Why the concern over fugitive methane emissions?

Methane is the biggest component of natural gas, which we burn to heat our buildings, generate our power, and even move some of our vehicles.

So what is fugitive methane, and why do we care about it? The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has a new infographic that's helpful in grasping the problem.

Fugitive methane is what inadvertently escapes into the atmosphere during the process of getting natural gas from where it lies underground to the point at which it's burned for heat or power.

Although carbon dioxide is the biggest source of climate-disrupting, heat-trapping emissions (due to all the fossil fuels we burn, including natural gas), molecule for molecule, methane is far more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere, perhaps 25 times more potent, according to the UCS.

Up to 9 percent of the natural gas we remove from the ground escapes as fugitive methane and has very significant heat-trapping ability, so this issue really is an 800-pound gorilla that society needs to wrestle with.

The methane leaks at many points: drilling sites, storage facilities, pipelines, etc. Our power grid is aging -- and old pipes tend to leak more than new ones.

It's worrisome to note that the UCS finds that fugitive methane emissions are higher for the drilling of shale gas than for conventional natural gas drilling.

Another problem: It's quite difficult to measure the actual leakage rates, or make any reliable projections about overall leakage, from our energy infrastructure since amounts of leakage can vary largely from site to site depending on geology, specific technology employed, etc.

As UCS says, we need more research to be done. But even as the science around methane evolves, we know enough to start fixing the problem in places now.

So what's a concerned society to do? Advocate for proven, cost-effective technologies where possible to reduce the amount of fugitive emissions. We need to be squeaky wheels to make sure the feds and states are monitoring what's going on in the field, and to hold polluters accountable.


And, of course, the most serious and appropriate response is for society to move away from dependence on all fossil fuels -- including methane -- as quickly as possible, and to move to a cleaner, more efficient economy that relies on truly renewable energy. 

There's no such thing as "fugitive" emissions from solar panels, wind turbines, or geothermal heating/cooling systems.

Now we have another reason to leave fossil fuels behind. As if we needed one.

Joy Bergey is PennFuture's federal policy director and is based in Philadephia. She tweets @joybergey.

Please, Mr. President, just say NO to Keystone XL pipeline

Completing the Keystone  XL pipeline is a bad idea for so many reasons.

If fully built, this 1,700-mile pipeline, running north-to-south down the center of the country, would carry extremely polluting petroleum from tar sands deposits in Alberta, Canada, down to the Gulf of Mexico.

We love the way Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation, described the pipeline: "The Canadian oil industry is sitting on top of a tar sands carbon pollution bomb and Keystone XL is the fuse needed to light it."

At the end of January, the  State Department released its final environmental impact statement. Fortunately, the report acknowledges that the tar sands pipeline dramatically increases carbon pollution, the equivalent of putting almost six million new cars on the road. This is the last thing we need.

It's not just the huge carbon footprint of a potential pipeline that we're so concerned about. It's also threats to drinking water throughout the center of the country, namely, irreparable damage that could be done to the the Ogallala aquifer by a leak in the pipeline.

Bear in mind that this would be a pipeline through America, not to America. The pipeline would be built to get tar sands oil out into the international market.

A word of caution

It would be naive to assume that a decision by the President to stop the Keystone pipeline permanently would mean that the tar sands would stay in the ground, sparing the world of all those intense heat-trapping emissions. Global energy markets are hungry for fossil fuels, even though these fuels are under-priced: The true costs of fossil fuels (such as increased public health costs due to increased incidences of asthma and other diseases, and infrastructure replacement and insurance costs from extreme weather events like Superstorm Sandy) are externalized. This means the price of fossil fuels is kept artificially low by the so-called "free market" system.

So, the proposed Keystone XL pipeline is a big mess -- figuratively right now, but we'd be inviting a literal mess, and a huge one, if we finish building the pipeline.

And what about wildlife? The State Department report says that operations of the pipeline would threaten 15 federally-protected endangered species, including whooping and sandhill cranes, bald eagles, and swift foxes.
 
It's now up to President Obama to stop the pipeline from being built. In fact, he has a much larger responsibility: He should be leading the country away from the further development of any fossil fuel resources, promoting truly clean resources (wind and solar) and energy efficiency and conservation. 
Do it, Mr. President: Just say no to the Keystone XL pipeline and a future built around fossil fuels.

Joy Bergey is federal policy director for PennFuture and is based in Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania's love affair with fossil fuels: Cha-ching!

As a citizen of Pennsylvania I am, naturally, concerned about the latest state budget. The Governor and state legislature agreed to a $28.4 billion budget for the 2013-2014 fiscal year. That's a lot of money, but not nearly enough of it goes to beefing up public transit or supporting the development of renewable energy.

Surely, many of us have no doubt thought, there must be ways to cut needless government spending in order to build a greener future in Pennsylvania. I had that thought (for the umpteenth time) just yesterday, and suddenly remembered a great report written a couple of years ago by Christina Simeone, director of the PennFuture Energy Center.

In writing Pennsylvania Fossil Fuel Subsidies, Simeone did some serious digging to figure out to what extent Pennsylvania taxpayers are subsidizing the production and use of fossil fuels. 

Gulp. Turns out that we, the citizens of the Commonwealth, are giving away $2.9 billion per year to industries that  harm our natural resources through the extraction of fossil fuels, and then belch carbon pollution, mercury, arsenic, and other poisons into the atmosphere.

That represents at least 10 percent of our state budget. At least 10 percent. As the reports points out, there simply are not cost estimates available for many of the subsidies. So much for transparent government, eh?

But don't cry for the dirty fuels folks. Even if we eliminated all fossil fuels subsidies granted by the state, the industry still gets untold billions in subsidies federally.

Are we at PennFuture the only ones who think it's crazy to give away almost $3 billion every year to industries that don't seem to care at all about Pennsylvania's future?

Come on, Harrisburg. Stop the nonsense and stop funding dirty fossil fuels.

It's a war on injustice, actually

President Obama hit it out of the park on Tuesday, announcing his plan to tackle climate change. It was especially encouraging to hear him instruct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop and implement rules to limit carbon pollution from power plants. Although he couldn't quite bring himself to say out loud that coal is the primary target of the new rules, it wasn't lost on those who somehow defend this dirtiest of industries.

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky wrongly described the plan as a war on coal. Sorry, Mitch, but you're wrong. All that carbon dioxide belching forth unchecked from coal plants means we'll fry the planet if we don't transition immediately to a clean energy economy. More specifically, we're on the way to ruining the future of millions of children who will have to contend with a world of routine extreme weather and the economic and societal disruptions that will result.

This isn't a war on coal, Senator. Rather, it's a war on the injustice of relying on a devastating source of power when we have clean sources of power such as wind  and solar readily available. Even so, Congress insists on providing disproportionately large subsidies to fossil fuels instead.

Fortunately, there's another guy named Mitch who sees the truth. That would be Rev. Mitch Hescox, president and CEO of the Evangelical Environmental Network. Mitch, a self-described Republican Evangelical, said this week, "We need solutions that engage all of America. I agree with the President, American ingenuity can help us cut down on pollution, champion energy efficiency, and create the next generation of jobs, while taking care of the poor."

Which Mitch would you choose? Backward-looking Mitch McConnell, or forward-looking Mitch Hescox?

I know my choice. I'm on the bus with Mitch Hescox.