Research: U.S. methane emission policy likely to miss 2025 targets

Regulations recently enacted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reduce methane emissions from oil and natural gas production may not lead to expected leak reductions, according Stanford University researchers.

"We found out that even if you implement all these regulations as specified, what you achieve in terms of emissions reductions might be less than what the EPA estimates it's going to achieve in terms of targets," said Arvind Ravikumar, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.

"One of the reasons it happens is because of uncertainty in both technology used to detect leaks as well as our understanding of leakage," said Arvind Ravikumar.

Findings of the research, by analyzing publicly available data, were published online Tuesday in Environmental Research Letters.

The research shows that enforcing recently updated EPA 2012 New Source Performance Standards, which lay out how methane leaks should be detected and mitigated by the oil and natural gas industry, will cost about 27 percent less than EPA estimates, and methane emissions reductions will likely fall short of the agency's 2025 mitigation targets by 20 to 50 percent.

Methane leaks from natural gas operations contribute to rapid global warming while costing millions of dollars in economic loss.

Methane is the primary component of natural gas, which is the top source of electricity production in the United States.

Methane emissions cause about 25 percent of manmade global warming today and methane leaks can threaten human health and safety.

"It would be better for everyone if we don't waste gas," said Ravikumar, lead author of the study.

"About one to two percent of gas is completely leaked now and fixing it is a direct economic value to both the operators, because they can sell that gas, and to consumers, because ultimately, we pay for it and prices are very volatile."

The EPA regulations impose uniform standards on how often operators must inspect their facilities for leakage, what technology they can use and how soon a problem should be addressed.

But given the variability in natural gas facilities, Stanford researchers recommend addressing methane leaks from a regional and holistic perspective, such as coordinating with other greenhouse gas mitigation policies, rather than imposing uniform standards based on national averages.

"These are only recommendations," Ravikumar was quoted as saying in a news release. "The methane business itself is fairly new and there are still many unknowns when it comes to methane emissions, given what we know, these ideas seem like the best way forward."

The researchers based their findings on calculations from a software tool they adapted to model costs and benefits of mitigating methane leaks based on publicly available surveys conducted in U.S. natural gas facilities over the last four years.

"We are using this tool to develop a quantitative and statistically supportable approach to evaluating a policy," said study co-author Adam Brandt, an assistant professor of energy resources engineering. "Not only that, because it's open source, anyone can see exactly how the calculations are done, run it themselves and see the effectiveness of a policy."

Despite the recent executive order by U.S. President Donald Trump to review the EPA's regulations, the findings may be helpful to state-level regulators and companies developing new technologies to detect leaks in oil and gas operations. Endit