6 item(s) were returned.
Director of International Public Policy and Advocacy
Global Innovation Policy Center, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
It’s hard to overstate the growing importance of natural gas in the global energy marketplace, and the scale and mood of June’s World Gas Conference in Washington DC bore witness to the resurgent confidence of the global gas industry. With over two thousand delegates and 300 companies exhibiting in the hall, the conference reflected an industry that feels positive about its future and willing to address issues such as fugitive emissions. In 2011, the International Energy Agency talked about a potential “Golden Age of gas”. That suggestion attracted some derision at the time, as the flattening costs of renewables and… [more]
View InsightDirector
Rutgers EcoComplex: New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station
Industry production systems underlying the Food, Energy, and Water (FEW) Nexus have traditionally treated pollution and waste as externalities that often end up in a landfill. Food waste is the single largest component of municipal solid waste reaching landfills today and is often the byproduct of many FEW Nexus inefficiencies. Inefficiencies that can be addressed through technologies such as anaerobic digesters. In the U.S., food harvesting, processing, and transportation accounts for 10 percent of our energy. However, 40 percent of food goes uneaten and Americans are not only wasting the equivalent of $165 billion each year on this organic compound,… [more]
View InsightVice President, Research & Policy Analysis and Chief Economist
America's Natural Gas Alliance
The Obama administration recently announced forthcoming standards for methane emissions from new and modified oil and gas production sources, despite saying “voluntary efforts to reduce emissions in a comprehensive and transparent manner hold the potential to realize significant reductions in a quick, flexible, cost-effective way.” The natural gas industry has already dramatically reduced methane emissions even as production and use have soared. New regulations will take too much time and yield too few benefits, compared with a collaborative approach. Because methane is the product we sell there is great motivation to capture as much as possible. Innovations have led to… [more]
View InsightThe David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology & Environmental Biology
Cornell University
The EPA recently announced new regulations for methane emissions, taking an important first step in reducing the impact of this highly potent greenhouse gas (GHG). But the rule falls short, in part because EPA has systematically underestimated methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. Emissions from conventional natural gas are likely to be at least 2- to 3-fold greater than the EPA estimates, according to several recent studies. Recent literature also suggests emissions from shale gas may be twice as much greater still, based on an observed large increase in methane in the atmosphere over recent years, with the… [more]
View InsightIt has been recently suggested that natural gas is a more climate friendly alternative to many fossil fuels, and a necessary “bridge” to a low carbon future. The main component of natural gas is methane, which is a powerful GHG that has significantly more heat trapping potential than CO2. Natural gas is the cleanest burning fossil fuel, yet when it is extracted from the ground, unburned methane can escape into the atmosphere. Significant discussion has developed around the extent of these fugitive emissions and whether they undermine the climate benefits of using natural gas as a primary fuel. A 2011… [more]
View InsightThe rapid proliferation of natural gas development has led to a variety of environmental concerns, such as air and water pollution, increased geological activity, and greenhouse gas emissions. A new paper from John Bistline, a doctoral candidate in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University, investigates how “uncertainties in future natural gas prices, upstream methane emissions, the global-warming potential of methane, and the stringency of federal climate policy will influence optimal (GHG) abatement efforts” and the “future deployment of energy technologies.” Generating capacity decisions are made along long and largely uncertain planning horizons, and plants often come online into very… [more]
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