Just Playing With Numbers

Gas Pipelines Are Climate Bombs

PennEast Alone Would Result In More GHG Emissions Than Entire NJ Power Sector

A friend just sent me a video of a presentation by Princeton Hydro to the 2015 Watershed Conference on some of the environmental impacts of the PennEast pipeline – it is excellent (watch here) – but, remarkably, climate impacts are not addressed.

[Note: I was the architect of the C1 regulations that Princeton Hydro emphasizes – which just might explain why I am totally isolated from the advocacy efforts.]

I’ve not followed that pipeline closely, other than to recommend various regulatory tools that I think can kill the pipeline (similar to the narrow role I’ve played in the Pinelands pipeline debates).

Obviously, there is a big difference between what I view as the strongest regulatory tool to kill a pipeline and what is the most important issue or impact of the pipeline.

But one thing that jumped right out from the Princeton Hydro presentation was the pipeline’s capacity: 1 billion cubic feet per day.

That’s a lot of gas.

So, I wondered what the climate change impacts of all that gas would be.

Does the NEPA Environmental Impact Statement quantify the greenhouse gas emissions?

To get a rough estimate, I did a quick Google of US Energy Information Administration’s Carbon Dioxide Emissions Coefficients.

These are emissions factors based on combustion of the fuel natural gas – they are 119.9 lbs/1,000 cubic feet of gas.

I rounded that up to 120 lbs/1,000 CF of natural gas.

The numbers are staggering –

And these do not include the upstream lifecycle emissions from methane – from the fracking well and pipeline network – which has far greater warming potential than CO2.

If 1 billion cubic feet of gas are burned, according to EIA emission factors, that would produce 120 million pounds per day of CO2 emissions.

That translates to 21.5 million tons per year of CO2 emissions.

Readers, please correct my math if I’ve made a mistake (I don’t show all my work, but the conversions are very straightforward: 2,000 lbs = 1 ton – 365 days = 1 year).

That is huge and more than the emissions from NJ’s entire in state energy sector. [For context and ballpark estimates, see NJ DEP’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory – most recent data is old, 2009).

Just to put these emissions in context, if the pipeline emissions of GHG were regulated under RGGI, that would amount to about $45 million per year in emissions allowances that PennEast would be required to purchase every year.

If PennEast were to pay the “social costs of carbon” in all that gas, that would cost the company maybe $2 billion per year.

Which brings us to the question:

Why is climate change not even on the agenda of most of the pipeline opponents, including the “Rethink Energy NJ” communications strategy?

Just maybe the stability of the global climate, the lives of millions of people, & the future of agriculture and industrial civilization are more important than open space or the property rights of  wealthy Hunterdon County residents?

Maybe?