Shane Thielges | Shale Plays Media
A new study has found that natural gas from conventional and unconventional wells emit greenhouse gases (GHGs) at about the same rate when used to generate electricity.
The study, which appeared in the Publishings of the National Academy of Science journal, compared estimated life-cycle GHG emission rates from hundreds of conventional gas, shale gas and coal studies. It found that, on average, greenhouse emissions from natural gas production are about half that of coal in both conventional and fracking wells.
It also found, however, that a few key factors can highly influence GHG emissions from fracked gas. Well completion, well recompletion and liquids unloading can all lead to much higher emissions if performed incorrectly, giving shale gas a slightly worse overall footprint. Even in such cases, though, emissions are only as high as the best-performing coal energy cycles.
Check out Environmental Leader for more analysis: Shale Gas GHGs on Par with Natural Gas
And read the whole study at Publishing of the National Academy of Science: Harmonization of initial estimates of shale gas life cycle greenhouse gas emissions for electric power generation