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Sunday, April 28, 2013

ENERGY NEWS -



Latest EPA methane release study is based on the fracking industry's own figures
 
Yahoo News: 

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has dramatically lowered its estimate of how much Methane, a potent heat-trapping gas, leaks during natural gas production
 
EPA now says that tighter pollution controls instituted by the industry resulted in 20 percent reduction from previous estimates.
 
EPA revisions came even though natural gas production has grown by nearly 40 percent since 1990.
 
EPA said it made the changes based on expert reviews and new data from several sources, including a report funded by the oil and gas industry. But the estimates aren't based on independent field tests of actual emissions, and some scientists said that's a problem.
 
Robert Howarth, a Cornell University professor of ecology who led a 2011 methane leak study that is widely cited by critics of fracking, wrote in an email that "time will tell where the truth lies in all this, but I think EPA is wrong."
                
Howarth said other federal climate scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have published recent studies documenting massive methane leaks from natural gas operations in Colorado and other Western states.
 
Howarth wrote that the EPA seems "to be ignoring the published NOAA data in their latest efforts, and the bias on industry only pushing estimates downward — never up — is quite real. EPA badly needs a counter-acting force, such as outside independent review of their process."
 
The new EPA figures still show natural gas operations as the leading source of methane emissions in the U.S., at about 145 million metric tons in 2011. The next biggest source was enteric fermentation, scientific jargon for belches from cows and other animals, at 137 million metric tons. Landfills were the third-biggest source, at 103 million metric tons.
 
The EPA revisions have international implications, too. The agency says the new report, Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, was submitted to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change by an April 15 deadline.

Read more:  http://news.yahoo.com/epa-methane-report-further-divides-161201451.html

Fracking news:  http://ecowatch.com/p/energy/fracking-2/

Video Gasland Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phCibwj396I
Video Gasland Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_uNx2fXlfE

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