Natural Gas Appliances and Global Warming

For several years the U.S. Department of Energy has been promoting the use of induction for home cooking. Conventional residential cooking tops typically use gas or resistance electric heating elements, (the ubiquitous coil) to heat food.  The government estimates that gas stoves are approximately 32% efficient in their energy use and electric stoves are 75-80% efficient.  Residential induction burners consist of an electromagnetic coil that creates a magnetic field when turned on. Compatible cookware is heated when it is within the magnetic according to the DOE induction cooking 85% efficient. Less heat is lost to the surrounding air, providing an additional energy efficiency benefit by reducing the workload for air conditioning equipment. A cooler cooking top surface also makes induction cook tops safer to work with than other types of cooking tops. Finally, because the cookware itself is the source of heat, it reaches desired temperatures more quickly and provides faster cook times.

I had always dreamed of a kitchen with a commercial or commercial style stove. When I had saved up the money to upgrade my kitchen, I realized that the kitchen centerpiece stove was not my best choice. First of all, it is a warming world and those stove throw off lots of heat, second I live in a rural area where natural gas (methane) is not available, instead we have a propane tank and third commercial stoves are simply not good at low simmer, my preferred cooking style. I make lots of sauces, gravy, stews and soups. Gas burners (especially propane with its three carbons) burn too hot. So, in 2018 when I updated my kitchen I installed an induction cook top. I have been amazingly happy with that choice. The cooking is all I had hoped. What I had not anticipated is how easy and fast it is to clean, and the bad kitty cannot accidentally turn it on.

Now scientists are taking a closer look at cooking with gas. Natural gas is a popular fuel choice for home cooking and has always been considered better than conventional electric. It has the reputation that “real cooks” use natural gas. Nationally, over 40 million homes (about a third) cook with gas. Natural gas appliances release methane and other pollutants through leaks and incomplete combustion. These appliances warm the planet in two ways: generating carbon dioxide by burning natural gas as a fuel and leaking unburned methane into the air. A recent Stanford University study found that the methane leaking from natural gas-burning stoves emit up to 1.3 % of the gas they use as unburned methane.

According to the U.S. EPA, methane is the second most prevalent greenhouse gas and accounted for about 10% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. Methane is emitted by natural sources such as wetlands and the breakdown of organic material, as well as from leakage from natural gas systems, growing rice, waste disposal and the raising of livestock. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and is 25 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat over a 100-year period. While it does occur naturally, major human-generated sources include landfills, refineries, oil and gas fields, natural gas infrastructure, dairies and wastewater treatment plants.

This work came out of Dr. Jackson’s lab at Stanford University where they are working to measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the Global Carbon Project (globalcarbonproject.org), which Jackson chairs. Some of their work is directly aimed at measuring and reducing methane emissions from oil and gas wells, city streets, and homes and buildings. According to Dr. Jackson and his colleagues, curbing methane emissions will require reducing fossil fuel use and controlling fugitive emissions such as leaks from pipelines and wells, as well as changes to the way we feed cattle, grow rice and eat. “We’ll need to eat less meat and reduce emissions associated with cattle and rice farming,” Dr. Jackson said, “and replace oil and natural gas in our cars and homes.”

The scientists measured methane and nitrogen oxides released in 53 homes in California- not the biggest of sample. Their sample group included 18 brands of gas cooktops and stoves ranging in age from 3 to 30 years old .Measurements were taken during combustion, ignition, extinguishment, and also while the appliance was off.  

The scientist found no relationship between the age or cost of a stove and its emissions. What they did find that more than three-quarters of methane emissions occurred while stoves were off, suggesting that gas fittings and connections to the stove and in-home gas lines are responsible for most emissions, regardless of how much the stove is used. They should have probably examined the age of the interior piping and fittings in the home, but that was not part of the study. California does not require a building permit when you replace gas appliances the way we do here. So the fittings in California are not tested regularly over time.

The scientists found the highest emitters were cooktops that used a pilot light instead of a built-in electronic sparker. Methane emissions from the puffs of gas emitted while igniting and extinguishing a burner were on average equivalent to the amount of unburned methane emitted during about 10 minutes of cooking with the burner.

Larger stoves (those trophy kitchen appliances )tended to emit higher rates of nitric oxides. The scientists estimated that people who don’t use their range hoods or who have poor ventilation can surpass the EPA’s guidelines for 1-hour exposure to nitrogen dioxide outdoors (there are no indoor standards) within a few minutes of stove usage, particularly in smaller kitchens.

Dr. Jackson encourages switching to electric stoves to cut greenhouse gas emissions and indoor air pollution. I switched to induction to get fabulous cooking,  easy cleanup and energy efficiency. I  maintain propane in my home to power my backup generator, a propane furnace, a gas fireplace (I'm thinking about it) and hot water heater. Without electricity I have no water-my well pump does not work, my air heat pumps do not work, and all my kitchen appliances and freezer go down. We have lost power for several days after a storm in the winter and once in the summer. Because I have the generator and  backup systems, my pipes did not burst, my septic pump continued to operate and life went on.

Glasgow Climate Meeting & Methane

In just three weeks the world will gather for the COP26 Climatesummit in Glasgow, Scotland. This meeting hopes to bring together representatives of more than 190 nations including all the parties of the Paris Agreement to increase their target carbon dioxide emissions towards reaching the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Under the Paris Agreement, every country agreed to work together to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees and aim for 1.5 degrees, to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate and to make money available to countries not able to afford the costs of adapting to a changing climate. The parties to the agreement committed to create national plans setting out how much they would reduce their emissions called  Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC). Furthermore, they agreed that every five years they would come back with an updated plan that would reflect their highest possible ambition at that time.

The meeting in Glasgow is that five year update delayed by a year due to the pandemic. This is truely necessary, because the commitments laid out in Paris did not even come close to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, and the window for achieving that goal is rapidly closing. As a matter of fact,  according to the IPCC’s Working Group I report issued in August:

Climate change is widespread and intensifying. The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is at its highest level since the dawn of mankind. Before the COVID-19 pandemic when the data set used stops, emissions of carbon dioxide had been rising by about 1% per year on average for the past decade, not shrinking at all. Renewable energy use has been expanding rapidly, but much of the renewable energy is being deployed alongside existing fossil energy, not replacing it.  The planet has warmed 1.1 degrees C since the late 19th century and is expected to warm an additional 0.4 degrees C in the next 20 years.

“Limiting human-induced global warming to a specific level requires limiting cumulative CO2 emissions, reaching at least net zero CO2emissions, along with strong reductions in other greenhouse gas emissions. Strong, rapid and sustained reductions in CH4 emissions would also limit the warming effect resulting from declining aerosol pollution and would improve air quality.” 

So, in preparation for the Glasgow meeting, last month, the United States and European Union announced the Global Methane Pledge, an initiative to reduce global methane emissions to be launched at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26) in November in Glasgow.  President Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen urged countries at the U.S.-led Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate to join the Pledge and welcomed those that have already signaled their support.  

Countries joining the Global Methane Pledge commit to a collective goal of reducing global methane emissions by at least 30% from 2020 levels by 2030 and moving towards using best available inventory methodologies to quantify methane emissions, with a particular focus on high emission sources. So far, 24 nations and the EU have joined the pledge (several members of the EU have pledged both with the EU and as individual nations). The four largest emitters of methane, China, India, Russia and Brazil, however, have not joined yet. If all nations join the Pledge, it would reduce climate warming by about 0.2 degrees Celsius by 2050. 

The United States is pursuing significant methane reductionson multiple fronts. In response to an Executive Order that President Biden issued on his first day a President, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is promulgating new regulations to curtail methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. In parallel, the EPA has taken steps to implement stronger pollution standards for landfills, and the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials and Safety Administration is continuing to take steps that will reduce methane leakage from pipelines and related facilities. At the President’s urging and in partnership with U.S. farmers and ranchers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is working to significantly expand the voluntary adoption of climate-smart agriculture practices that will reduce methane emissions from key agriculture sources by incentivizing the deployment of improved manure management systems, anaerobic digesters, new livestock feeds, composting, and other practices. 

CO2 Emissions in the U.S. are Rising

As delegates gathered for the United Nations Climate Summit, both the U.S. Energy Information Agency and the Global Carbon Project released their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions data for the first half of 2014. The data from the Global Carbon Project projects that for 2014 37.0 ± 1.9 Giga metric tons of CO2 , will be released into the earth’s atmosphere. That is a 2.5% increase over last year and a 65% increase over 1990 CO2 emission levels. The top four emitters of CO2 in 2014 are expected to be the same as in 2013 when the share of emissions was: China at 28%, the United States at 14%, the European Union at 10% and India at 7%.

data from EIA

The EIA data shows that for the first half of 2014 carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere in the United States increased by 2.7% over last year continuing the upward trend in CO2 emissions which were at their lowest in 2012. As can be seen in the graph above and chart below, there has been a general downward trend in CO2 emissions since 2007 in all sectors of the economy. (Please note that both the residential sector and industrial sector include part of the electrical generation emissions so that the parts add up to more CO2 than the total emission from the economy. The chart includes the commercial sector and removes the mixed sector electrical category.) Though overall emissions of CO2 in the United States have fallen 10.4% since 2007 and that is generally true in all sectors of the economy; the largest share of reduction in CO2 emissions was from reduction in emissions from electrical generation which have fallen 15% over the period. Over the same period, CO2 emissions from burning coal in manufacturing, transportation, and industry are down 21%. However, CO2 emissions from burning coal are up 3.25% in the first 6 months of this year and emissions from burning natural gas are up 4.9%. The increase in natural gas appears to be divided fairly evenly among the commercial, industrial and residential sectors.

data from EIA

Electricity generation accounts for approximately 38% of the CO2 emission in 2013 down from 40% in 2007. In 1990 electricity generation accounted for only 36% of the total U.S CO2 emissions. In 2013 the industrial sector accounted for 28% of all CO2 emissions, but back in 1990 industry accounted for 34% of total CO2 emissions. Back in the days when I was a plant engineer, the industrial sector accounted for 40% of all CO2 emissions. Over this period the industrial output has not shrunk, but the labor and energy inputs to industry have shrunk and production has surged and fallen with  recessions as can be seen in the chart from the Federal Reserve.

US industrial production from the Federal Reserve

 As you can see in the chart to the left the CO2 emissions from the generation of electricity have fallen since 2005. A portion of the reduction in CO2 emissions was from the reduction in power generation, the rest was due to a change in the mix of fuels used to produce the electricity and the increase in power produced by renewable energy. As can be seen in the chart below power generation from renewable sources increased by 241% since 2007, but represent only 6% of the power generated in the united states. The big change was the move away from coal to natural gas. Coal fell from 48% of generation in 2007 to 39% of generation in 2013. While natural gas increased from producing  22% of  electricity in 2007 to 27% in 2013.

from EIA

Natural Gas Leaks-Death and Climate Change

Yellow spikes are methane leaks measured in Boston. From Jackson et. al. 

Two recent studies have documented thousands of gas leaks in Boston and Washington D.C. Last year two scientists, Robert B. Jackson, Professor of Global Environmental Change at Duke University and Nathan Phillips, associate professor at Boston University Department of Earth and Environment collaborated with Robert Ackley of Gas Safety Inc., and Eric Crosson of Picarro Inc., to perform a study of gas leaks in Boston. They mapped the gas leaks under the city using a new, high-precision methane analyzer provided by Picarro installed in a GPS-equipped car. Driving all 785 road miles within city limits, the researchers discovered 3,356 leaks. The leaks were found to be associated with old cast-iron underground pipes, rather than neighborhood socioeconomic indicators. Levels of methane in the surface air on Boston’s streets exceeded 15 times the normal atmospheric background value. Cast iron is often the oldest and leakiest, especially at the joints, although other pipeline materials can also develop leaks.

This past spring, the team replicated the study on the streets of Washington, D.C. The results for the Washington D.C. study have not been published, but preliminary reports indicate that D.C., too, has thousands of leaks from its natural gas distribution system. According to a report in Scientific American, Dr. Jackson stated, the number of leaks per road mile is similar to that of Boston, but has almost twice as many miles of road.

For some time our infrastructure systems have failed to keep pace with the current and expanding needs, and investment in infrastructure had faltered as an unseen way to cut costs. Every four years the American Society of Civil Engineers, ASCE, grades the infrastructure in the United States, from water mains, sewer systems and plants, the electrical grid, the neighborhood streets and the national highway system, dams, rail roads, airports. Infrastructure is the foundation of our economy, connecting businesses, communities, and people, making us a first world country.

In 2013 the grade for energy remained at a D+ despite the boom in gas and oil due to weakness in the distribution systems. Though, the recent booms in oil and gas production could supply the energy demand, we have failed to maintain and upgrade the oil and gas. Gas distribution companies are well aware of the leaks in the system. The companies calculate the difference between the gas pumped into the distribution system and what is metered at the end user. This is referred to as "lost and unaccounted-for" gas is often a surcharge on customer bills. These leaks are wasteful, dangerous and a significant source of greenhouse gas released into the environment.

Distribution companies prioritize finding and fixing leaks likely to be explosion hazards, where gas is collecting and concentrating and ignore the small losses from deteriorating iron pipe. Though sometimes they do not do that well enough. Natural gas distribution leaks and explosions cause an average of 17 fatalities, 68 injuries, and $133 million in property damage each year, according to the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. The transportation and distribution systems run into homes and businesses. In 2010 a natural gas pipeline exploded in San Bruno, CA, just south of San Francisco. There was no warning and eight people were killed, 58 were injured and 38 homes, the entire section of a neighborhood, destroyed. The deaths in San Bruno did not change the way we maintain our infrastructure, though the California Public Utilities Commission has proposed a $2.25 billion penalty, which includes a $300 million fine.

According to Dr. Jackson and Phillips detecting and reducing gas leaks are critical for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving air quality and consumer safety, and saving consumers money. In addition to the explosion hazard, natural gas also poses a major environmental threat: Methane, the primary ingredient of natural gas, is a powerful greenhouse gas that degrades air quality. Leaks in the United States are reported to contribute to $3 billion of lost and unaccounted for natural gas each year. Included in the details of the White House climate plan, originally introduced in a speech at Georgetown University in June, is an “interagency methane strategy” that examines the scope of leaks from gas wells, pipelines and compressor plants to examine their contribution to global warming.

The White House climate plan was released immediately after the International Energy Agency (IEA) released a series of recommendation for measures that might curtail the rapid growth that has occurred in carbon dioxide emission from fuel combustion that has taken place in the past few decades despite treaties, meetings and conferences. Global greenhouse gas emissions are increasing rapidly and, in May 2013, carbon-dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere exceeded 400 parts per million for the first time in several hundred millennia.

Though mankind has blown through the tipping point in CO2 emissions that was just a decade ago referred to as the point of no return, the IEA is making policy recommendations that might hold the global temperature increase to 2 to 4°C by cutting global CO2 emissions growth so that it does not exceed 38.75 billion metric tonnes from fossil fuels in 2020. These recommendations really fall into two categories, efficiency and maintenance:

• Installing energy efficiency measures in buildings, and requiring increased efficiency in industry and transportation
• Preventing the construction of and limiting use of the least-efficient and dirtiest coal-fired power plants. In addition to increasing the share of power generation from renewable sources (including nuclear) and from natural gas
• Reducing methane released from the processing and distribution of oil and gas by replacing aging infrastructure and improving technology implementation.

United Nations Climate Summit and More Emails from East Anglia

United Nations Climate summit in Durban, South Africa began on Monday, November 28, 2011 and will run until December 9th 2011. The Durban meeting is the 17th conference of the parties to the United Nations convention on climate change or COP17. This international meeting may have been entirely ignored by the general public given the economic turmoil in Europe and the United States, but for the release last week of a new batch of emails reported to have been stolen from the servers at the University of East Anglia.

I spent couple of hours randomly reading emails and did not find any new insights. This appears to be another group of emails very much overlapping the 2009 hacked emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) a collaborator with the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The released emails revealed some researchers willingness to suppress or massage data and use the peer-review process to control the publication of scholarly work and suppress the publication of dissenting points of view. The hacked emails have shown some of the weaknesses in the climate data and models used to forecast global warming, as well as some rather questionable behavior by scientists in controlling information provided to the public even to the extent of reviewing and approving the BBC reports. There really does not appear to be much that is new in this latest group of emails, though the new emphasis on BBC’s lack of objective reporting seemed new to me.

After the first release of emails, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) investigated the claims of scientific wrongdoing. In its report in August 2010, it recommended improvements in the management structure of the IPCC, ensuring that the data included in its reports had been properly published in the scientific literature, and finally that the full range of scientific opinion should be reflected in the reports. Nonetheless, IPCC confirmed their conclusions that the earth is warming and that activities of mankind have caused this warming. Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study finished their analysis of global temperature studies this past fall and confirmed global warming since the industrial revolution. EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, never wavered from the EPA’s full acceptance of findings reached by outside groups, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that Administrator Jackson explained "relied on decades of sound, peer-reviewed, extensively evaluated scientific data that the combined emissions of …greenhouse gases in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations." The EPA has proceeded to create a number of new regulations including 2025 targets for auto mileage and power plant emissions standards on mercury after putting the direct greenhouse gas regulation of power plants on hold this past fall.

This month the Department of Energy, DOE, reported that in 2009-2010 the world pumped out almost 6% more carbon dioxide than during the previous year. According to the DOE on their Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center web site the increase is due to increased emissions from the People's Republic of China. Since 2001 global carbon dioxide emissions worldwide have increased 33%. During this same period; however, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have not increased, our national impact has become less relevant. From 2001-2010 global temperatures have not increased, but remain approximately 1.13°F warmer than the average global surface temperature from 1951 to 1980. To measure climate change, scientists look at long-term trends. The temperature trend, including data from 2010, shows the climate has warmed by approximately 0.36°F per decade since the late 1970s. Carbon dioxide has shown a less direct relationship to global temperatures than the climate models had predicted.

The U.S. never ratified Kyoto, arguing it should contain 2012 goals for emerging economies and would cost U.S. jobs. The U.S. has also failed to adopt a comprehensive domestic program for reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions, despite recent regulatory activity by the EPA and DOE funding of billions of dollars of solar projects disguised as a loan guarantee program. Nonetheless, the American Clean Energy and Security Act,” also known as the Waxman-Markley energy bill, failed to pass the senate in 2010 and is seen as dead. Thought, the California Air Resources Board unanimously voted to adopt the nation's first state-administered cap-and-trade regulations for greenhouse gases in 2011. Cap-and-trade is the centerpiece of AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 a California law that is designed to achieve quantifiable, reductions of greenhouse gases. At the Copenhagen meeting in 2010 President Obama pledged to reduce U.S greenhouse gas emissions to 17% below the 2005 levels by 2020. Due to the recent drop in industrial production and electricity usage, we have already cut U.S. emissions by 6%; the Administration is well on its way to achieving this goal. The California Cap and Trade program requirements will help the current crop of California renewable energy projects funded under the DOE program to reduce power consumption in California by increasing the cost of electricity by at least 15% above the cost of using natural gas according to the Division of Ratepayer Advocates at the California PUC.

The newest release of hacked emails serves to turn our attention to the proceedings in Durban more than anything else. The Kyoto Protocol, which committed developed nations to cut their emissions, is set to expire in 2012. After both the Copenhagen (2009) and Cancun (2010) Climate summits failed to produce a legally binding climate treaty, delegates to the Durban talks are under immense pressure to produce some kind of deal that will be acceptable to both rich and developing nations. However, it is reported that cap-and-trade concept is losing support among the previous signers of the Kyoto treaty. Canada, Japan and Russia have stated that they will not agree to an extension of Kyoto unless China, India and Brazil who are now major producers of greenhouse gas become subject to the requirements.

The “emerging nations,” including China, India and Brazil want an extension of Kyoto, which required the industrialized nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% below 1990 levels from 2008-12. The world's two largest greenhouse gas emitters are China and the United States. China because of concern about employment and a slowing international demand for their products have no interest in having any climate treaty apply to their nation. China’s economy appears to be slowing down significantly based on the falling global demand for oil and copper. China was exempted as an emerging economy, and though it is now the largest greenhouse gas emitter on earth, it wants to remain exempted from reducing or even stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions under any new agreement. In September India announced that it would not accept any legally binding limits on greenhouse gas emission, and Japan announced that they are reconsidering plans to cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 25% by 2020 due to closing of a significant portion of its nuclear power generation, and the costs of the carbon-credit programs that required the spending of almost $11 billion on carbon abatement programs in other countries during a decade long economic malaise.

Overall, expectations for the future of the Kyoto Protocol are low and some doubt whether if a second commitment period is feasible with only support from EU which accounts only around 11% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and is itself reconsidering its nuclear power generation after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors were damaged after the recent earthquake. If nuclear reactors are going to be phased out as low greenhouse gas emission power generation there is no way to achieve carbon reductions without reducing the size of the economy, the standard of living or the size of the population. During her opening remarks to the conference, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Conventions on Climate Change Christiana Figueres said countries can take two major steps in Durban to address climate change. The first is completing a comprehensive package to help developing countries adapt to climate change and limit the growth of their greenhouse gas emissions, and the second relates to how governments can work together to limit the global temperature rise and thus prevent further natural disasters. This seems to be a stepping away from the more rigorous stance of previous conferences.