Study: Greenhouse gas emissions from industry concentrated in two sources

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

December 9, 2014 | 9:00 AM

A snow covered well site at night in the Tioga State Forest.

The Environmental Protection Agency says oil and natural gas production is the largest industrial source of methane emissions in the U.S. Methane is 84 times more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in the short term. So climate scientists and activists are starting to focus more and more on reducing methane. And they say natural gas production sites are an easy place to start.
A new peer-reviewed study out Tuesday in the Environmental Science and Technology journal says two parts of the production process should be targeted for reduced methane emissions. Researchers from the University of Texas and the environmental firm URS concluded that pneumatic devices and liquid unloadings pose the most risk to fugitive methane. And just a small percentage of each device tested account for the bulk of emissions.
Pneumatic devices use natural gas to control valves. Researchers found that just 19 percent of the 377 devices tested accounted for 95 percent of the total measured emissions. Similarly with liquid unloadings, where most of those operations do not vent methane to the atmosphere, according to the report. Instead just 20 percent of 107 natural gas well liquid unloading events tested made up 65 to 83 percent of the emissions. Liquid unloadings refers to a process, usually in older wells, where accumulated liquids have to be cleared in order to continue producing gas.
The report was funded by the Environmental Defense Fund, along with ten oil and gas producers.