12 ms·

Fracking in North America could be partly to blame for methane spike – study

359 points by colinprince 7y ago

Mengkudulangsat 7y ago
I've read about an unorthodox solution [1]. Can anyone comment whether these are actually practical in the field? [1]https://www.upstreamdata.ca/post/natural-gas-venting-how-bitcoin-solved-a-160-year-old-problem https://www.upstreamdata.ca/post/natural-gas-venting-how-bit...
fromthestart 7y ago
A couple issues with the science here: >Between 2005 and 2015, global rates of fracking went from producing 31 billion cubic meters per year to 435 billion >In the last half of the 20th, century levels of methane in the atmosphere rose. They then plateaued, and spiking in 2008. So the shale gas revolution started in 2005, but the spike didn't occur until 2008? Also it isn't clear if this was a transient spike or the author is referring to a sudden and sustained increase. > While methane released in the late 20th century was enriched with the carbon isotope 13C, Howarth highlights methane released in recent years features lower levels. That's because the methane in shale gas has depleted levels of the isotope when compared with conventional natural gas or fossil fuels such as coal, he explained First, all conventional gas is "shale gas," except for a tiny minority of highly atypical cases where reservoir sections have experienced prolonged high temperatures and matured further. Thus almost all natural gas ultimately comes from shale - fracking is merely extracting it at the source, where it does not significantly differ in composition from gas which has migrated to reservoir in conventional extraction. So, second, I'm suspcious of the use of c13 to differentiate fracking and non fracking sourced methane, but I'm not a petrophysicist. It should be related to the age of the fluid, and I don't expect shale gas to be substantially younger than reservoir gas in most cases.
- emmelaich 7y ago
  Yep, also be sure to read to the end of the article to get other caveats and criticisms.
- _delirium 7y ago
  On the second point, whether ¹³C can be used as a signal to differentiate fracked vs. non-fracked gas, the paper [1] does discuss this a bit. This seems to be the key paragraph: Several studies have suggested that the δ¹³C signal of methane from shale gas can often be lighter (more depleted in ¹³C) than that from conventional natural gas (Golding et al., 2013; Hao and Zou, 2013; Turner et al., 2017; Botner et al., 2018). This should not be surprising. In the case of conventional gas, the methane has migrated over geological time frames from the shale and other source rocks through permeable strata until trapped below a seal (Fig. 2a). During this migration, some of the methane can be oxidized both by bacteria, perhaps using iron (III) or sulfate as the source of the oxidizing power, and by thermochemical sulfate reduction (Whelan et al., 1986; Burruss and Laughrey, 2010; Rooze et al., 2016). This partial oxidation fractionates the methane by preferentially consuming the lighter ¹²C isotope and gradually enriching the remaining methane in ¹³C (Hao and Zou, 2013; Baldassare et al., 2014), resulting in a δ¹³C signal that is less negative. The methane in shales, on the other hand, is tightly held in the highly reducing rock formation and therefore very unlikely to have been subject to oxidation and the resulting fractionation. The expectation, therefore, is that methane in conventional natural gas should be heavier and less depleted in ¹³C than the methane in shale gas. [1] https://www.biogeosciences.net/16/3033/2019/ https://www.biogeosciences.net/16/3033/2019/
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  > So the shale gas revolution started in 2005, but the spike didn't occur until 2008? That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t have expected a spike to occur at the start but rather a few years after when production has ramped up?
acidburnNSA 7y ago
Fracking is the primary reason a bunch of *nuclear power plants in the USA are shutting down early. The over-supply of gas from fracking, plus the inherent simplicity and efficiency of gas turbines makes them crazy hard to compete with. The carbon-free nuclear plants weren't overly expensive to operate, but when the electricity revenue dropped (especially in deregulated markets), they started struggling mightily. Nukes produce 60% of the carbon-free energy in the USA. As they shut down, they're often replaced with natural gas, which locks in carbon emissions and indirect emissions from pipelines and the wellheads. It's on the nuclear people to figure out how to get operating costs safely down. But boy howdy it'd be nice if their carbon-free nature could be valued higher, or if fracking could be made more expensive. This is also a big part of why coal is struggling, but this doesn't bother me because coal is high carbon and high in killer air pollution (especially outside the US. Air pollution kills 4 million people/year globally [1]). [1] https://www.who.int/airpollution/en/ https://www.who.int/airpollution/en/
- aldoushuxley001 7y ago
  I've never heard anyone refer to nuclear power plants as simply "nukes"; just a heads up that that's very confusing as most people will think of "nukes" as nuclear warheads instead.
  - atombender 7y ago
    I've never heard that use before either, and I was surprised to find that according to both the OED and Webster [1], "nuke" can be a shorthand for "nuclear power station". It doesn't really work for me, either. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nuke https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nuke
  - acidburnNSA 7y ago
    Thanks. In the industry it's common but glad to hear this feedback. I edited above.
    - aldoushuxley001 7y ago
btilly 7y ago
https://www.wired.com/story/atmospheric-methane-levels-are-going-up-and-no-one-knows-why/ https://www.wired.com/story/atmospheric-methane-levels-are-g... is a somewhat older but a much more informative and balanced article. The td;lr version is that there is a minority that blames fracking, but most have concluded that it doesn't fit the data. There are a bunch of other theories as well. And the isotopes are not definitive. The fact that someone recently wrote an article concluding otherwise doesn't actually change this since neither data nor the line of argument are particularly new.
dang 7y ago
Can you please edit swipes like "Wrong." out of your comments to HN? It's unnecessary and makes your comment acerbic when it would be just fine without it. The way to reply to a wrong comment is to supply correct information, which I assume is what the rest of your comment does. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: detached from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20816911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20816911.
- tonystubblebine 7y ago
  Instead of focusing on this you should focus on the prior comment using the accusation of disengenuous. That was the trigger point.
  - dang 7y ago
    I've replied above.
- acidburnNSA 7y ago
  You bet, done. I was responding to the unfounded accusation of being disingenuous. You're totally right that the community is better without that kind of reaction, and the comment is way better with out it. Thanks. Forgive me.
  - tempestn 7y ago
    I would like to thank you for your replies throughout this thread in general though. It's actually ironic that you got called out for this one, since I was just thinking that you were doing a great job responding to various misconceptions in a positive, informative, and non-judgemental manner. Really enjoyed reading your comments.
    - acidburnNSA 7y ago
      Hey, you're welcome. Thanks for saying so. I'm sure it's clear that I love doing this.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
known 7y ago
Although Methane is far less abundant than carbon dioxide and stays in the air for only a decade or so, molecule for molecule its warming effect (calculated over 100 years) is 25 times higher https://archive.is/vThtr https://archive.is/vThtr
- tremon 7y ago
  Ahh, but what happens to methane after that decade or so? Doesn't most of it decompose via oxygen into water and carbon dioxide?
mogadsheu 7y ago
The guys over at GHGSat in Montreal are doing great work. They take satellite imagery of methane releasing sites and model their output. Not perfect but for a broad estimate it’s not bad. When I worked in energy we took part in an investment vehicle called the OGCI to invest in them.
treggle 7y ago
There must be solid reasons why fracking isn’t at fault.
ptah 7y ago
Is this widely accepted? if so, why is there no G7 outcry like for the amazon rainforests?
bbojan 7y ago
Fracking also releases radioactive radon from the ground - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190618083347.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190618083347.h... However, as regulations consider it "natural" (it wasn't man-made, although it was released as a result of human activity), frackers are not required to do anything about it. So we have a repeat of the tragedy of diluted pollution - as long as your pollution is invisible and evenly distributed (like radioactive waste from coal plants), nobody cares. But concentrate it instead of releasing it to the environment, and there's public outrage (high-level nuclear waste).
peter303 7y ago
The irony of natural gas is that while it emits half the carbon of coal or gasoline per same amount of energy release, methane is 20 times amore potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. So a 3% leakage pretty much erases its green house savings. No fuel company wants to leak and waste that much methane, but stopping leakage is not easy. One of the few facts the President got right is the US has reduced carbon emission more than any other country be converting from coal electricity to natural gas electricity. That is mainly because the US was highest or second highest carbon emitter for decades with any fractional decrease having impact. The decrease has pretty much stopped withcoal plant closures slowing. Environmentalist se natural gas as a transition phase to full renewables.
- masklinn 7y ago
  > methane is 20 times amore potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide The 100-year GWP of methane is ~30, but only because it has such a short atmospheric lifetime (~12 years). Over shorter terms its way worse, the 20-years GWP is >80.
  - Retric 7y ago
    The other way of looking at this is how much Methane is removed from the atmosphere every year vs how much is added. In that context, many continuing sources of emissions have negligible net impact year to year. This is why Methane concentrations where basically flat from 1998 to 2008. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane Methane does however turn into CO2, but represents a small percentage of overall CO2 emissions.
    - aoeusnth1 7y ago
      No, that doesn’t seem like a useful way to look at it. The old methane break down into CO2 regardless of our current emissions. Our choices now affect future emissions of methane, the effects of which are essentially independent of the past methane release. Finding a consistent yardstick (methane = 30x CO2) seems better than pretending it’s not a problem just because there’s some delayed negative feedback loops already in play.
AcerbicZero 7y ago
Maybe I've been listening to too many JRE podcasts, but at this point I think I've accepted that the Earths climate was, and is going to continue to change with or without humans. I'm all for cleaning up our poor environmental behavior, but methods to manipulate the climate at a large scale should be considered if we want to keep pumping out people, consuming resources and enjoying the current temperate climate. The big issue under all of this, is that we're going to start having to waste resources paying down "climate-debt", and those resources could be better used elsewhere. At the same time environmentalism has a clear and direct value, but it can't be allowed to get in the way of progress as we really don't know how much time we have before a big enough rock falls from the sky and Earth gets another do-over.
- mildweed 7y ago
  Things that should not be part of the "Should we work to mitigate climate change" discussion: 1) Meteor strikes 2) Whether or not it'll be hard Question: You believe climate change is not caused by our actions, but you believe climate change can be stopped by our actions? How does that work?
londons_explore 7y ago
I have a hypothesis that fracking sometimes causes impermeable rock layers to become permeable, and dissolved methane ends up in water underground. Over years, that water ends up in tapwater/rivers/oceans where it isn't under pressure, and the methane comes out of solution. Anyone who knows the field better able to comment on my hypothesis?

359 points by colinprince 7y ago

I've read about an unorthodox solution [1]. Can anyone comment whether these are actually practical in the field? [1]https://www.upstreamdata.ca/post/natural-gas-venting-how-bitcoin-solved-a-160-year-old-problem https://www.upstreamdata.ca/post/natural-gas-venting-how-bit...

fromthestart 7y ago

A couple issues with the science here: >Between 2005 and 2015, global rates of fracking went from producing 31 billion cubic meters per year to 435 billion >In the last half of the 20th, century levels of methane in the atmosphere rose. They then plateaued, and spiking in 2008. So the shale gas revolution started in 2005, but the spike didn't occur until 2008? Also it isn't clear if this was a transient spike or the author is referring to a sudden and sustained increase. > While methane released in the late 20th century was enriched with the carbon isotope 13C, Howarth highlights methane released in recent years features lower levels. That's because the methane in shale gas has depleted levels of the isotope when compared with conventional natural gas or fossil fuels such as coal, he explained First, all conventional gas is "shale gas," except for a tiny minority of highly atypical cases where reservoir sections have experienced prolonged high temperatures and matured further. Thus almost all natural gas ultimately comes from shale - fracking is merely extracting it at the source, where it does not significantly differ in composition from gas which has migrated to reservoir in conventional extraction. So, second, I'm suspcious of the use of c13 to differentiate fracking and non fracking sourced methane, but I'm not a petrophysicist. It should be related to the age of the fluid, and I don't expect shale gas to be substantially younger than reservoir gas in most cases.

emmelaich 7y ago
Yep, also be sure to read to the end of the article to get other caveats and criticisms.
_delirium 7y ago
On the second point, whether ¹³C can be used as a signal to differentiate fracked vs. non-fracked gas, the paper [1] does discuss this a bit. This seems to be the key paragraph: Several studies have suggested that the δ¹³C signal of methane from shale gas can often be lighter (more depleted in ¹³C) than that from conventional natural gas (Golding et al., 2013; Hao and Zou, 2013; Turner et al., 2017; Botner et al., 2018). This should not be surprising. In the case of conventional gas, the methane has migrated over geological time frames from the shale and other source rocks through permeable strata until trapped below a seal (Fig. 2a). During this migration, some of the methane can be oxidized both by bacteria, perhaps using iron (III) or sulfate as the source of the oxidizing power, and by thermochemical sulfate reduction (Whelan et al., 1986; Burruss and Laughrey, 2010; Rooze et al., 2016). This partial oxidation fractionates the methane by preferentially consuming the lighter ¹²C isotope and gradually enriching the remaining methane in ¹³C (Hao and Zou, 2013; Baldassare et al., 2014), resulting in a δ¹³C signal that is less negative. The methane in shales, on the other hand, is tightly held in the highly reducing rock formation and therefore very unlikely to have been subject to oxidation and the resulting fractionation. The expectation, therefore, is that methane in conventional natural gas should be heavier and less depleted in ¹³C than the methane in shale gas. [1] https://www.biogeosciences.net/16/3033/2019/ https://www.biogeosciences.net/16/3033/2019/
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
> So the shale gas revolution started in 2005, but the spike didn't occur until 2008? That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t have expected a spike to occur at the start but rather a few years after when production has ramped up?

acidburnNSA 7y ago

Fracking is the primary reason a bunch of *nuclear power plants in the USA are shutting down early. The over-supply of gas from fracking, plus the inherent simplicity and efficiency of gas turbines makes them crazy hard to compete with. The carbon-free nuclear plants weren't overly expensive to operate, but when the electricity revenue dropped (especially in deregulated markets), they started struggling mightily. Nukes produce 60% of the carbon-free energy in the USA. As they shut down, they're often replaced with natural gas, which locks in carbon emissions and indirect emissions from pipelines and the wellheads. It's on the nuclear people to figure out how to get operating costs safely down. But boy howdy it'd be nice if their carbon-free nature could be valued higher, or if fracking could be made more expensive. This is also a big part of why coal is struggling, but this doesn't bother me because coal is high carbon and high in killer air pollution (especially outside the US. Air pollution kills 4 million people/year globally [1]). [1] https://www.who.int/airpollution/en/ https://www.who.int/airpollution/en/

aldoushuxley001 7y ago
I've never heard anyone refer to nuclear power plants as simply "nukes"; just a heads up that that's very confusing as most people will think of "nukes" as nuclear warheads instead.
- atombender 7y ago
  I've never heard that use before either, and I was surprised to find that according to both the OED and Webster [1], "nuke" can be a shorthand for "nuclear power station". It doesn't really work for me, either. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nuke https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nuke
- acidburnNSA 7y ago
  Thanks. In the industry it's common but glad to hear this feedback. I edited above.
  - aldoushuxley001 7y ago

btilly 7y ago

https://www.wired.com/story/atmospheric-methane-levels-are-going-up-and-no-one-knows-why/ https://www.wired.com/story/atmospheric-methane-levels-are-g... is a somewhat older but a much more informative and balanced article. The td;lr version is that there is a minority that blames fracking, but most have concluded that it doesn't fit the data. There are a bunch of other theories as well. And the isotopes are not definitive. The fact that someone recently wrote an article concluding otherwise doesn't actually change this since neither data nor the line of argument are particularly new.

dang 7y ago

Can you please edit swipes like "Wrong." out of your comments to HN? It's unnecessary and makes your comment acerbic when it would be just fine without it. The way to reply to a wrong comment is to supply correct information, which I assume is what the rest of your comment does. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: detached from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20816911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20816911.

tonystubblebine 7y ago
Instead of focusing on this you should focus on the prior comment using the accusation of disengenuous. That was the trigger point.
- dang 7y ago
  I've replied above.
acidburnNSA 7y ago
You bet, done. I was responding to the unfounded accusation of being disingenuous. You're totally right that the community is better without that kind of reaction, and the comment is way better with out it. Thanks. Forgive me.
- tempestn 7y ago
  I would like to thank you for your replies throughout this thread in general though. It's actually ironic that you got called out for this one, since I was just thinking that you were doing a great job responding to various misconceptions in a positive, informative, and non-judgemental manner. Really enjoyed reading your comments.
  - acidburnNSA 7y ago
    Hey, you're welcome. Thanks for saying so. I'm sure it's clear that I love doing this.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

known 7y ago

Although Methane is far less abundant than carbon dioxide and stays in the air for only a decade or so, molecule for molecule its warming effect (calculated over 100 years) is 25 times higher https://archive.is/vThtr https://archive.is/vThtr

tremon 7y ago
Ahh, but what happens to methane after that decade or so? Doesn't most of it decompose via oxygen into water and carbon dioxide?

mogadsheu 7y ago

The guys over at GHGSat in Montreal are doing great work. They take satellite imagery of methane releasing sites and model their output. Not perfect but for a broad estimate it’s not bad. When I worked in energy we took part in an investment vehicle called the OGCI to invest in them.

treggle 7y ago

There must be solid reasons why fracking isn’t at fault.

ptah 7y ago

Is this widely accepted? if so, why is there no G7 outcry like for the amazon rainforests?

bbojan 7y ago

Fracking also releases radioactive radon from the ground - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190618083347.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190618083347.h... However, as regulations consider it "natural" (it wasn't man-made, although it was released as a result of human activity), frackers are not required to do anything about it. So we have a repeat of the tragedy of diluted pollution - as long as your pollution is invisible and evenly distributed (like radioactive waste from coal plants), nobody cares. But concentrate it instead of releasing it to the environment, and there's public outrage (high-level nuclear waste).

peter303 7y ago

The irony of natural gas is that while it emits half the carbon of coal or gasoline per same amount of energy release, methane is 20 times amore potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. So a 3% leakage pretty much erases its green house savings. No fuel company wants to leak and waste that much methane, but stopping leakage is not easy. One of the few facts the President got right is the US has reduced carbon emission more than any other country be converting from coal electricity to natural gas electricity. That is mainly because the US was highest or second highest carbon emitter for decades with any fractional decrease having impact. The decrease has pretty much stopped withcoal plant closures slowing. Environmentalist se natural gas as a transition phase to full renewables.

masklinn 7y ago
> methane is 20 times amore potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide The 100-year GWP of methane is ~30, but only because it has such a short atmospheric lifetime (~12 years). Over shorter terms its way worse, the 20-years GWP is >80.
- Retric 7y ago
  The other way of looking at this is how much Methane is removed from the atmosphere every year vs how much is added. In that context, many continuing sources of emissions have negligible net impact year to year. This is why Methane concentrations where basically flat from 1998 to 2008. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane Methane does however turn into CO2, but represents a small percentage of overall CO2 emissions.
  - aoeusnth1 7y ago
    No, that doesn’t seem like a useful way to look at it. The old methane break down into CO2 regardless of our current emissions. Our choices now affect future emissions of methane, the effects of which are essentially independent of the past methane release. Finding a consistent yardstick (methane = 30x CO2) seems better than pretending it’s not a problem just because there’s some delayed negative feedback loops already in play.

AcerbicZero 7y ago

Maybe I've been listening to too many JRE podcasts, but at this point I think I've accepted that the Earths climate was, and is going to continue to change with or without humans. I'm all for cleaning up our poor environmental behavior, but methods to manipulate the climate at a large scale should be considered if we want to keep pumping out people, consuming resources and enjoying the current temperate climate. The big issue under all of this, is that we're going to start having to waste resources paying down "climate-debt", and those resources could be better used elsewhere. At the same time environmentalism has a clear and direct value, but it can't be allowed to get in the way of progress as we really don't know how much time we have before a big enough rock falls from the sky and Earth gets another do-over.

mildweed 7y ago
Things that should not be part of the "Should we work to mitigate climate change" discussion: 1) Meteor strikes 2) Whether or not it'll be hard Question: You believe climate change is not caused by our actions, but you believe climate change can be stopped by our actions? How does that work?

londons_explore 7y ago

I have a hypothesis that fracking sometimes causes impermeable rock layers to become permeable, and dissolved methane ends up in water underground. Over years, that water ends up in tapwater/rivers/oceans where it isn't under pressure, and the methane comes out of solution. Anyone who knows the field better able to comment on my hypothesis?