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In 2011, Fracking Was #2 In Causing Greenhouse Gas In US

Posted by timothy on from the with-a-little-ambition-it-can-rise-to-the-top dept.

eldavojohn writes "According to Bloomberg, drilling and fracking results in greenhouse gases second only to coal power plants in the United States. From the article, 'Emissions from drilling, including fracking, and leaks from transmission pipes totaled 225 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalents during 2011, second only to power plants, which emitted about 10 times that amount.' According to Mother Jones, we now have more giant methane fireballs than any other country in the world and we can now see once dim North Dakota at night from space."

9 of 210 comments (clear)

  1. Left out the important qualifier... by cirby · · Score: 5, Informative

    "from stationary sources"

    Kinda forgot automobiles and other vehicles.

    Not to mention that once you exclude cars and power plants, third place is pretty far down the list.

    1. Re:Left out the important qualifier... by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Hydraulic fracturing does not release CO2, burning fuels does. It just helps get about 30% of what is trapped in rock, out of the ground for our use. H

      Fracking releases methane. That's the greenhouse gas they're talking about.

    2. Re:Left out the important qualifier... by IdolizingStewie · · Score: 5, Informative

      Hydraulic fracturing does not release CO2, burning fuels does.

      OK, I work in the industry. I am pro-hydraulic fracturing. But, how exactly do you think hydraulic fracturing works? It's a very energy-intensive process. On a fairly low end frac in a gas shale, you're trying to force 2500 gpm down a 2 mile long 4.5" ID pipe against 8000 psi of pressure. You burn a lot of diesel doing that. A ballpark number for a well in my field (which is much more difficult - higher rate, longer pipe, smaller ID, and higher pressure) is 80 kgal of diesel. Luckily, it only happens once for most wells, so if you average it out over the 20 year life of the well it's not bad, but it's actually all happening in about a week.

      Don't ruin a good comment with glaringly obvious incorrect facts.

  2. Incorrect Headline by cervesaebraciator · · Score: 5, Informative
    Everyone in the comboxes of the second article points out this error. From TFA:

    Natural gas and oil production is the second-biggest source of U.S. greenhouse gases, the government said, emboldening environmentalists who say tighter measures are needed to curb the emissions from hydraulic fracturing.

    [Emphasis mine]

  3. Misleading Post and 2nd Article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Comments posted in 2nd article:

    "The reference article is based on the oil and gas industry as a whole being the number 2 CO2 contributer. The study didn't look into the contributions of fracking operations seperately. The title of this article is misleading."

    "The post misrepresents the report. The 225 million metric tons of CO2e is for all oil and natural gas production, processing, storage, and transport (it does not include refineries). It is not just fracking. Furthermore, that's only 6.8% of emissions. Power plants top the list at 67.4%. The next two after oil and gas, refineries and chemicals, tie at 5.5%. So even if the 224 Mt were all from fracking then it would still not be a significant contributor relative to other sources."

  4. And the #1 by rossdee · · Score: 5, Informative

    And the #1 reduction in US emitted greenhouse gasses is due to coal power plants being replaced by less Co2 emitting natural gas electricity generation.

  5. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  6. Re:Mooo! by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 4, Informative

    As a cautionary tale though, I checked with the EPA website, and their figures indicate that electricity(40%) and transportation(31%) are the largest contributors to U.S. CO2 emissions from 1990-2010. It may indeed be determined one day that the sacrifice in land and water resources is too great to sustain the First World luxury that is the ribeye steak (sorry about that, grandchildren), but I would grudgingly eat lab-grown protein way, way, way before I would be willing to live without power and a horseless carriage.

    CO2 is non synonymous with greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gases include CO2. Methane is 21x more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas according to this EPA methane page . Therefore it's possible (at least theoretically) that the effects of leaks of natural gas can exceed the effects of burning that gas.

  7. Re:Why do we still flare ? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Informative

    Cost money. A fair amount of money.

    In North Dakota, they are starting to do exactly that - build out a compressor / filter plant and hook it next to a turbine to run the rigs. Economically viable only in areas that are 1) starved for power and 2) have enough infrastructure density to make spending a half a million on the plant sensible.

    Remember, places that don't have pipelines are often the same places that don't have high voltage feeder lines. The Middle of Nowhere.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!