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Obama Planning New Rules For Oil and Gas Industry's Methane Emissions
mdsolar sends this quote from the NY Times:
In President Obama's latest move using executive authority to tackle climate change, administration officials will announce plans this week to impose new regulations on the oil and gas industry's emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, according to a person familiar with Mr. Obama's plans. The administration's goal is to cut methane emissions from oil and gas production by up to 45 percent by 2025 from the levels recorded in 2012.
The Environmental Protection Agency will issue the proposed regulations this summer, and final regulations by 2016, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the administration had asked the person not to speak about the plan. The White House declined to comment on the effort. Methane, which leaks from oil and gas wells, accounts for just 9 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas pollution — but it is over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so even small amounts of it can have a big impact on global warming.
The Environmental Protection Agency will issue the proposed regulations this summer, and final regulations by 2016, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the administration had asked the person not to speak about the plan. The White House declined to comment on the effort. Methane, which leaks from oil and gas wells, accounts for just 9 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas pollution — but it is over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so even small amounts of it can have a big impact on global warming.
No, this is just an attempt to get oil/gas prices back up since they're loosing so many tax dollars. Prices at the pump should start climbing back up now based solely upon this announcement whether it will ever actually be enacted or not.
Methane is a far more powerful (25 times or so) greenhouse gas than c02, so sealing leaky problem wells and extraction sites makes perfect sense.
But since Obama proposed it, I'm against it.
Obama has always been trying to reduce domestic oil production.
Gas taxes are per gallon, not per dollar. They make more in taxes when gas prices drop and people worry less about saving gas.
>> administration's goal is to cut methane emissions from oil and gas production by up to 45 percent by 2025
Good luck, pal. You'll be OOO for 7 solid years by then.
9 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas pollution is a bloody lot of greenhouse gas! Does the adding of the word "just" make it any less?
Such is the nature of any politician in their lame duck period. Happens after midterms are over, it'll tone down once his decisions affects the new presidential race. Then it'll get really heavy after there is a President-Elect.
Hopefully the Republican Congress will now find some balls and defund the EPA.
How much does this plan help to reduce a extrapolated increase in the temperature of the planet vs how much will it cost the economy? I think we all know this plan by President Obama will not affect the climate but it will hurt Americans.
Profits aren't made at the pump, they are made in the stock market, where a penny's fluctuation in price gain or lose billions in a second.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
....waste is inefficiency and I'm for cleaning up the leaks.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Oh good, 2025 is just in time. Just ask any scientist. What they should do is get that damn fusion reactor working before 2020 so we don't have to dig up or process the oil (or burn it) in the first place!
The US system is horribly designed so incentive wise you actually have it backwards.
The public can't really tell who's fault is what when both sides point fingers, nor can they readily distinguish between the President and his party in congress. So they hold him accountable for everything that happens in government and every election is basically a referendum on whether the country is doing well.
So when the congress is controlled by another party it's actually in that congress's best interest to misgovern. Because the worse things get the more dissatisfied voters get, and more dissatisfied the voters the more they'll punish the President by voting the opposing party into congress.
There's a reason the Daily Show and Colbert Report could be so good by simply showing clips of politicians talking for large portions of the show. For a country of your size and wealth the quality of your governance is shockingly bad.
I stole this Sig
Methane doesn't last long in the atmosphere
>that '25 times as powerful as CO2' statistic is its equivalent over a 100-year period
Not according to the references I can find.
from http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014...
"...methane is a potent greenhouse gas, as well as a significant byproduct of using natural gas — advocated by many as a “bridge” to a lower-emissions future. But a direct comparison between methane and carbon dioxide, the most abundant greenhouse gas emitted by human activities, is complicated: While the standard figure used for emissions trading and technology evaluation says that, gram for gram, methane is about 30 times as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2, scientists say that’s an oversimplification.
''As reported in a paper published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, authored by MIT assistant professor of engineering systems Jessika Trancik and doctoral student Morgan Edwards, this conversion factor (called the global warming potential, or GWP) may significantly misvalue methane. Getting this conversion factor right is challenging because methane’s initial impact is much greater than that of CO2 — by about 100 times. But methane only stays in the atmosphere for a matter of decades, while CO2 sticks around for centuries. The result: After six or seven decades, the impact of the two gases is about equal, and from then on methane’s relative role continues to decline."
Or, if you prefer Wikipedia as a source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
This seems like a reasonable goal. Methane is natural gas, why not capture and use it? Lots of places still flair tons of it off as part of the oil extraction process – so it may no longer be methane, but it is still carbon in the atmosphere with no useful purpose other than to make oil drilling easier.
Let’s face it Obama could cure cancer and a sizeable portion of the population led by Fox News would accuse him of putting doctors out of work. Natural gas is putting coal workers out of work, but the right blames Obama. Strange I though mining coals was dirty and dangerous and led to black lung. To the right those are all positive things because it shows what a strong work-ethic coal miners have.
How about we really try to make the future cleaner and safer and not scream so much about jobs. If jobs are going away in one sector the answer is to retrain and educate to work in new safer better sectors. Last century’s jobs will not keep our economy afloat in the information age.
I’ll probably get burned on mod points for saying this, but at least half these anger posts are probably some repressed prejudice and bigotry. Obama hasn’t been the greatest president ever – so evidently everyone made a mistake voting a black man to office. The economy is better; we have fewer troops fighting and no new wars. But the right is convinced it would have done 10x better. They sure screwed the pooch the administration before – lord help me how did they make so many gains in the midterms?
It slowly got safe to point to Obama’s failings at which point the mob turned. Early after the first election you could be accused of being a bigot for criticizing the president at all. Now the pendulum has swung the other way and the bigots have ample cover to yell criticism. Of course I will get angry replies that it is all about the jobs and the economy and our foreign policy – and you may well believe it. But really it just galls to have a black man in power, especially if he threatens anything that whites see as fair play and ethnics see as white privilege.
Letter To Iran
Wrong time of year to ask if I give a flying f*ck about global warming.
Obama is starting to sound more like his old campaign-trail self than the president we have come to know. I think it's probably easy for him to make promises now as he can just blame the Republican congress when they don't actually happen.
Not really all that far fetched.
In terms of GHG emissions from human activity, livestock production is responsible for 14.5 of all emissions, in terms of methane alone, it's responsible for 40%.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
...what AC sibling said, and summarized for visibility: Federal gasoline taxes are a fixed amount per gallon, not a percentage of retail. Gas can be $0.50/gallon or $50.00/gallon, and the feds will take in the same amount based on actual consumption.
Higher gasoline taxes are however beneficial to the Oil Shale industry, which OPEC is currently trying to damage by creating the current glut.
I think it will however backfire on them as Russia is experiencing collateral damage from this, as is Venezuela, Canada, and other economies which rely on oil exports for a significant percentage of their wealth.
I don't see too much of an impact here in the US (outside of Texas and North Dakota), and what damage does occur may be offset by lower prices overall brought by the cheaper fuel/transportation costs.
I also doubt that Obama is specifically doing this to lash out at the oil industry, so much as doing it to satisfy his particular ideological and supporters' demands/desires as regards fossil fuels.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
need to fix a goof: higher gas prices are beneficial to the Shale Oil industry, not higher taxes.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The profits are gathered or lost by a lot of folks:
* The largest consumers of petroleum such as airlines and other transportation companies stand to make or lose millions of dollars by a penny's change in prices.
* Oil companies obviously see a huge chunk of this, natch.
* Commodity traders
Not seeing too many of them (outside of Warren Buffett and his trains) who are friends of the president and would stand to benefit or lose anything significant from this. Then again, there is the Keystone XL pipeline... a crippled oil shale industry won't ship as much oil, which means that Mr. Buffett would have a stronger argument to continue shipping that oil on his rail lines.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
You're probably joking or trolling but why the hell not?!
Cows produce huge amounts of it at regular intervals and its already part of the carbon cycle. Industrialized cattle farming (the cow forklift to slaughterhouse variety) probably releases enough methane to power itself. Plus they are likely located far from a power plant (wide open spaces and all) so you get back all the transmission losses as well! Sounds like a win win to me. Someone should get on it to see if it pans out. I know some farms already employ methane capture for power so why don't all of them?
Right now, Democrats are perfectly cool with a quasi-liberal president ruling by fiat while Republicans are enraged by his unconstitutional actions.
With the next Republican president, when he or she issues law circumventing Congress, Republicans will cheer while Democrats are apoplectic.
Actual principles like checks and balances, limited federal power, etc don't hold much sway in US politics today, so much as where the actors stand relative to the political poles.
Frankly, pox on both their houses. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and Caesarism is fundamentally in opposition to what this country was founded on. But the oligarchs have decided otherwise.
-Styopa
Don't cow farts account for the second highest source of methane? Well not cows alone but human created in cattle, manure storage farming etc. I think in 2002 or 2004 methane from cattle or human created accounted for the highest source of methane release beating out the oil fuel industry as highest contributor in the US for methane.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
The EPA is empowered, by Congress, to make such rules. The EPA falls under the executive branch, and so takes direction from the President, within the broad legislative mandate to protect the environment. In any event, the President hasn't actually issued new rules by decree - he's got certain goals, and has set the EPA to the task of actually drafting the rules and regulations through their normal process (which, for better or worse, includes lawsuits).
A President can't drop such regulations by decree, because that would violate the EPA's mandate and other existing laws enacted for the environment.
Even if it comes from a President who is far right of most Republican Presidents.
Including Nixon.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Careful; you're effectively exploding some myths and fairy tales.
One more thing you didn't mention so I will. The EPA was not just enacted during Nixon's (R) tenure; it was PROPOSED by Nixon. Actually, the EPA was created by Executive Order, submitted to Congress (symbolically?) for approval, and approved.
Don't cow farts account for the second highest source of methane? Well not cows alone but human created in cattle, manure storage farming etc. I think in 2002 or 2004 methane from cattle or human created accounted for the highest source of methane release beating out the oil fuel industry as highest contributor in the US for methane.
Actually, cow belches account for most (~90%) of the methane produced by cows. The remainder comes from the other end, either as farts or as outgasses from feces.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Fixed the subject for you. About 90% of the methane from cows comes from their belches. The rest comes from the other end, in the form of farts or outgassing feces.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Actually, congress unconstitutionally abdicated their duties to the EPA in consideration of it's mandate. We now have a generic law that says it is illegal to not obey regulations put in place by a non-constitutional and non-elected bureaucracy giving them the ability to make law on a whim without any constitutional input in most cases.
As the head of the executive, he can order them to create these regulations independent of congress. In doing so, I'm betting this will also finally trigger the court cases that make this system officially unconstitutional.
Or maybe he just, ya know, wants to do something to help the environment?
I saw this and immediately saw bull fucking shit.
Not that I necessarily disagree with you, I just immediately went there in my mind because of the wording.
I can't blame Obama, with someone like Inhofe being put in charge of the EPA. There is no other way, as Inhofe is pretty much a Koch brothers paid Oil Industry employee who wants to staff the EPA with oil industry execs. Inhofe thinks the whole idea of anything humans can do affecting the Earth is bunk, because the Bible says so. When your faced with someone who feels nothing bad can happen because some ancient myth says so AND they are in a power position, what other choices are there?
Not disagreeing with 'quality of governance,' but what on earth does size and wealth have to do with it, in terms of *helping*?
I guess I expect that if any country should have the resources with which to build a competent government it should be the US. Then again I can see it going the other way as the extra size & wealth creates niches for the crazy to prosper.
I stole this Sig
He could have placed restrictions on my uncle Leon's methane emissions after Thanksgiving dinner.
The number of people so instructed is unlikely to be in the thousands ; probably only in the dozens. So by releasing this information in this way, they've come very close to pointing the finger of suspicion directly at him (or her).
Way to protect your sources, guys. I hop that you get lots more people bringing you scoops. Not.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Good points, I would also add that methane is lighter (MW 16) than air (average MW = 29) and that which doesn't degrade will rise far enough above surface to not have as much of an impact.
In terms of greenhouse warming, it doesn't make much of a difference what altitude it's at. Slightly less pressure-broadening of the spectral line, I guess.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Yes, That is unless you want an unconstitutional government who disregards the constitution whenever it feels it can or wants to.
The EPA can just as easily propose laws for congress to vote on and pass. But the EPA, just like several other agencies, is independent of the executive and the executive branch is not supposed to be dictating political goals to it.
But i guess ignoring the constitution is perfectly fine with some people. They do not care that the NSA is spying on everyone, that cops are stopping and frisking people for no more of a crime than standing on a street corner or even worse, doing so while black. They do not care that the administration is executing US citizens with drones without any judicial oversight, due process, or constitutional protections. They do not care that we torture people to validate or invalidate information.
So, are you among those people? Or are you with a different group? because if you do care about those things, you should also care about all aspects of the US constitution.