BIG NEWS! PLEASE READ!! CORNELL METHANE/FRACKING STUDY DEBUNKED BY PEER REVIEW!!

Hey Shalers!!  Check this out!  Remember the Cornell University study (it was actually just one faculty member's paper) that caused so much weeping and gnashing of teeth because it said that natgas was worse than coal because of methane leaks has been debunked by a Cornell peer review!!  This is GIANT news!!

 

I am super happy because not only is it great news for natgas, it also gives me new hope that the peer review process is not actually a lemmings process. lol.  This is huge news for those of us who are hopeful about natural gas as a bridge fuel for the future.  We must get this to the news media because they might otherwise ignore it.  The author is on Facebook and is probably available for more interviews.

 

Read this blog from our friends at the New York TImes.  You can also read the full peer reviewed paper at the Climate Change journal.  I cannot overestimate the important value of this new research.  Please send it to every person you know who is even on the fringe of being in the media.  We must get publicity on this since it counters a major objection to shale gas.  This new peer reviewed study shows the original author's work was "seriously flawed".  I've posted the abstract below and links to the full article and this author's blog in the NY Times.

 

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/on-shale-gas-warming-a...

 

http://www.springerlink.com/content/x001g12t2332462p/

http://www.springerlink.com/content/x001g12t2332462p/fulltext.pdf

 

Here is the abstract, the link to the full paper is above:

Natural gas is widely considered to be an environmentally cleaner fuel than coal because it does not produce detrimental by-products such as sulfur, mercury, ash and particulates and because it provides twice the energy per unit of weight with half the carbon footprint during combustion. These points are not in dispute.
 
However, in their recent publication in Climatic Change Letters, Howarth reports that their life-cycle evaluation of shale gas drilling suggests that shale gas has a larger GHG footprint than coal and that this larger footprint “undercuts the logic of its use as a bridging fuel over the coming decades”. We argue here that their analysis is seriously flawed in that they significantly overestimate the fugitive emissions associated with unconventional gas extraction, undervalue the contribution of “green technologies” to reducing those emissions to a level approaching that of conventional gas, base their comparison between gas and coal on heat rather than electricity generation (almost the sole use of coal), and assume a time interval over which to compute the relative climate impact of gas compared to coal that does not capture the contrast between the long residence time of CO2 and the short residence time of methane in the atmosphere.
 
High leakage rates, a short methane GWP, and comparison in terms of heat content are the inappropriate bases upon which Howarth et al. ground their claim that gas could be twice as bad as coal in its greenhouse impact. Using more reasonable leakage rates and bases of comparison, shale gas has a GHG footprint that is half and perhaps a third that of coal.

Tags: Cornell, methane

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Yes this is good news.  Thank you for posting it.  I have contacts at WFAA but this needs to go out to the EAST coast more then here in Texas. 

I watched the Rep debate last night and feel more then ever that the "fix" is in.  We get either Romney or Santorium.  The three panelists called on either Romney, Huntsman or Santorum on every question and then let them follow up on the others..Seldom did you even know Gingrich and Perry were even on the stage.

These two would have pushed for energy independence.  Huntsman seems enthralled with China, Romney answers like Jack Kennedy did in his debates..no answer but lots of words so you think he answered, and Santorum...wish he had had his crooked nose fixed before he ran...Paul...I don't know what to think about him. 

But none seem interested in addressing our drilling or lack of drilling here.

The questions were stupid.  Who really cares whether same sex "marriage"  is a state or federal issue or constitutional..yet they asked this over and over and over..of the candidates.."what would you do" and did they think it was constitutional.  I much rather them have asked if they would take over as King or Dictator and pass over the congress.

So the fix is in, we won't become energy independent, and we will continue to go down the tube as a nation.  I can tell you that I spent a LOT of time out of this country and missed being here nearly every minute of that time.  I do not want to live in a "European"  or "Asian" patterned country.  I want to live in the good old USA as the good old USA.

Great job HANG!

Coal vs Nat Gas...   It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know the difference between the two.  Just try burning some coal for heat in your fireplace.   Then burn nat gas.   Checkmate.  

Reading material I took on plane:  "Earth On Fire" "Thousands of hidden fires smolder and rage through the world's coal deposits, quietly releasing gases that can ruin health, devastate communications, and heat the planet."  written by Kristin Ohlson for Discover Magazine...July/August 2010 

"...America's problem with coal fires is small compared with that of the rest of the world, where untold thousands of coal fires...burn unchecked.  ...Eastern India...sixty-eight of them burn within a 174-square-mile region in the Jharia Coalfield...some right next to areas where (coal) mining families live...  In China, estimates of the amount of coal consumed or made inaccessible by uncontrolled fires runs as high as 200 metric tons per year, 10 percent of the country's total coal production...  Indonesia...a major exporter of coal to the Pacific Rim...has many thousands of coal fires...  Borneo might be as high as 3,000...  'The real number is so astronomical that no one would believe it.'...  The published numbers are about one percent of what could actually be there...  Fires in both abandoned mines and waste piles sometimes start because of a nearby blaze, but they can also ignite through spontaneous combustion:  Certain minerals in coal such as sulfides and pyrites, can oxidize and in the process generate enough heat to cause a fire..."

"At last count, the United States had 112 documented underground (coal) fires, along with many more yet to be counted...  In addition to the underground fires, there are also 93 known surface coal fires, some of them in huge waste piles created during the process of coal mining..."

Ruth Mullins coal fire in Bulan, Kentucky;  48-year old coal mine fire in Centralia, Pennsylvania; three coal fires in the Powder Region Basin of Wyoming...etc., etc., etc.

"Coal and Peat Fires:  A Global Prespective"  first volume was published in 2010. 

I'll take my chances with Nat Gas production! 

DrWAVeSport Cd1 1/8/2012

 

Folks:

Cornell is called "THE PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF ITHACA" because the faculty is

anti-business. This study about methane is a joke.  He did it to please his

leftist colleagues.

He got his name in the paper though..... hooray for Prof Horwath.

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