CO2 emissions down under Trump thanks to Fracking

[_Water Dog]

For all the pearl clutching that swept over vast swaths of the Left after the U.S. pulled out of the Paris climate accords, President Trump continued the Obama and Bush administrations' success in decreasing domestic greenhouse gas emissions in his first year in office.

Advocates of increased environmental regulations may find it odd that directly measured greenhouse gas emissions fell by 2.7 percent from 2016 to 2017, and are down 12.2 percent since this type of reporting in was first done in 2011.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opin ... ssion=true

[_canpakes]

Trump has not advocated for natural gas and any decreases in CO2 as a result of fracking have been driven by market realities realized in spite of Trump’s jostling to protect coal and nuclear interests.

... But since taking office, Trump has repeatedly taken steps that promise to crimp the industry he once showered with praise and drive up costs for taxpayers he had promised to help.

His most recent move, an announcement last week that his administration will once again try to prop up ailing coal and nuclear plants, drew widespread condemnation from a diverse array of groups and experts across the political spectrum – including the CEO of the country's largest nuclear generator, which would stand to gain from the proposal.

The impact, however, would clearly fall most heavily on natural gas, which competes with coal and nuclear plants in electricity markets. And with U.S. electricity consumption having leveled off and even fallen since 2010 from strides in energy efficiency, one power plant's gain is almost inherently another's loss.

"If you're going to support some subset of the market and have them run more than they would otherwise – coal and nuclear, for example – someone else is going to have to give. You're going to supply the same amount of electrons either way," says John Larsen, director in the energy and climate practice at Rhodium Group, a research firm. "Any support for coal and nuclear plants means less market share for natural gas in the electric power sector."

Trump's policies at times have threatened to harm a natural gas industry that, amid a boom in the cheap and abundant domestic resource, has in many quarters been regarded as the successor to coal and nuclear plants, especially among conservatives who are often more skeptical of renewables like solar and wind.

https://www.usnews.com/national-issues/ ... atural-gas

[_canpakes]

Here’s what you’ll be able to pin on Trump as a ‘success’ that he can actually own: doing the exact opposite of what your thread title suggests. Because that’s exactly how this is playing out now after Trump’s trashing of Obama-era rules on methane emissions from NG production.

In 2008, natural gas generated 21 percent of the electricity in the United States; now, its share is 33 percent. Coal use, meanwhile, plummeted from 48 percent to 29 percent over the same period. In consequence, the electric power sector’s total carbon dioxide emissions have dropped by 700 million metric tons over the last decade, with an attendant decrease in other harmful pollutants. Every megawatt-hour of coal-fired electricity that is replaced by gas-fired electricity is a net win for the planet — and the humans who live on it.

Except when it’s not. Natural gas has an Achilles’ heel: When it is sucked from the earth and processed and moved around, leaks occur. The main ingredient in natural gas is methane, a greenhouse gas with 86 times the short-term warming potential of carbon dioxide. Every punctured pipeline, leaky valve and sloppy gas-well completion eats away at any climate benefits. And if methane’s leaking, so too are other harmful pollutants, including benzene, ethane and hydrogen sulfide. And so the fuel’s green credentials, and one of the industry’s main marketing tools, end up wafting into thin air.

When the Obama administration proposed rules that would make the oil and gas industry clamp down on methane emissions, it was a gift, not a punishment. Not only would people and the climate benefit; the natural gas industry would be able to sell itself as a clean fuel and a bridge to the future.

The Obama-era rules are similar to those passed in Colorado in 2014, with the industry’s support. Far from being onerous, they simply require companies to regularly look for and repair leaks and to replace faulty equipment. Some companies already do this on their own; the Obama rules would simply mandate this responsible behavior across the board. That’s why the Republican-controlled Congress ultimately decided not to kill the rules. That, however, did not discourage Trump.

Trump is not being “business-friendly” by ending the rules. Rather, he is once again indulging his own obsession with former President Barack Obama and with destroying his predecessor’s legacy, regardless of the cost to human health and the environment. Trump’s own EPA estimates that its rule rollback will result in the emission of an additional 484,000 tons of methane, volatile organic compounds and other hazardous pollutants over the next five years. Meanwhile, the death of Interior’s methane rule on Tuesday will add another half-million tons of pollutants to the air. In the process, it will erode the pillars of the once-vaunted natural gas bridge.

Another day, another example of Dog propaganda dismantled.

[_Res Ipsa]

I was curious to see the numbers, but the opinion piece in the Examiner didn't list any. But it did link to an Examiner article, which said:

The Environmental Protection Agency touted data on Wednesday showing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell 2.7 percent across the power sector and large manufacturing facilities in 2017, the first year of the Trump administration, even as it has pursued a deregulatory agenda.

So, what exactly are we talking about? What are "directly measured greenhouse gas emissions"? Are they the same as greenhouse gas emissions "across the power sector and large manufacturing facilities?"

The article didn't link to any data, so I checked the EPA website for the press release. It said:

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released 2017 greenhouse gas (GHG) data collected under the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP), showing overall decreases across sectors and that total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions reported decreased by 2.7 percent from 2016 to 2017.

OK, that sounds like all the greenhouse gases, except that towards the bottom the release says this:

As directed by Congress, EPA collects annual, facility-level emissions data from major industrial sources, including power plants, oil and gas production and refining, iron and steel mills, and landfills. In addition to collecting detailed emissions from the largest GHG emitting facilities, EPA’s GHGRP also collects data from upstream fossil fuel and industrial gas suppliers.

https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/data-s ... ear-office

So, what, exactly, are we talking about?

Luckily, the press release does link to data. https://usenvironmentalprotectionagency ... ydlulij-y/

But when I clicked on that link, a window popped up that said this:

Important Information about this Data Set
This data set does not reflect total U.S. GHG emissions.

What the hell. I just want to know what the numbers mean!!!!!

The data itself is labeled: "2017 Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Large Facilities"

So, I decided to test the data for large facilities to see if I was looking at the right numbers. Total for 2016: 2977 (million metric tons). 2.7% is 80. Subtract to get 2017 total: 2897. Check website for 2017 total: 2898. OK, so it looks like the decrease was for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from large facilities.

So, then some explanatory material: https://www.epa.gov/ghgreporting/ghgrp- ... ons-trends

So, these large direct emitters represent about half of the total greenhouse gas production. The upstream suppliers estimate how much greenhouse gas will be emitted by the end users when they use the fuels. The fuels may not be used in the same year they were supplied, which may explain why the web page doesn't list year to year total figures for the upstream suppliers. The direct emitters plus upstream suppliers represent about 85-90% of the total greenhouse gas emissions.

The EPA also does a complete annual inventory of greenhouse gas emissions in a separate report. But the 2017 report won't be completed until next spring.

So, the Examiner opinion is correct that "directly measured greenhouse gases" fell by 2.7%, but it doesn't make clear that only direct emitters above a certain volume of emissions are included in that total. Or that we're only talking about half of the total annual emissions of greenhouse gases.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration, apparently an agency independent of the EPA that analyzes and reports on energy issues, reported that total energy-related CO2 emissions fell by .9% in 2017. (This is CO2 only, so the difference could be that other greenhouse gases were reduced more.) The transportation, industry, and residential and commercial sectors all increased their CO2 production, but those increases were more than offset by a 4.5% decrease in in CO2 emissions in the electricity generation sector. The reports says that consumption of both coal and natural gas fell in 2017, resulting in reduced CO2 emissions from those fuels. 2017 also saw the largest drop in electricity consumption since the 2009 recession. The report attributes this to mild weather.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36953

The Rhodium Group is a private company that also reports on CO2 emissions. It reaches the same basic conclusions, but adds a couple of interesting facts. it found a .66% decline in CO2 emissions in 2017, half of the decline reported in 2016. Power generation from coal fell by 30 Mn kWh and natural gas by 103 Mn kWh. Generation of hydro, wind, and solar power increased. The report also listed changes in capacity. Coal fell about 10 GW. Gas and Wind each increased by about 6 GW, and solar increased by about 8.

For the second year in a row, emissions from the transportation sector were higher than for the power generating sector. The report predicts that industrial emissions will take over the number two spot in the next decade.

https://rhg.com/research/final-us-emiss ... -for-2017/