Dr Joe Romm is a Fellow at American Progress and is the editor of Climate Progress, which New York Times columnist Tom Friedman called "the indispensable blog" and Time magazine named one of the 25 "Best Blogs of 2010." In 2009, Rolling Stone put Romm #88 on its list of 100 "people who are reinventing America." Time named him a "Hero of the Environment″ and “The Web’s most influential climate-change blogger." Romm was acting assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy in 1997, where he oversaw $1 billion in R&D, demonstration, and deployment of low-carbon technology. He is a Senior Fellow at American Progress and holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT (see: http://theenergycollective.com/user/39956 ).
Dr Joe Romm on methane leakage and natural gas as a “bridge to a world with high greenhouse gas levels” (2013): “Natural gas is “a bridge to a world with high CO2 Levels,” climatologist Ken Caldeira told me last year. A major new study in Geophysical Research Letters by 19 researchers — primarily from NOAA and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) — suggests natural gas may be more of gangplank than a bridge. Scientists used a research aircraft to measure leakage and found: The measurements show that on one February day in the Uintah Basin, the natural gas field leaked 6 to 12 percent of the methane produced, on average, on February days. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) called the emissions rates “alarmingly high” While the researchers conducted 12 flights, “they selected just one as their data source for this paper,” ClimateWire reports. Researchers actually measured higher emissions on other flights, but atmospheric conditions during those flights “gave the data more uncertainty… An April 2012 study found that a big switch from coal to gas would only reduce “technology warming potentials” by about 25% over the first three decades — far different than the typical statement that you get a 50% drop in CO2 emissions from the switch. And that assumed a total methane leakage of 2.4%. The study found that if the total leakage exceeds 3.2% “gas becomes worse for the climate than coal for at least some period of time.” Leakage of 4%, let alone 9%, would call into question the value of unconventional gas as any sort of bridge fuel. Colm Sweeney, the head of the aircraft program at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, who led the study’s aerial component, told the journal Nature:“We were expecting to see high methane levels, but I don’t think anybody really comprehended the true magnitude of what we would see.” The industry has tended kept most of the data secret while downplaying the leakage issue. EDF is working with the industry to develop credible leakage numbers in a variety of locations. Right now, fracking is looking more and more like a bridge to nowhere aka a gangplank.” [1].
[1]. Joe Romm, “Study: methane leakage from gas fields guts climate benefit”, The Energy Collective, 9 August 2013: http://theenergycollective.com/josephromm/258771/bridge-or-gangplank-study-finds-methane-leakage-gas-fields-high-enough-gut-climate?utm_source=tec_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter&inf_contact_key=5ffdedc7cf1155f36e4957332456381763bafcdd3335ca02aae96f3e1f689bc7 .