Drawing virtually no press attention, 6 researchers at Carnegie Mellon University published on August 5th a detailed study of life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of Marcellus Shale gas.
The study concluded that Marcellus shale gas is much cleaner than coal when greenhouse gas pollution is used to compare the environmental impact of gas and coal. The study specifically analyzed the carbon footprint of Marcellus gas and not other shale reservoirs. The study was also reviewed prior to publication by the Sierra Club.
It is a careful piece of work that lays out the data used, the assumptions made, and conclusions reached.
The Carnegie Mellon researchers find: "Natural gas from the Marcellus shale has generally lower life cycle GHG emissions than coal for production of electricity in the absence of any effective carbon capture and storage processes, by 20-50% depending upon plant efficiencies and natural gas emissions variability."
The researchers found that there was virtually no difference between greenhouse emissions from Marcellus shale gas and conventional gas production.
This careful study debunks and decimates professor Howarth's hit piece study that the NYT gas reporter and other media gave so much attention. By contrast, the CMU study has received very little press attention so the result remains that many people think Howarth is the final word on this important matter.
The lead researcher of the CMU paper is Mohan Jiang of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. W Michael Griffin, Chris Hendrickson, Paulina Jaramillo, Jeanne VanBriesen, and Aranya Venkatesh also authored the study. The Tepper School of Business and the Department of Engineering and Public Policy also participated in the study.
The paper was published in Environmental Research Letters. Go to http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/3/034014/fulltext. The study is a must read if you are interested in science and truth and should get much more publicity and recognition.