Evaluating net life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions intensities from gas and coal at varying methane leakage rates

Evaluating net life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions intensities from gas and coal at varying methane leakage rates

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The net climate impact of gas and coal life-cycle emissions are highly dependent on methane leakage.Every molecule of methane leaked alters the climate advantage because methane warms the planet significantly more than CO _2 over its decade-long lifetime.We find that global gas systems that leak over 4.

7% of their methane (when considering a 20-year timeframe) or 7.6% (when considering a 100 year timeframe) are on par with life-cycle coal emissions from methane leaking Horse Neck Rugs coal mines.The net climate impact from coal is also influenced by SO _2 emissions, which react to form sulfate aerosols that mask warming.

We run scenarios that combine varying methane leakage rates from coal and gas with low to high SO _2 emissions based on coal sulfur content, flue gas scrubber efficiency, and sulfate aerosol global warming potentials.The methane and SO _2 co-emitted with CO _2 alter the emissions parity between gas and coal.We estimate that a gas system leakage rate as low as 0.

2% is on par with coal, assuming 1.5% sulfur coal that is scrubbed at a 90% efficiency with no coal mine methane when considering climate effects over a 20 year timeframe.Recent aerial measurement surveys of US oil and gas production basins find wide-ranging natural gas Holy Basil leak rates 0.

65% to 66.2%, with similar leakage rates detected worldwide.These numerous super-emitting gas systems being detected globally underscore the need to accelerate methane emissions detection, accounting, and management practices to certify that gas assets are less emissions intensive than coal.