Matthew Yglesias wants the government to get cozier with Big Oil, saying yesterday: “I would like to adjust policy to be a bit friendlier to American fossil fuel extractors.” Of course, there’s a good chance he may get his wish come November if Nate Silver’s model is to be believed. And while his calls for being friendly were surprising (he hasn’t been very friendly to us), his support for fossil fuel extractors was not. After all, he has a lot in common with gas producers – one is polluting the discourse and the other the environment. So let’s do a quick debunking of his sojourn into the land of climate policy.
The crux of Yglesias’ argument is that supporting fracking and other forms of fossil fuel production should not just be an electorally expedient compromise by Democrats needing a win in fossil fuel rich states, but a climate goal in and of itself. Yglesias justifies this because, according to him, a lack of natural gas investment means an increase in coal usage. “Unless you’re just going to give up on economic growth (which Democrats haven’t and shouldn’t), then it’s desirable for the world to burn more gas, because the real-world alternative to that involves burning more coal.” (Nevermind, of course, that recent attempts to model the economic impact of continued climate change have put the damage on par with constant war, or a 12 percent decline in global GDP with a 1 degree Celsius increase in global temperature.)
We’re going to leave Yglesias’ case on oil production for someone else to take down, because he even admits it’s not a very compelling one. But we do want to examine his support for methane gas expansion, which is functionally indistinguishable from the natural gas lobbying playbook of gas industry greenwashing groups like Partnership for Addressing Global Emissions and Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future. Below are three quick reasons why the case for investment in more natural gas extraction isn’t as common sense as Yglesias would have you believe.
1. Methane is a more potent planet-warming gas than carbon on the time scale of the next few decades, when it is most possible and most critical to avoid locking in the worst impacts of climate change.
Natural gas is almost entirely composed of the greenhouse gas methane. While burning gas emits less carbon dioxide than burning coal, and carbon dioxide (CO2) is a more long-lasting atmospheric pollutant, methane is more powerful at trapping heat than CO2. Global and U.S. methane emissions have skyrocketed in recent years, and show no signs of slowing, pushing the globe closer to distinct climate tipping points—the mass death of coral reefs, thawing permafrost, collapsing ice sheets, the loss of the Amazon Rainforest, and others—from which there is no return.
Methane leaks at every stage of the natural gas supply chain, from extraction to transportation to combustion. When methane escapes to the atmosphere unburned (say from a four month-long methane storage facility leak), the resulting emissions are far worse for the climate than that of CO2. Methane’s disproportionate potency is often underplayed by natural gas proponents by citing EPA statistics which show that methane is a mere 25 times more warming than CO2. The issue is that the EPA measures the warming of methane on a 100 year time span, which dilutes our understanding of the effects of leaked methane at its most potent, in the first few decades following its release into the atmosphere. In the first twenty years after being emitted, methane traps heat more than 80 times as effectively as carbon dioxide.
The only way that we can stave off runaway climate change in these critical years is by phasing out planet-warming fossil fuels, which includes coal, oil, and gas.
2. Capital intensive investment in natural gas products lengthens the time that natural gas will be competitive with renewable energy sources (and thus worsens climate outcomes).
Building new natural gas infrastructure is expensive, especially for export overseas, often requiring new pipelines and massive liquefaction and storage facilities (of the type that keep poisoning Gulf Coast residents). This is because natural gas must be turned into a liquid before shipping overseas, which means cooling it to a temperature of negative 260 degrees fahrenheit. An estimate for a liquified natural gas (LNG) shipping facility in the Port of Brownsville last year put the price tag at $18 billion. The more we invest in expensive new gas infrastructure in the short term, the higher the cost will be to decommission that infrastructure from before the end of its useful life, which is often decades. (or, viewed from the opposite perspective, the average cost of gas production in the future is close to the marginal cost when the investment in infrastructure has already been made–and that serves to discourage renewables investment that will have a more competitive gas industry with which to compete)
That current day investment keeps the world hooked on gas, and the resulting methane pollution—regardless of where it’s emitted from—affects the whole globe, while simultaneously dampening the demand for renewable energy build-out abroad. To make a long story short: the longer we delay new sinking capital in new fossil fuel infrastructure, the easier it will be to transition to renewable fuel sources.
3. Official figures about methane leaks are dramatically undercounted.
Methane leaks from methane infrastructure (pipelines, wells, etc) are far greater than official reports suggest. A study released in March put the real number of domestic methane leakage at 3 times greater than that estimated by the EPA.
This isn’t just bad for estimates of the emissions of warming caused by gas infrastructure in the United States, but it undercuts Yglesias’ claim that natural gas usage will curb warming from developing countries if only we encourage its export.
While domestic regulations about the monitoring of emissions from fossil fuel infrastructure are under sustained attack by Republicans, other nations often have even fewer safeguards to ensure the transportation of methane without leaks. This is of course, dependent on the nation. But considering that Matt believes fossil fuel exports should be done to break coal dependence along with national security reasons – to cement relationships with potential allies and break dependence on Russian or Qatari fossil fuels – it seems likely that it is not just Western European nations he is talking about, but also ones that are strategically important in places like the South China Sea. One obvious example would be the Philippines, a country that is heavily reliant on coal, relies on imported oil from Gulf monarchies and Russia, and is a crucial component of US diplomatic efforts to contain China.
While the Philippines does not rely much on methane currently, its weak environmental enforcement could lead to undetected leaks or other issues if methane was adopted. For example, Mexico has experienced theft by criminals who cut into pipelines and siphon off gas to sell on the black market. One can only imagine the potential emissions if these sophisticated groups began to target methane infrastructure for siphoning as well. Other countries with weak environmental enforcement have let known leaks simply drag on for months.
In the case of European dependence on Russian fossil fuels, Germany is the exception to the rule. The EU as a whole has been moving towards renewables in dramatic fashion in recent years. The German switch to natural gas (and subsequently to coal after the Russian invasion of Ukraine) is unusual among their neighbors. It, much like the German opposition to deficit spending, is self-defeating, and should not be the basis for US policy.
With the warming potency of methane, the potential for leaks and the lengthening lifespan of methane if investments are made in natural gas infrastructure, it does not take much to begin questioning the supposedly clearcut benefits of switching to methane.