Melanie Houston’s recent letter uses a common anti-fracking scare tactic — exaggeration of methane emissions from oil and natural gas development — to try to advance her group’s “Keep It In the Ground” agenda.
Selecting an exceedingly rare well incident as her bogeyman of choice, Houston claims oil and gas methane emissions are major contributors to smog and climate change. But the latest government data tell a much different story.
Oil and gas emissions are not a major contributor to smog formation, and in fact, smog is declining throughout the U.S. thanks in large part to increased natural gas use, which has dramatically reduced emissions of nitrogen oxide, a major ozone precursor.
The most recent EPA data also shows that oil and gas methane emissions in the Appalachian Basin — which includes the surging Marcellus and Utica shales — have fallen 26 percent since 2011 at the same time natural gas production in the region has more than quadrupled. EPA data also show oil and natural gas system methane emissions have declined 14 percent since 1990 at the same time natural gas production increased 50 percent.
These are major reasons that data from the EPA and Global Carbon project show that U.S. oil and gas methane emissions account for just 1.4 percent of global methane emissions, even though fracking has allowed the U.S. to emerge as the world’s top oil and gas producer in recent years.
All told, the shale boom has allowed the United States to triple the size of the economy at the same time we have significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Ohio has enjoyed this environmental and economic win-win perhaps more than any other state, and Houston’s fear-mongering doesn’t change that fact.
Jackie Stewart
Energy In Depth
Canfield, Ohio
