Natural gas leaks a significant source of green-house gas methane

“This was a surprise,” Wennberg explains of the results of his research on methane in the Los Angeles atmosphere. In an initial study conducted in 2008, Wennberg’s team analyzed measurements from the troposphere, the lowest portion of Earth’s atmosphere, via an airplane flying less than a mile above the ground over the Los Angeles basin. These data eventually will be compared to more detailed measurements obtained by the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), a satellite developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and set for launch in July of this year (the original OCO was launched in 2009, but the fairing that covered the observatory during its launch failed to separate from the rocket, causing the spacecraft to fall back into Earth’s atmosphere where it burned or broke up over the Pacific Ocean. It was rebuilt with funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009).

In analyzing chemical signatures of the preliminary samples, Wennberg’s team made an intriguing discovery: the signatures bore a striking similarity to the chemical profile of natural gas.

Normally, the methane from fossil fuel sources is accompanied by ethane gas — which is the second most common component of natural gas — while biogenic sources of methane (such as livestock and wastewater) are not. Indeed, the researchers found that the ratio of methane and ethane in the L.A. air samples was characteristic of the samples of natural gas provided by the Southern California Gas Company, which is the leading supplier of natural gas to the region.

Wennberg hesitates to pinpoint natural-gas leaks as the sole source of the L.A. methane, however. “Even though it looks like the methane/ethane could come from fugitive natural-gas emissions, it’s certainly not all coming from this source,” he says. “We’re still drilling for oil in L.A., and that yields natural gas that includes ethane too.”

The release notes that the Southern California Gas Company reports very low losses in the delivery of natural gas (approximately 0.1 percent), and yet atmospheric data suggest that the source of methane from either the natural-gas infrastructure or petroleum production is closer to 2 percent of the total gas delivered to the basin. One possible way to reconcile these vastly different estimates is that significant losses of natural gas may occur after consumer metering in the homes, offices, and industrial plants that purchase natural gas. This loss of fuel is small enough to have no immediate negative impact on household users, but cumulatively it could be a major player in the concentration of methane in the atmosphere.

The findings of Wennberg and his colleagues have led to a more comprehensive study of greenhouse gases in urban settings, the Megacities Carbon Project, based at JPL. The goal of the project, which is focusing initially on ground-based measurements in Los Angeles and Paris, is to quantify greenhouse gases in the megacities of the world. Such cities — places like Hong Kong, Berlin, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Seoul, São Paulo, and Tokyo — are responsible for up to 75 percent of global carbon emissions, despite representing only 3 percent of the world’s landmass. Documenting the types and sources of greenhouse gases in megacities will provide valuable baseline measurements that can be used in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

If the findings of the Megacities Carbon Project are consistent with Wennberg’s study of methane in Los Angeles, natural gas may be less of a panacea in the search for a “green” fuel. Natural gas has a cleaner emissions profile and a higher efficiency than coal (that is, it produces more power per molecule of carbon dioxide), but, as far as climate change goes, methods of extraction and distribution are key. “You have to dig it up, put it in the pipe, and burn it without losing more than a few percent,” Wennberg says. “Otherwise, it’s not nearly as helpful as you would think.”

The release notes that data for this study were provided by the Southern California Gas Company, NASA, NOAA, and the California Air Resources Board. The research was funded by NASA, the California Energy Commission’s Public Interest Environmental Research program, the California Air Resources Board, and the U.S. Department of Energy.

— Read more in Paul O. Wennberg et al., “On the Sources of Methane to the Los Angeles Atmosphere,” Environmental Science and Technology, 46, no. 17 (1 August 2012):  9282-89 (DOI: 10.1021/es301138y)