Source: Clean Air Report, October 10, 2013
Posted on: http://envfpn.advisen.com
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is refuting the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) claims that a recent EDF study on “fugitive” uncontrolled emissions from natural gas production shows that hydraulic fracturing is environmentally safe and that any new EPA air regulations for the sector are unnecessary.
The study, which EDF jointly conducted with the University of Texas and a host of oil and gas companies, examined direct measurements of methane emissions from the extraction phase of natural gas production at 190 sites across the country.
EDF’s analysis, published Sept. 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, says that the measurements of the amount of emissions released during the flowback phase of fracking ranged from 0.01 megagrams (mg) to 17 mg, levels 97 percent lower than EPA stated in its 2011 greenhouse gas (GHG) estimates. Flowback is the part of the fracking process in which fracking fluid is separated from the well to make way for gas.
EDF says the findings show that the agency’s new source performances standards (NSPS) for the sector — which offers incentives for early adoption of emissions control technology — are helping cut pollution.
The NSPS rules, which EPA finalized in April 2012, required installation of “green completions” technology at fracking wells, a set of controls aimed at capturing emissions at the wellhead during the flowback phase, but delayed mandating the controls until January 2015. Industry groups and environmentalists have sued EPA over the rules in federal appeals court, with industry claiming some provisions are too strict, and environmentalists are criticizing the agency’s decision not to impose direct regulation on the sector’s emissions of the GHG methane.
In the NSPS, EPA also amended its definition of modifications that would trigger the requirements to exclude refracturing of wells that have already installed green completions, in order to offer incentives for early adoption.
Although EDF is touting the study as helping to justify EPA’s new air controls for fracking, API’s President and CEO Jack Gerard in a Sept. 24 email to House and Senate staffers said the study — coupled with an oil field study conducted in California by Cardno ENTRIX on groundwater, induced seismicity and other issues related to fracking — “confirm what years of experience have demonstrated: hydraulic fracturing is safe for the environment.”
Gerard notes the differences between EPA’s latest estimates in its GHG inventory and the study findings from flowback, saying that the study indicates that industry’s efforts to reduce emissions are working.
However, in a Sept. 26 press release, EDF swiftly pushes back against Gerard’s remarks, saying they ignore parts of study that found higher levels of methane than those estimated by EPA, such as from equipment used in routine operations at fracking sties, which were 63 percent higher than the agency’s inventory.
“Above all, Jack Gerard ignores the fact that the reason some study measurements came in below previous estimates is because the Environmental Protection Agency imposed new rules on natural gas production — rules that API lobbied to significantly weaken,” EDF’s Mark Brownstein says in the release. “EPA got the rules right for controlling emissions from well completions, and that’s why production emissions are coming down.”
EDF also warns that while the initial study is an important first step in getting a more accurate picture of the GHG impacts of natural gas development, it is too early to be drawing conclusions about system-wide emissions.
“The [University of Texas] study is a major step toward improving our understanding of how much methane is actually being emitted, but it is only one step,” Brownstein says.
The paper represents only the first of a 16-part study, which will also examine methane releases from the gathering and processing, long distance transmission and storage, local distribution and transportation phases of the sector.
EDF has similarly criticized characterization of the study by Sen. David Vitter (LA), top Republican on the Senate environment panel, who said in a Sept. 17 statement that “The EPA has been on a witch hunt to shut down hydraulic fracturing, and yet again the evidence doesn’t back up their excessive claims.”
Responding to Vitter’s remarks, EDF in a Sept. 20 press release said that while Vitter is right in that the study found emissions rates lower than EPA estimates, “his reasoning is backwards” because the study proves that EPA’s NSPS rules, which required reduced emissions completions technology at a majority of wells, are the reason for the lower measurements. “In fact, the study suggests the agency should broaden these rules,” EDF says.