The natural gas industry is selling itself as the fuel of the future, more than just a transitional energy source to a world dominated by renewable energy.
“Some people like to refer to it as a transitional fuel,” Energy Secretary Rick Perry said at the World Gas Conference this week in Washington. “It’s a foundational fuel. It’s going to be here as far as I can see into the future.”
Natural gas’s move to replace coal as America’s most-used electricity source is responsible for most of the decline in planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions over the last few decades. Natural gas produces about half as many carbon emissions as coal.
But as the world struggles to meet emissions reductions goals set in the Paris climate change agreement, the natural gas industry knows it must confront its biggest problem — leaks of methane, a short-lived greenhouse gas that is more potent than carbon dioxide.
That is the major theme emerging from World Gas Conference, where 12,000 attendees from the around the globe, most from the industry, gathered this week.
“There is a surprising camp intent on discrediting gas as an option for the future and that is very unfortunate,” said Bob Dudley, the CEO of BP, the British oil and gas giant, during a panel event at the conference. “Gas is key to the Paris goals. Renewables are very, very important, but [energy generation] cannot be erased to just renewables. We have an obligation to counter this view and make the case for gas that removes any doubts of its long-term benefits. We have to get ahead of methane emissions and leaks.”
Methane, the main component in natural gas, is more potent than carbon dioxide because it traps more heat, although its greenhouse gas emissions are relatively short-lived in the atmosphere.
Methane is responsible for about a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, with the oil and gas industry accounting for one-quarter of methane emissions.
A study this month in the journal Science found that methane leaks are a bigger problem than federal agencies say it is. The study found oil and gas operations have a methane leak rate of 2.3 percent, compared with the Environmental Protection Agency’s estimate of 1.4 percent figure, a 60 percent difference.
While some environmental groups used the study to show that renewables should be counted on more in the future energy mix, others want to help natural gas become cleaner.
“Methane hasn’t gotten a lot of attention,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, which produced the methane study with the help of academics. “Carbon is the big pollution we hear about. But a core strategic challenge for this industry is to tackle the opportunity to reduce methane emissions. This industry needs to expect there will big a push in the direction of environmental quality. That’s why living up to the grand promise that natural gas is a cleaner fuel is so important.”
Krupp spoke at the conference during a panel event with industry representatives.
It set up a booth at the gas conference, the only environmental group that did so, to showcase a virtual reality exhibit where people could see what it’s like to work at an oil and natural gas well site identifying and stopping leaks of methane.
Krupp, as well as industry leaders, said a key to preventing methane leaks from natural gas is developing new technology that helps companies better detect leaks.
The Environmental Defense Fund aims within three years to launch a satellite to measure methane emissions from global oil and gas operations. On Monday, it co-hosted an event with ExxonMobil on a joint effort to accelerate the creation of drones and other technologies to identify methane leaks.
While leaks are infrequent, companies have an economic incentive to plug them. That’s because leaking methane leaking is lost fuel that can’t be sold.
Krupp estimates that 75 percent of methane emissions can be eliminated, half at no cost.
“We fully agree as an industry we need to live up to that reputation [as a cleaner energy source] and do what we can,” Rob McNally, senior vice president of EQT, a Pennsylvania oil and natural gas exploration and pipeline company, speaking on the conference panel with Krupp.
“Most of it is straightforward,” he said of stopping methane leaks. “Being a good steward of the environment, we need the world to see us as being positive if we are to keep the social license to operate.”
The industry prefers to participate in voluntary initiatives to limit methane leaks, instead of federal regulation.
“We think the voluntary programs work,” said Richard Hyde, director of external relations of gas and electric company Southern Co., at the World Gas Conference. “It is the right way to go. We consider this a huge responsibility to be able to do this.”
The industry’s Environmental Partnership, a voluntary methane-reduction program for U.S. businesses, said Thursday that it has grown by more than half, adding 43 companies from the oil and natural gas sector. Another initiative, called Methane Guiding Principles, has some of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies as signatories, including BP, Exxon, Shell, and Total. Some of them, such as BP and Exxon, have set targets to reduce methane emissions, but the initiatives themselves don’t have specific targets.
“It would be good if the whole industry takes that seriously if we want natural gas to have a place in the future,” said Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of French oil and gas giant Total, speaking at the World Gas Conference. “The problem is big. The best way to address it is collectively. We’re better together.”
Some oil and gas companies, however, have refrained from joining voluntary programs, arguing the public-focused efforts are unnecessary.
“We didn’t think it was necessary to join something we were already doing,” ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance explained during the gas conference. “We have to police ourselves. For us, it was actions speak louder than words.”
The Trump administration, which had a major presence at the conference as a cheerleader of fossil fuels, has signaled it is OK with letting the industry set the terms of how to limit methane emissions.
The administration has tried to repeal or delay Obama-era methane regulations but has faced court setbacks. Last year, a federal appeals court blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from eliminating a regulation to limit methane emissions from new oil and natural gas wells.
The agency is writing its own rule addressing methane emissions from existing sources, but 14 states sued the EPA in April for an “unreasonable delay” in issuing the rules.
Bill Wehrum, who leads the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, said Friday at the close of the World Gas Conference that the agency is committed to helping companies voluntarily reduce methane emissions from natural gas.
“Decreasing methane emissions is a mutual interest of industry and EPA,” Wehrum said. “Natural gas has an increasingly important role in the energy mix. [Limiting emissions] minimizes waste of an important and valuable resource and reduces pollution.”
