prevent Flaring in Tight Oil Fields
Flaring of associated natural gas from oil wells in shale formations like the Eagle Ford in Texas and the Bakken in North Dakota has been growing rapidly for several years. Some well developers have acted responsibly, ensuring that gas pipelines with enough capacity are in place at wells before oil…
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The Wait is Over, But the Job is Not Done: BLM’s New Rules for Fracking
Today, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management released its long-awaited updates of its rules for hydraulic fracturing in oil and gas development. It’s about time. As BLM Director Neil Kornze has put it: “The portfolio of oil and gas wells overseen by the BLM has expanded at the same time…
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Nationwide Standards are Key to Reducing Emissions from Oil and Gas
Recently oil and gas industry lobbyists have been excitedly reporting about how the industry has “substantially reduced methane emissions” through voluntary efforts. For example, Energy in Depth, a project of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), has produced an infographictouting reductions in methane emissions from selected oil and gas…
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The Last Climate Frontier: Arctic Council Leadership on Methane and Black Carbon Must Start at Home
Warming from climate change in the Arctic is happening twice as fast as at lower latitudes, and the Arctic is now “ground-zero” in the struggle against climate change. Arctic and near-Arctic emissions of short-lived climate forcing pollutants, including methane and black carbon, have a disproportionate impact on increasing Arctic temperatures…
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Clean Up All Local Gas Distribution Leaks (Not Just Underground!)
The US Department of Energy and EPA’s Inspector General have called attention in the past two weeks to an important issue – harmful methane emissions from the systems that distribute natural gas in cities and towns. There’s been some effort to clean up methane from natural gas systems in recent…
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Flaring in Focus: A Close Look at Natural Gas Flaring in North Dakota
A considerable amount of attention has recently been directed at the high rate of flaring in US oil and gas fields, specifically the Bakken formation in North Dakota. Local residents, state government, and Federal officials have voiced concerns over the volume of flaring, as recent data (from 2013) shows that…
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Regulation Is Needed: Making “Best” Practices Standard Practice
The recent release of the Administration’s comprehensive strategy for reducing methane emissions raises the question of how best to reduce methane emissions, especially from the oil and gas sector. Can voluntary programs really lead to the methane reductions we need, or are mandatory regulatory programs necessary? While voluntary programs can…
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Study Shows EPA Underestimates Methane Emissions from Natural Gas Production and Demonstrates Need for Tough National Standards
A recently published article (Brandt et al.) assessed methane leakage rates from the natural gas sector and concluded that “official inventories consistently underestimate actual CH4 emissions, with the [natural gas] and oil sectors as important contributors…” The report stacks up 20 years of research—with different scales and seemingly different findings—along…
