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Why Obama’s Proposal to Slash Methane Emissions Is a Really Big Deal

BY ZOË SCHLANGER 8/18/15 AT 12:02 PM

A sign marking the location of a natural gas pipeline in Golden, Colorado, on February 2, 2015. RICK WILKING/REUTERS

FILED UNDER: Tech & Science

The Obama administration announced yet another blockbuster climate change reform on Tuesday morning: the first-ever federal proposal to significantly cut methane emissions from the oil and natural gas industry.

The rule will also set limits on the release of volatile organic carbons, a key precursor of ozone pollution, from "new and modified" gas facilities and pipelines as well as from fracking wells, notorious for spewing methane andozone pollution.

Methane is the primary component of natural gas and a fierce driver of climate change. Though it doesn’t linger in the atmosphere for as long as carbon dioxide, its more-discussed counterpart, it is far more heat-trapping in the short term; in its first 20 years in the atmosphere, methane's climate-warming impact is at least 84 times that of CO2. Over a 100-year period, its impact is still 20 times greater than CO2.

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According to data compiled by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), around 25 percent of global warming experienced today is the direct result of methane emissions. In a statement emailed Tuesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says it estimates its new rule will "yield net climate benefits of $120 million to $150 million in 2025."

“Today, through our cost-effective proposed standards, we are underscoring our commitment to reducing the pollution-fueling climate change and protecting public health while supporting responsible energy development, transparency and accountability,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a statement.

The EPA proposal, which has been in the works since at least January, calls for a steep 40 to 45 percent cut in national methane emissions from 2012 levels within the next 10 years, by way of tighter rules meant to prevent methane from escaping from pipes and compression facilities. The rules, however, are mandatory for only new and modified facilities, and voluntary for pre-existing ones.

The oil and gas industry says it has a natural incentive to voluntarily update its systems, since lost methane translates into lost product and lost revenue. But environmental groups like the EDF say that performance under past programs proves that, in practice, that turns out to be not the case.

"EPA has now run a voluntary program for reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas industry for the past 20 years, and frankly 99 percent of industry has failed to step up to the plate to participate," Mark Brownstein, vice president of EDF’s climate and energy program, told InsideClimate News. "It is naive to think that all [oil and gas producers] are simply going to sign up to do what's right absent some prodding from federal and state regulation."

The nation’s natural gas production and transportation infrastructure is notoriously riddled with leaks. According to a study published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, natural gas facilities lose about 100 billion cubic feet of natural gas each year, or eight times more than EPA estimates they do, The New York Times reports. Last year, Google’s Street View Cars partnered with the EDF to map methane emissions in a few American cities and found leaking pipes everywhere.

In many cases, methane leaks are cheap to fix, according to a 2014 study commissioned by the EDF. As InsideClimate News points out, that study found that the natural industry could cut methane emissions by 40 percent below projected 2018 levels at an average annual cost of less than $0.01 per 1,000 cubic feet of produced natural gas, an amount that today sells for approximately $3.

US Shutdown of DGPS ?

Nationwide Differential GPS Shutdown Proposed, Comments Sought

August 18, 2015  - By GPS World staffLinkedIn

Twenty-two NDGPS sites that serve coastal areas would remain operational under the proposal.

An Aug. 18 Federal Register notice proposes shutting down the Nationwide Differential Global Positioning System (NDGPS) in January 2016 because of a decline in its use, except for sites in coastal areas.

The notice, issued by the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), Transportation Department (DOT) and Corps of Engineers (USACE), reads:

The Nationwide Differential Global Positioning System (NDGPS) service augments GPS by providing increased accuracy and integrity using land-based reference stations to transmit correction messages over radiobeacon frequencies. The service was implemented through agreements between multiple federal agencies including the USCG, DOT, and Army Corps of Engineers, as well as several states and scientific organizations, all cooperating to provide the combined national DGPS utility.

However, a number of factors have contributed to declining use of NDGPS and, based on an assessment by the Department of Homeland Security, DOT and USACE. DHS, DOT and USACE are proposing to shut down and decommission 62 DGPS sites, which will leave 22 operational sites available to users in coastal areas.


A DGPS reference station antenna.

Contributing factors cited in the decision are:

• USCG changes in policy to allow aids to navigation (ATON) to be positioned with a GPS receiver using Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM), which assesses the integrity of a GPS signal within the receiver;
  
• increased use of Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) in commercial maritime applications, which uses ground-based reference stations and satellite communications to improve accuracy;
  
• limited availability of consumer-grade NDGPS receivers;
  
• no NDGPS mandatory carriage requirement on any vessel within U.S. territorial waters;
  
• the May 1, 2000 Presidential Directive discontinuing GPS Selective Availabilitycontinuing GPS modernization; and
  
• the DOT Federal Railroad Administration’s determination that NDGPS is not a requirement for the successful implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC), which provides the railway system the capability to positively enforce movement authorities along railroad systems.

In April 2013, announced that DHS and DOT were in the process of analyzing the need for NDGPS. “The response to the 2013 notice was limited, but the responses received were well informed on the NDGPS system, its use, and current and potential applications,” the notice reads. “While a limited number of responders found the broadcast of corrections to be beneficial, no respondents reported the discontinuance of DGPS broadcast to be detrimental or harmful. Ship pilots in particular noted that DGPS can be critical in confined waterways for precise ship-handling maneuvers.”

Public comments on the proposed shutdown and decommissioning of 62 DGPS sites are being accepted until Nov. 16. Termination of the NDGPS broadcast at these sites is planned to occur on Jan. 15, 2016.

Full details on how to submit public comments can be found on the Federal Register page.