*UPDATE II* Cornell Response to Cornell: ‘None of These Conclusions are Warranted’
We all know about the infamous (and universally panned) Cornell study from last year alleging high greenhouse gas emissions from shale development. But in case assessments by the U.S. Department of Energy, environmental groups, independent scientists, and even former state regulators weren’t enough to convince you that Howarth’s conclusions are fundamentally flawed, his own colleagues at Cornell are questioning Howarth's findings. Again.
UPDATE II (8/24/2012, 11:02am ET): The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory has released yet another report showing that natural gas has roughly half the GHG emissions as coal, yet another nail in the coffin for the Howarth paper that tried to claim the complete opposite. Platts has a great story (subs. required) describing NETL’s findings, but here’s a key excerpt:
The large resource base of natural gas in the US can be used for cost-effective power generation, with environmental burdens coming primarily from burning the gas rather than producing it, the Department of Energy said in a report Thursday.
The global warming potential of “fugitive” methane released during the life cycle of gas from extraction to combustion is half that of coal as measured over both 20-year and 100-year periods, the study said.
The findings contradict previous studies, including one by Cornell University researchers Anthony Ingraffea and Robert Howarth that said the methane leaked over gas’ life cycle has a larger carbon footprint than coal over a 20-year span.
UPDATE (7/11/2012, 10:11am ET): Professor Cathles has released a new paper describing the climate benefits of utilizing natural gas, a paper that adds yet another nail in the coffin to the universally panned Howarth paper from last year. From the Cathles paper’s opening summary:
We show that substitution of natural gas reduces global warming by 40% of that which could be attained by the substitution of zero carbon energy sources. At methane leakage rates that are 1% of production, which is similar to today’s probable leakage rate of 1.5% of production, the 40% benefit is realized as gas substitution occurs.
Cathles also directly rebuts Howarth’s central claim that methane leaks constitute as much as 7.9 percent of production. “It’s just an impossible number,” Cathles told Bloomberg News. He added that “the story is quite clear that we would be very well advised to substitute natural gas” for coal and oil.
Interestingly, Cathles also found that even if the leakage rate were more than twice as high as Howarth’s upper end estimate of 7.9%, converting to natural gas would still provide climate benefits. “[S]ubstituting gas will be beneficial if the leakage rate is less than ~19% of production,” Cathles concludes.
—Original post, March 1, 2012—
We all know about the infamous (and universally panned) Cornell study from last year alleging high greenhouse gas emissions from shale development. But in case assessments by the U.S. Department of Energy, environmental groups, independent scientists, and even former state regulators weren’t enough to convince you that Howarth’s conclusions are fundamentally flawed, his own colleagues at Cornell are questioning Howarth’s findings. Again.
Some quick history: Last April, Professor Robert Howarth et. al. released their paper on GHG emissions from shale wells. But a few months ago, Dr. Lawrence M. Cathles (professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University) and a team of other scientists responded to the paper by noting, among other things, that it relies on unrealistic assumptions of emissions and improper time intervals to determine warming potential. (Andrew Revkin at the New York Times had a good write-up on the Cathles response.) Shortly after, Howarth et. al. responded to the Cathles et. al. response, essentially just regurgitating their previous talking points, without offering substantive response to virtually any of the conclusions reached by Cathles and his team. And now (bear with us here), Cathles et. al. have responded to Howarth’s response to Cathles’s response to the original Howarth paper. Got it?
What does the Cathles team say about the findings in the Howarth paper? From the release: “Here we reiterate and substantiate our charges that none of these conclusions are warranted, especially in the light of new data and models.”
The latest response is worth reading in its entirety, but here’s a sampling of some of the most noteworthy conclusions:
Howarth Study Overestimates Leakage and Venting Rates
- “This spectacular increase in the possible leakage is achieved by inflating leakages in (1) distribution, transportation and storage, and (2) routine on site leakage categories. In the first case the basis given for the inflation is (a) a leakage in Russian pipelines that occurred during the breakup of the Soviet Union which is irrelevant to gas pipelines in the U.S., and (b) a debate on the accounting of gas in Texas pipelines that is mainly a concern over royalties and tax returns (Percival, 2010). Howarth et al. claim the industry is seeking to hide methane losses of more than 5% of the gas transmitted, but the proponents in the article state ‘We don’t think they’re really losing the gas, we just think they’re not paying for it‘.” (Cathles response, p. 2-3)
- Howarth et. al. relied on data from a GAO study that is, among other things, an outlier. “The GAO data may deserve careful examination, but to adopt it’s [sic] estimates as representative of vented gas without making clear the assumptions involved and its outlier status is to distort its significance at the very least.” And as Cathles et. al. further note, “It is this large increase in venting that allows them to make their controversial charge” about high GHG emissions. (Cathles response, p. 3)
- “Howarth et al.(2011) do not treat shale gas venting as suggested by the EPA(2010) technical support document; instead they tacitly assume without any justification, that all gas was vented (not 50% as suggested by the EPA, or 85% as has become common practice by many others).” (Cathles response, p. 4)
- “[W]e can find no reason to suspect that it is current industry practice to vent gas during these periods at the extreme rates and quantities Howarth et al. suggest, and we find obvious economic and safety reasons that this would not be industry practice.” (Cathles response, p. 4-5)
- “The fundamental error of both Howarth and the EPA is to assume that evidence of capture is evidence of venting. Documenting that a small group of students are honest (capture gas) is not evidence that everyone else cheats (vents gas). This error is compounded by their adoption of venting magnitudes that are far too high.” (Cathles response, p. 5)
- “Thus only 3% of the 1578 wells studied vented methane into the atmosphere, a figure very much less than Howarth et al.’s presumption that all unconventional wells are 100% vented during well completion and workover.” (Cathles response, p. 5)
Howarth Study Uses Wrong Time Frame for Measuring GWP
- “Howarth et al. (2012) use a 20 year Global Warming Potential (GWP) for comparing coal and shale gas because of the supposed urgency of cutting emissions immediately, although they did not clearly provide any such justification in their original paper.” (Cathles response, p. 6)
- “Howarth et al. raise a completely false conundrum with their claim that substituting natural gas for coal has no value because some yet unknown climatic tipping point may [be] reached sometime over the next 20 years or so.” (Cathles response, p. 7)
Howarth Study Makes Improper Fuel Comparisons
- “We therefore find completely puzzling Howarth et al.’s continued insistence on citing other uses of natural gas, such as cooking and home heating, as a justification for comparing natural gas and coal on a heat content rather than electricity generation basis. Society is unlikely to reverse course and install coal‐fired heating and cooking systems in residential, commercial, or industrial facilities. No other life cycle analysis of which we are aware makes this irrelevant and misleading comparison.” (Cathles response, p. 7)
- “We feel that it is simply misleading to continue to cite comparisons between gas and coal on the basis of heat.” (Cathles response, p. 8 )
Howarth Response Mischaracterizes Industry and Uses It as ‘Evidence’
- “Howarth et al. state ‘While visiting Cornell, a Shell engineer stated Shell never flares gas during well completion in its Pennsylvania Marcellus operations (Bill Langin, Pers. Comm.).’ This evidence is used to bolster their claim that large quantities of gas are vented during shale gas well completion. We checked with Shell and they provided the statement … which states that Howarth’s above statement is a missrepresentation of the conversation that actually took place. According to Langin and Shell, Langin was asked whether ‘Shell routinely flares during flowback’, to which he replied no, Shell usually puts flowback gases into the pipeline for sales.” (Cathles response, p. 8 )
*UPDATE* Cornell Veterinarians Go Into “Beast Mode” on Shale
When it comes to the issue of responsibly developing oil and natural gas resources from shale, we’ve seen a lot of wacky things come out of Ithaca, New York over the past couple years. So it was no surprise when a pair of veterinarians associated with Cornell wrote an article attacking shale development...
UPDATE (4/6/2012, 1:15pm ET): Some intrepid research by the EID team has uncovered a meaningful critique of the Bamberger-Oswald paper, and the source is no slouch: Dr. Ian Rae, a professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia and a Co-chair of the Chemicals Technical Options Committee for the United Nations Environment Programme, says the paper is “an advocacy piece” that suffers from poor referencing, and the authors themselves “cannot be regarded as experts” in the field in which they are commenting. Rae’s full comments about the paper can be found here, but we’ve excerpted the most significant items below:
- “It certainly does not qualify as a scientific paper but is, rather, an advocacy piece that does not involve deep…analysis of the data gathered to support its case.”
- “The data in Table 2 are incomplete in that no dates or places are provided, and no references to other commentary on the events it reports, so it’s hard to assess the weight of the evidence. Surely there were reports to or by regulatory agencies. It could be that this is old evidence and that note has been taken of the hazards and appropriate regulations put in place to mitigate them. We just don’t know.”
- “Contributions to the journal are said to be refereed, but the refereeing process evidently was not very stringent. For example, better refereeing would have forced the authors to provide the details I identified above as missing from their compilation. As well, it might also have curtailed some of the less-well supported statements and asked for more recent references to the scientific basis for expressions of concern that material dated to the 1960s and 1970s.”
- “As far as I can see, neither [Bamberger nor Oswald] has a track record of investigation in environmental studies. This does not mean they are wrong to sound a note of concern, but it does mean that they cannot be regarded as experts in the field with broad experience and attainments.”
- “I have not had time to read the articles in recent issues of the journal, but the titles show that they are advocacy pieces dealing with issues that are matters of concern, and for that reason are also extensively covered by other journals.”
—Original post from January 11, 2012—
When it comes to the issue of responsibly developing oil and natural gas resources from shale, we’ve seen a lot of wacky things come out of Ithaca, New York over the past couple years.
The primary recipient of millions of dollars every year of anti-shale advocacy provided by the Park Foundation (also based in Ithaca), Cornell University has become to anti-energy activists what “Linebacker U” was once to Penn State — with the debunked-ad-nauseum Howarth paper on shale emissions serving as the movement’s main playbook. Ithaca also happens to be the place from which outlets like the New York Times pull “data” on mineral leasing, notwithstanding the fact that no actual Marcellus development even takes place there.
So it was no surprise when a pair of veterinarians associated with Cornell wrote an article attacking shale development for its supposed link to animal health impacts. (One of the authors, Robert Oswald is a professor at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine; the other, Michelle Bamberger, received her doctorate from Cornell.)
Now, needless to say, we don’t have any bones to pick with veterinarians, and in fact the scientific research they provide on a daily basis is without question critical to us better understanding the natural world (plus, we love dogs). But the authors here did not produce a scientific assessment, a fact they freely admit in their article. Instead, Oswald and Bamberger chose to highlight a handful of personal testimonials that cannot be independently assessed or verified because they decided to keep all relevant details anonymous. Thus, we’re left with a 27-page unscientific article making bold assertions about oil and gas development, without a single shred of data or independent corroboration to back any of it up.
While the article contains many flaws, we’ve highlighted a few of the key problems below, all of which should raise serious doubts about the “scientific” nature of this particular article.
- Right off the bat, the paper leads with a philosophical quote from Sandra Steingraber, who has described hydraulic fracturing as “the tornado on the horizon” that will destroy people’s ability to do everything, from local gardening to even riding a bicycle (Orion Magazine, Sept./Oct. 2010). Ms. Steingraber has also called for an end to all fossil fuels to “avoid human calamity.” With respect to shale development, Ms. Steingraber has stated: “If we mitigate fracking to kill fewer people, we’re still killing people” (The Vindicator, Jan. 10, 2012).
- The authors assert that developing natural gas from shale is “moving forward without benefit of carefully controlled studies of its impact on public health” (p. 52). Aside from the fact that the authors readily admit in the paper that their own conclusions are not the result of controlled experiments, their claim is simply not true. For example, a study from earlier this year by the city of Fort Worth, TX, concluded there were “no significant health risks” from nearby shale development (July 2011).
- A separate scientific assessment of the Barnett Shale in north Texas concluded: “[E]ven as natural gas development expanded significantly in the area over the past several years, key indicators of health improved across every major category during those times” (Oct. 19, 2011). The Barnett Shale is one of the most productive shale fields in the United States, with more than 15,000 producing wells.
- Instead of seeking out the answer to a legitimate question – what, if any, are the health impacts of developing natural gas from shale? – the authors simply accuse the industry of taking a position “similar to the tobacco industry that for many years rejected the link between smoking and cancer” (p. 52). The report goes on to suggest that “epidemiologic studies [that] linked smoking to human health impacts…could be used to assess the health impacts of gas drilling operations on human beings” (p. 53). It seems the authors have already made up their minds.
- The authors clearly admit that the study is not sound science: “This study is not an epidemiologic analysis of the health effects of gas drilling, which could proceed to some extent without knowledge of the details of the complex mixtures of toxicants involved. It is also not a study of the health impacts of specific chemical exposures related to gas drilling” (p. 53).
- Later in the article the authors further concede: “By the standards of a controlled experiment, this is an imperfect study, as one variable could not be changed while holding all others constant” (p. 55). Instead, the article is merely a compilation of unsourced and unverifiable case studies.
- The report conceals names and locations, which means independent review of the claims and parties involved cannot be completed; statements from the researchers about their findings are simply asserted as fact. Ironically, much of the paper is committed to critiquing the industry for not disclosing enough information to independently verify data.
- Despite its lack of scientific bent, the authors nonetheless conclude definitively that their assessment “strongly implicates exposure to gas drilling operations in serious health effects on humans, companion animals, livestock, horses, and wildlife.” They go further and, without any scientific evidence, state that “a ban on shale gas drilling is essential for the protection of public health” (p. 72).
Calling for a ban on responsible oil and gas development without any scientific basis? Wait, we’ve heard this one before…
Again, those interested in the supposed health impacts of developing natural gas from shale should reference this assessment from October, in which two public health professionals studied conditions in the Barnett shale region of north Texas. Their conclusion? Even though the area has been one of the highest gas producing regions of the country, “key indicators of health improved across every major category.” That followed a study from last summer for the city of Fort Worth which “did not reveal any significant health threats” from shale development.
