“Certified Gas” Is The Newest Greenwashing Rip-off From The Methane Trade – CleanTechnica – Uplaza

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Producers of methane gasoline have an issue. What they’re promoting is a climate-killer 80 instances extra highly effective than carbon dioxide. For a lot of many years, the world has targeted on carbon dioxide when planning methods to deal with international heating. For those who learn the ultimate stories from the Paris local weather convention in 2015, the phrase “methane” is essentially absent from any texts. The results of that historic worldwide assembly was all about decreasing carbon emissions, and why not? The world has a nervous eye on the carbon tracker at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, the one which measures the quantity of carbon dioxide within the ambiance. Till lately, there was no comparable tracker for methane.

However now there’s. At COP 27 in Scotland, the UN introduced a brand new high-tech, satellite-based international methane detection initiative — Methane Alert and Response System (MARS) — which can leverage satellite tv for pc information to alert governments, firms, and operators about massive methane sources to allow sooner mitigation. The information from these satellites reveals for the primary time big plumes of methane from oil and gasoline operations world wide, many in former Soviet Union nations or in Russia itself, however many in Europe, the US, and China as nicely. Methane has a nasty behavior of escaping into the ambiance, however since it’s odorless and colorless, its launch usually goes undetected.

Methane Monitoring

After the reality about methane turned public information, a brand new trade was born — methane monitoring. Supposedly, a brand new era of methane screens turned obtainable that promised to detect methane leaks.  The trade was fast to glom onto these new units to “prove” that their methane provides weren’t being launched into the ambiance. That, in flip, led to a brand new advertising technique — marking up the supposedly “certified gas” and promoting it at a premium. Sounds good on paper, however in accordance with a report by Oil Change Worldwide and Earthworks revealed June 18, 2024, the monitoring methods have but to be confirmed efficient in actual world use.

The report says, “Fossil fuel companies are under public pressure to address the climate crisis and reduce pollution. In response, almost 40% of US gas is now “certified” by third social gathering firms, permitting fossil gas producers to assert decreased methane emissions from their operations. The issue? The claims are false. Gasoline certification threatens local weather objectives by selling false information and enabling gasoline firms to broaden operations below the guise of decreased emissions. The report finds:

• Trade operated steady emissions screens (CEMs) at nicely websites commonly miss air pollution occasions.
• “Continuous” screens belonging to Mission Canary – a certifying firm – are inexplicably offline over 25% of the time.
• Fossil gas firms hardly ever take motion to deal with air pollution when it’s detected.
• Trade and regulators see alternative for revenue in certification schemes.

Advertising Methane As A “Clean Fuel”

In accordance with Inside Local weather Information, increasingly more methane producers want to determine their merchandise as clear fuels by acquiring “gas certification” from third social gathering firms that monitor wells and different gasoline infrastructure for methane emissions. Nonetheless, gasoline certification is an unregulated trade and the monitoring methods that firms make use of routinely miss the methane they have been designed to detect.

“Certified gas is a greenwashing scam,” stated Dakota Raynes, a researcher with Earthworks who’s a co-author of the report. “There is not nearly enough evidence from the certifiers or the oil and gas industry itself that this gas is actually indeed [associated with] lower methane emissions.” Mission Canary, one of many main emissions monitoring firms providing low methane certification to grease and gasoline firms, contested the findings. It stated it was not certifying any of the websites included within the report and that the report “contains numerous inaccuracies and mischaracterizations.”

Gasoline certifications have wide-ranging implications that go far past the bragging rights of particular person gasoline producers, ICN says. Methane, the first part of pure gasoline, has a decrease local weather affect than coal or oil when burned, however additionally it is a potent greenhouse gasoline if it leaks or vents into the ambiance. Mission Canary and two different firms — Equitable Origin and MiQ — present certifications for practically 40% of all gasoline produced in the USA in accordance with the report, and utility firms that use it have begun charging ratepayers a premium for it.

Principle Vs Actuality

Arvind Ravikumar, co-director of the Vitality Emissions Modeling and Information Lab on the College of Texas at Austin, who was not concerned within the report, stated the continual screens employed by gasoline certification firms are “the holy grail” of methane emissions detection. He stated the units work nicely in managed settings, however cautioned that the expertise remains to be in its early levels of improvement and should not meet the identical efficiency requirements when deployed within the area.

The June report was based mostly on 81 surveys by Earthworks of 38 completely different oil and gasoline manufacturing websites the place gasoline certification firms had deployed steady monitoring tools. Utilizing a kind of thermal digicam referred to as optical gasoline imaging (OGI), Earthworks detected 23 air pollution occasions. They then filed public file requests with the state of Colorado to see if the identical air pollution occasions had been detected by the gasoline certification firms. Excluding one such occasion, the reply was no, the report stated. Twelve of the 23 emission occasions documented by Earthworks occurred at websites with Mission Canary screens, but just one was detected by Mission Canary. The environmental teams additionally famous that Mission Canary’s screens have been down, or inoperable, 26% of the time over an 11-month interval.

However firm officers stated “none of the sites referenced in the report were ever certified by Project Canary.” The corporate’s screens at these areas detected unstable natural compounds (VOCs). VOC detection is usually used as a proxy for methane detection as emissions from oil and gasoline wells usually comprise a mixture of every. Colorado state rules require oil and gasoline producers to watch new wells for “hydrocarbon emissions” throughout pre-production and early manufacturing levels of operation, however enable operators flexibility through which pollution they monitor. Mission Canary stated it detected 7 of the 12 emissions occasions, however below state legislation was solely required to report a type of occasions to regulators. The corporate conceded that three of the occasions Earthworks detected occurred at instances when its sensors required upkeep. Nonetheless, it stated one occasion occurred a month after the corporate eliminated its screens, provided that state rules require monitoring at new nicely websites solely throughout pre-production and the primary six months afterward.

Issues Concerning the OCI/Earthworks Report

Ravikumar famous issues each with the report and the emissions monitoring methods it scrutinized. “This is nowhere near a random sample,” he stated of the 38 websites that the environmental teams targeted on. A scientific examine revealed in a peer-reviewed journal would usually assess oil and gasoline amenities that have been chosen at random. “They chose sites that are more likely to have emissions. Not all sites are subject to those requirements. So by definition, they chose sites that are more likely to have emissions.”

Raynes responded that each one new oil and gasoline extraction websites in Colorado are topic to air high quality monitoring and reporting necessities below Regulation 7. Nonetheless, Earthworks and Oil Change Worldwide famous of their report that they prioritized surveys of oil and gasoline websites the place they will help communities in documenting issues or exposing doable compliance points. “At no point do we claim this is a random sample and it is impossible for us to have a priori knowledge of which sites are more likely to have emissions,” Raynes stated. “The assertion that we selectively chose sites more likely to have emissions is not accurate.”

Senators Get Concerned

A gaggle of seven Democratic senators led by Ed Markey of Massachusetts wrote to Federal Commerce Fee Chair Lina Khan in February, calling on the company to “investigate and crack down on unfair and deceptive environmental claims made by fossil fuel producers and gas certification programs. So-called third party ‘certified gas’ is one of the most prominent forms of deception. It’s the same old gas with a sparkly new label.” Citing the Earthworks and Oil Change Worldwide report, the senators famous that licensed gasoline harms shoppers who pay a better value for a commodity that might not be as clear as its producers declare.

“Utilities in Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, New Jersey, Michigan, Colorado, and Virginia have purchased or plan to purchase certified natural gas at premium rates and have received or sought approval to pass those costs — ranging from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year — onto consumers,” the letter famous. In a letter to Markey in Could, Khan stated the FTC is at present reviewing its “Green Guides” governing environmental advertising claims.

Ravikumar stated sensor efficiency wants to enhance for gasoline certifications to be efficient. “This will only work if certifications are trusted and stakeholders — that’s the public, the regulators and even the industry — believe that these certifications have value,” he stated. In any other case gasoline certifications lose that worth. That’s what has occurred with carbon offsets when initiatives that claimed to cut back emissions didn’t obtain their objectives. “We have to avoid the pitfalls of the carbon offset markets that we have seen where now this offset market is junk. It’s not worth anything because people don’t trust the offset numbers. What’s most important in certification is trust. Everything else comes after that.”

The Takeaway

It’s a “he said, she said” story. The trade says it’s doing a superb job of monitoring its methane emissions. Critics say it’s all a rip-off. It’s arduous to know the place the reality lies, however given the historical past of the fossil gas trade, the tie-breaker must be its lengthy historical past of lies, half truths, and deception. As Ronald Reagan may say, “Trust, but verify.”

It may also assist if one other arm of the fossil gas trade had not lately filed go well with to dam new EPA guidelines designed to eradicated most PFAS plastic air pollution from public ingesting water provides. Nothing embarrasses these clowns, and so it’s not stunning their pious protestations about how they’re working additional time to deal with methane air pollution ring hole in our ears. Belief the methane trade? Not on this lifetime.