Shale Sustainable
General
Shale Sustainable---Predictive
Fracking is sustainable and has been improving - statistics
Lundin ’14 (Barbara, is the Editor of FierceMarkets' Energy Group, “Marcellus and Utica shale gas
production continues to grow”, July 1, 2014, http://www.fierceenergy.com/story/marcellus-and-uticashale-gas-production-continues-grow/2014-07-01, Accessed: 7/7, SD)
International has released its second quarter 2014 Detailed Production Report, providing an outlook
for U.S. and Canada natural gas, natural gas liquids and oil production through 2035.¶ ICF predicts that
gas production for the Marcellus and Utica Shale will grow to 34 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day by
2035, compared to 25 Bcf per day projected in the first quarter 2014. Utica wells are "more gassy" than initially expected, therefore ICF
expects gas production growth from the Utica wells to be much greater.¶ Improvements in drilling and
hydraulic fracturing technology continue to increase estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) per well, according to ICF. Recent well
statistics reported by producers suggest that newer wells have longer horizontal laterals and more
fracture stages. However, ICF expects gas EUR in Marcellus to average 6.2 Bcf per well compared to 5.2 Bcf per well in the last quarter,
and the gas EUR in Utica to average 3.3 Bcf per well compared to 2.5 Bcf per well in the last quarter.¶ Resource recovery is expected
to be higher than previously projected with current inter-lateral distance ranges between 1,000 and
1,500 feet, but new pilot tests show 500 to 750 feet between laterals.¶ ICF experts also project more
well completions because of improvements in the number of wells drilled per rig. The number of gas
well completions is expected to average about 2,050 wells per year in Marcellus compared to 1,750
wells per year in the last quarter, and 500 wells per year in Utica compared to 395 wells per year last
quarter.
ICF
Shale gas sustainable - there are enough resources to supply more than a century of
consumption
Reuter ’10 (“Shale gas could supply 100 years of consumption”, Mar 10, 2010, Shale gas could supply
100 years of consumption, http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/03/10/us-ceraweek-shale-gasidUSTRE62940520100310, Accessed: 7/7, SD)
natural gas shale boom in North America has more than doubled discovered gas resources
and can supply more than a century of consumption at current rates, an IHS CERA study released Wednesday said.¶
"As recently at 2007 it was widely thought that natural gas was in tight supply and the U.S. was going to
become an importer of gas," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS CERA. "But this outlook has been turned on its head by the shale
gale."¶ Shale gas is not new, but technology like hydraulic fracturing to release it from thick rock far
underground has vastly improved producers' ability to tap it. Production involves injecting water and sand under high
pressure into the rock to fracture it to release the gas.¶ The IHS CERA study said growth in power demand in the next
20 years will likely cause natural gas demand to double its current level of 19 billion cubic feet per day
by 2030.¶ Gas-fired power generation produces half the carbon emissions of coal-fired generation, which makes gas a more attractive
environmental choice as well, the study said.¶ But a limited pool of spare gas-fired capacity would prevent wholesale
fuel switching, the study said.¶ Also, such switching won't reach targets of reducing emissions by 80 percent by
2050, the study said. That would require more non-carbon emitting sources, such as nuclear and renewables, as well as carbon capture and
(Reuters) - The
storage, or injecting and storing carbon emissions underground.¶ The study said uncertainties about shale gas include stringency of future
carbon legislation and viability of carbon capture and storage technology.¶ Tom Walters, president of Exxon Mobil Corp's gas and power
marketing company, said during a panel discussion that
shale gas's future success depends on policies that promote
and support its development.¶ Concerns about how hydraulic fracturing might affect underground
water tables has prompted Congress to consider increased regulation.
Shale production remains high – prices constant for next two decades
Malik 6-26 (Naureen S., is a business journalist at WSJ, “Goldman Says Shale Gas Boom Driving Fear
From Market”, Bloomberg, June 26th, 2014, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-25/goldmansays-shale-gas-boom-driving-fear-from-market.html, Accessed: 7/2, SD)
Rising U.S. shale gas production is driving fear out of the futures market, says Goldman Sachs Group
Inc., and will constrain prices for the next two decades.¶ Gone will be the near tripling of costs to
$15.78 as in 2005 as traders remain confident the fuel will be there when needed. Natural gas will trade
“largely” at $4 to $5 per million British thermal units for the next 20 years, says Goldman Sachs. Societe
Generale SA sees prices at $5 through 2019. Bank of America Corp. forecasts $5.50 for 2017, while BlackRock Inc.
projects $4 to $5 for the next decade.¶ Prices were four times more volatile in 2009 than they are today
as production grows for the ninth straight year and new pipelines deliver the fuel to customers. Gas for
use next winter costs 3.2 percent more than now, the smallest premium for the peak-demand period since 2000. Stockpiles
will start the heating season at the lowest levels since 2008.¶ “The market is rightfully not that worried because you have
so much supply that is coming online,” Jeffrey Currie, head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs in New York, said in a June
23 telephone interview. “We have enough flexibility in the supply system.”¶
Shale is expected to provide for more than a third of supplies - tech and rising costs of
other fossil fuels
Scott ’14 (Mark, is a European Tech Correspondent at The New York Times, “Scouring the World for
Shale-Based Energy: Shale Investments Could Reshape Global Market”, New York Times, June 17th, 2014,
European Tech Correspondent at The New York Times, Accessed: 7/4, SD)
The size of the potential reserves has spurred a burgeoning of industries in countries that traditionally
have not had local energy sectors. Domestic energy booms also have allowed some countries, including
the United States, to steadily reduce their reliance on high-priced energy imports.¶ The importance of
shale is expected to grow as emerging markets bounce back from the global financial crisis and as
accelerating economic growth pushes up demand for energy, including fossil fuels. Growing middle
classes in countries like Brazil and India are starting to buy more luxury goods like cars and high-end
smartphones. And despite the rise of renewables like wind- and solar-power, oil, gas and coal are still
expected to represent the lion’s share of worldwide energy consumption for the foreseeable future.
Global demand for gas, for example, is expected to jump more than 50 percent over the next 20 years,
according to the International Energy Agency, an intergovernmental policy-coordinating and advisory
body based in Paris.¶ Amid this rising consumption, shale is expected to provide more than a third of
global supplies over the same period, up from around 15 percent last year. “The golden age of gas
remains in full swing,” Maria van der Hoeven, the Paris-based agency’s executive director, said in a
statement recently. “Gas is already a major fuel in power generation, but the next five years will also see
it emerging as a significant transportation fuel.Ӧ The rising importance of shale oil and gas comes as the
industry in the United States, which began almost 20 years ago and is now the largest producer of
unconventional energy, has gone mainstream. Early trials of fracking, in which highly pressurized liquids
are pumped deep underground to crack open oil- and gas-bearing rocks, proved economically unviable.
But improvements in the technology and rising domestic costs of other fossil fuels have transformed the
American oil and gas industry.¶ With billions of dollars of investment from major players like Exxon
Mobil and smaller energy companies, shale gas now represents roughly 40 percent of America’s total
natural gas production, compared to less than 5 percent of China’s overall gas production, according to
the American energy data agency.¶ “International shale development could have an enormous economic
impact like it has had in the U.S.,” said Chris Lewis of the consulting firm Ernst & Young in London.
Reserves
Shale Sustainable---Reserves
Reserves aren’t depleted - prices will self-correct and prevent production collapse
Knowledge@Wharton ’12 (“The Once and Future U.S. Shale Gas Revolution”, August 29, 2012,
http://publicpolicy.wharton.upenn.edu/2012/08/29/the-once-and-future-u-s-shale-gas-revolution/,
Accessed: 7/8, SD)
Still, the
recent shale gas boom is far from over, and a full realization of the U.S. shale gas revolution is yet
to come, say experts. For starters, the U.S. has significantly more resources to recover. “The U.S. has a long
way to go before it depletes shale gas,” says Brandon Beard, KPMG’s managing director for U.S. energy transactions and
restructuring. “It will take 10 to 20 years to play through.” Moreover, as new demand for gas develops, gas
prices will recover and buck up the industry. “The glut of gas is somewhat temporary,” states Noam Lior, a
Penn mechanical engineering and applied mechanics professor who is also on the graduate faculty of Penn/Wharton’s Lauder Institute. “As
long as oil prices are holding above $100 a barrel or so, gas will be very competitive.” Jonathan Banks,
senior climate policy advisor at the Clean Air Task Force in Boston, agrees. “Nothing cures low prices like
low prices,” he says. Spurred by these low prices, demand from electric utilities, chemical manufacturers, natural
gas vehicles and overseas markets will restore health to the shale gas industry, and relatively low natural
gas energy prices could help buoy the U.S. economy, experts predict. “It’s a game changer,” notes A.J. Scamuffa, U.S.
chemicals leader at PwC in Philadelphia.¶ In the short term, the biggest increase in demand for natural gas comes from power generation, says
KPMG’s Beard. So many utilities have switched from coal to cheaper natural gas that U.S. carbon emissions in the first four months of this year
fell to their lowest level in two decades, according to the EIA. Coal now powers only 34% of U.S. electricity, down from half in 2005, the EIA
reported. In one of the largest announced coal-fired generator closures, the Tennessee Valley Authority said last year it would shutter 18
generators at three plants by 2020 to help settle a Clean Air Act complaint from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It plans to replace
those generators with ones powered by natural gas and biomass. In August, the TVA dedicated its fifth and largest gas powered plant, the 986megawatt Magnolia plant near Ashland, Miss.
High production of shale will continue - our evidence assumes all their warrants
Morse ’14 (Edward, is an American energy economist, “Welcome to the Revolution: Why Shale Is the
Next Shale”, CFR, May/June 2014, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141202/edward-lmorse/welcome-to-the-revolution, Accessed: 7/8, SD)
Skeptics point to three problems that could lead the fruits of the revolution to be left to wither on the
vine: environmental regulation, declining rates of production, and drilling economics. But none is likely
to be catastrophic.¶ Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” -- the process of injecting sand, water, and chemicals into shale rocks to crack
them open and release the hydrocarbons trapped inside -- poses potential environmental risks, such as the draining or polluting of
underground aquifers, the spurring of seismic activity, and the spilling of waste products during their aboveground transport. All these
risks can be mitigated, and they are in fact being addressed in the industry’s evolving set of best
practices. But that message needs to be delivered more clearly, and best practices need to be implemented across the board, in order to
head off local bans or restrictive regulation that would slow the revolution’s spread or minimize its impact.¶ As for declining rates of
production, fracking creates a surge in production at the beginning of a well’s operation and a rapid
drop later on, and critics argue that this means that the revolution’s purported gains will be illusory. But
there are two good reasons to think that high production will continue for decades rather than years.
First, the accumulation of fracked wells with a long tail of production is building up a durable base of
flows that will continue over time, and second, the economics of drilling work in favor of drilling at a
high and sustained rate of production.¶ Finally, some criticize the economics of fracking, but these
concerns have been exaggerated. It is true that through 2013, the upstream sector of the U.S. oil and gas industry
has been massively cash-flow negative. In 2012, for example, the industry spent about $60 billion more than it
earned, and some analysts believe that such trends will continue. But the costs were driven by the need to
acquire land for exploration and to pursue unproductive drilling in order to hold the acreage. Now that
the land-grab days are almost over, the industry’s cash flow should be increasingly positive. It is also true
that traditional finding and development costs indicate that natural gas prices need to be above $4 per thousand cubic feet and oil prices above
$70 per barrel for the economics of drilling to work -- which suggests that abundant production might drive prices down below what is
But as demand grows for natural gas -- for industry, residential and commercial space heating, the export market,
prices should rise to a level that can sustain increased drilling: the $5–$6
range, which is about where prices were this past winter. Efficiency gains stemming from new technology, meanwhile, are
driving down break-even drilling costs. In the oil sector, most drilling now brings an adequate return on investment at prices
profitable.
power generation, and transportation --
below $50 per barrel, and within a few years, that level could be under $40 per barrel.
Shale reserves are huge - Berman concedes Texas study is the most comprehensive on
the question
WSJ ’13 (“Gas Boom Projected to Grow for Decades”, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 27, 2013,
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323293704578330700203397128, Accessed:
7/8, SD)
U.S. natural-gas production will accelerate over the next three decades, new research indicates,
providing the strongest evidence yet that the energy boom remaking America will last for a generation.¶ The
most exhaustive study to date of a key natural-gas field in Texas, combined with related research under
way elsewhere, shows that U.S. shale-rock formations will provide a growing source of moderately
priced natural gas through 2040, and decline only slowly after that. A report on the Texas field, to be released Thursday,
was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.¶ The research provides substantial evidence that there are large quantities
of gas available that can be drilled profitably at a market price of $4 per million British thermal units, a relatively small increase
from the current price of about $3.43.¶ The study, funded by the nonpartisan Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and performed by the University of
Texas, examined 15,000 wells drilled in the Barnett Shale formation in northern Texas, mostly over the
past decade. It is among the first to study the geology and economics of shale drilling, a relatively recent
development made possible by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which a mixture of water, sand and chemicals is pumped at high pressure
the study broadly
confirms conclusions by the energy industry and the U.S. government, which in December forecast rising
gas production.¶ "We are looking at multi, multi decades of growth," said Scott Tinker, director of the Bureau of
Economic Geology at the university and a leader of the study.¶ The shale-gas boom has led to a reorientation of the U.S.
energy economy. This has led to a steep decline in coal consumption for electric generation and prompted companies to announce or
into rocks to release gas.¶ Looking at data from actual wells rather than relying on estimates and extrapolations,
consider multibillion-dollar investments to export gas and build chemical, steel and fertilizer plants that will consume enormous quantities of
gas.¶ If these investments go forward, but gas production were to slip, higher prices for the fuel—which now accounts for 30% of electricity
production and heats half of U.S. homes—are likely.¶ Art Berman,
a petroleum geologist and consultant who has been a
leading critic of what he says are overly optimistic projections of shale-gas production, said the research
"is probably the most comprehensive study of the Barnett shale that will ever be done." But he said it
bolsters his view that only a quarter of Barnett wells generate an economic return. The question for the industry, he said, is, "why didn't they
identify the sweet spots initially, before spending $40 billion on land and wells?"¶ The study does show that many of the wells drilled in the
Barnett have been poor performers. And while the gas-bearing rock covers 8,000 square miles in and around Fort Worth, Texas, the study
suggests it can be economically developed in an area only half that size. Some of the energy companies that spent enormous sums to lease
thousands of acres in far-flung parts of the Barnett may be sitting on acreage of little value.¶ Mr. Tinker agrees that the study shows the Barnett
is highly variable, with some areas producing enough gas to make the wells profitable and other areas generating duds. ¶ Even so, the
study
concludes that 44 trillion cubic feet of natural gas will be recovered from the Barnett—more than three
times what has been produced so far and about two years' worth of U.S. consumption at current rates.¶
The university also is examining shale formations in Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Arkansas, work that has led investigators to conclude that U.S.
natural gas production won't plateau until 2040. Reports on these formations are expected to be released next year.¶ A drilling
rig is seen
near Kennedy, Texas, in May. U.S. natural-gas production will accelerate over the next three decades,
new research indicates. Associated Press¶ One reason there has been a dispute over projections of shale-gas production is that much
of the research, even inside universities, has been funded by groups with either pro- or anti- energy-development agendas. Many of the latter
have strong views about the environmental impact of fracking on the air and groundwater.¶ The Sloan Foundation said it looked into whether
the researchers who performed the new study were unduly influenced by outside ties and was satisfied that "potential conflicts of interest or
sources of bias have not influenced the research."¶ The co-lead investigator of the study, Mr. Tinker, is paid to serve on the technical advisory
boards of BP BP.LN -0.58% PLC and two smaller energy companies. He also receives speaking fees a few times a year for appearances before
industry groups and private companies.¶ The Bureau of Economic Geology receives research funding from government, industry and the
University of Texas. The other lead investigator, Svetlana Ikonnikova, didn't disclose any potential conflicts to the university.¶ Scott Anderson,
who researches shale development for the Environmental Defense Fund, which is working on lowering the environmental impact of gas drilling,
U.S. energy industry
welcomed the conclusion that a large number of successful gas wells remain to be drilled. The American
Petroleum Institute, the lobbying arm of large U.S. oil and gas companies, said in a statement that the study "underscores the fact
that the U.S. has substantial and growing natural gas resources that will be able to supply future
domestic markets and provide exports as well."
reviewed some of the study's preliminary results. He praised the report as "robust" and "sophisticated."¶ The
Our evidence assumes skeptics - there are still many shale gas prospects that haven’t
been drilled
Kemp ’13 (John, is a Senior Market Analyst at Reuters, “Skeptics are wrong to bet against shale
expansion”, Reuters, Oct 17, 2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/17/shaleidUSL6N0I72FD20131017?feedType=RSS&feedName=everything&virtualBrandChannel=11563,
Accessed: 7/8, SD)
Oct 17 (Reuters) - Skeptics
are too quick to dismiss the potential expansion of horizontal drilling and hydraulic
fracturing to other shale areas in the United States and around the world.¶ Based on early setbacks and the slow rate of
progress outside Bakken and Eagle Ford, they doubt whether the revolution can be replicated. But shale
entrepreneurs are investing heavily to prove them wrong.¶ So far, the North American shale revolution
has been confined to two states, Texas and North Dakota, at least as far as oil is concerned.¶ U.S. crude output has
jumped by 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) since 2008, the biggest five-year increase since 1970 and the fastest two-year increase in history
(Chart 1).¶ But Texas, where production is up 1.469 million bpd, and North Dakota, where production has risen 671,000 bpd, account for
virtually all the increase (Chart 2).¶ Other states including Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and Kansas have achieved
marginal production increases totalling 400,000 bpd, but the rise has been offset by falling output from California, Alaska and offshore fields in
the Gulf of Mexico (Chart 3).¶ The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
has identified 22 potential shale oil and gas
prospects, known as plays, across the continental United States, but so far all the increase in oil production has come
from just three: the Bakken in North Dakota, and the Permian and Eagle Ford in Texas .¶ Substantial amounts of gas are being
produced from a number of other formations, including the Barnett in Texas and the Marcellus in the
U.S. Northeast, but oil production remains confined to fairly small areas of south and west Texas as well as North Dakota. ¶ No
significant quantities of either oil or gas have been produced from shale anywhere outside the United States.
Small-scale drilling programmes in Poland and China have proved disappointing. Only a handful of exploratory wells have been
drilled in the UK, Argentina and other countries identified as having potentially substantial shale
resources by the EIA.¶ Shale sceptics question whether the regulatory and geological conditions which underpinned successful
production in the Bakken, Permian and Eagle Ford areas are replicated elsewhere. If those conditions are unusual, they say it may be hard to
transfer the revolution to other parts of the United States, let alone internationally. ¶ Drilling in other parts of the United States has yielded very
low flow rates for crude and liquids, adding to the pessimism, and causing major companies like Shell as well as niche shale specialists like
Chesapeake and SandRidge to scale back their drilling programmes in more speculative frontier areas. ¶ Despite the disappointing results
outside Texas and North Dakota, sceptics may be being too quick to write off the potential for new Bakken, Permian and Eagle Ford-sized plays
elsewhere in the United States and internationally.¶ Shale plays are enormously variable. The term "shale" is applied to a wide range of
different rock types that differ in terms of porosity, organic content, thermal maturity, formation thickness, buried depth, the pressure on
them, and susceptibility to fracturing.¶
Fracturing operations must be tailored to the specific play to optimise flow
rates. The length of the horizontal wells, the number of fracturing stages, the amount of pressure applied, the chemicals used in the fracking
fluid, and the spacing of the wells must all be customised.¶ Some lessons learned in one shale play can be applied in others. But in practice
much of the know-how can only be achieved through experience operating in the specific play, "learning by doing ".¶
In most instances,
dozens or even hundreds of wells need to be drilled to acquire the necessary experience and prove the
potential of the play.
Costs
Shale Sustainable---Costs
Costs for production steadily declining - shale gas is sustainable
Morse ’14 (Edward, is an American energy economist, “Welcome to the Revolution: Why Shale Is the
Next Shale”, CFR, May/June 2014, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141202/edward-lmorse/welcome-to-the-revolution, Accessed: 7/8, SD)
What is unfolding in reaction is nothing less than a paradigm shift in thinking about hydrocarbons. A decade ago, there was a near-global
consensus that U.S. (and, for that matter, non-OPEC) production was in inexorable decline. Today, most serious analysts are confident that it
will continue to grow. The growth is occurring, to boot, at a time when U.S. oil consumption is falling. (Forget peak oil production; given a
combination of efficiency gains, environmental concerns, and substitution by natural gas, what is foreseeable is peak oil demand.) And to cap
things off, the
costs of finding and producing oil and gas in shale and tight rock formations are steadily going
down and will drop even more in the years to come.¶ The evidence from what has been happening is
now overwhelming. Efficiency gains in the shale sector have been large and accelerating and are now
hovering at around 25 percent per year, meaning that increases in capital expenditures are triggering
even more potential production growth. It is clear that vast amounts of hydrocarbons have migrated from their original source
rock and become trapped in shale and tight rock, and the extent of these rock formations, like the extent of the original source rock, is
enormous -- containing resources far in excess of total global conventional proven oil reserves, which are 1.5 trillion barrels. And there
are
already signs that the technology involved in extracting these resources is transferable outside the United
States, so that its international spread is inevitable.¶ In short, it now looks as though the first few decades of the twentyfirst century will see an extension of the trend that has persisted for the past few millennia: the
availability of plentiful energy at ever-lower cost and with ever-greater efficiency, enabling major advances in
global economic growth.
Decline Rates
Shale Sustainable---Decline Rates
Decline rates are not important - market eventually fixes them
Patrick 7-5 (Jim, is a publisher at The Energy Collective, “The Energy Report: In light of the conflict in
Ukraine and Iraq, is U.S. energy independence more important than ever?”, Energy Collective, July 5th,
2014, http://theenergycollective.com/streetwiser/417816/energy-independence-financial-fact-orpolitical-fiction, Accessed: 7/6, SD)
Energy self-sufficiency is a political issue, not an economic one. There is no particular
advantage to being energy "independent." Yes, it is important to have enough production capacity to sustain our economy in
the event of a global or trade war, but that's also true for many other products, such as food. What really matters for the wealth
of our country and for our standard of living is that we maximize our competitive advantage in trade
with other countries. If there are other places that can produce energy more efficiently (and thus, more
cheaply) than we can produce it here, then we should maximize that advantage through trade.¶ Going
forward, I believe the U.S. will be the clear leader in producing, refining and transporting natural gas
around the world. We have the world's largest natural gas pipeline system and the world's largest
functional reserves of natural gas. Given this comparative advantage, we should seek to maximize gas production
by gaining access to world markets. That is happening with the huge, ongoing liquefied natural gas (LNG) build-out, and that is
Porter Stansberry:
why Targa Resources Corp. (TRGP:NYSE), a stock I pitched not too long ago, has done so incredibly well. ¶ Given that we consume around 18
it will be years
before we will become energy independent in terms of oil. On the other hand, if you count coal exports, you could argue
million barrels per day (18 MMbbl/d) of crude oil in the U.S., and our domestic production is only around 8 MMbbl/d,
that we are already energy independent. In any case, even though we don't yet produce enough crude oil to meet all of our domestic
consumption needs, I do think you'll soon see the U.S. begin to lift restrictions on crude oil exports. And I think that's a very important move for
us to make.¶ "Decline
rates are a concern, but we have 15 or 20 years of drilling left in the shale fields, so
we don't have to worry about that. We just need to get out of the way of the people and the
technology, and let the markets dictate how fast they can drill it." —Cactus Schroeder¶ Why would I want to see us
exporting crude if we're not making enough to satisfy our own demand for crude? Again, you have to understand how wealth is built through
trade, and the idea of competitive advantage. We can't use all of the light sweet crude we're currently producing in Texas because we don't
have the right kind of refineries. It would be far better for our country to sell oil to the highest global bidder than to consume it in less optimal
ways. The higher profits could be reinvested in more production and new refineries here in the U.S.
Tech
Shale Sustainable---Tech
New tech means industry will stay strong over the next couple of decades
Davis 7-3 (Austin, is staff writer at Alternative Energy Power, “The Financial Shale Gas Revolution”, July
3, 2014, http://www.alternativepowernews.com/the-financial-shale-gas-revolution/, Accessed: 7/8, SD)
Shale gas is a hugely popular development in the world of alternative energy. The natural gas is found
within shale rocks. These rocks have very low levels of permeability, which means it can be difficult and
costly to extract the gases from them. It is because of this that it is known as an “unconventional” gas. The most popular way of
extracting shale gas is through a process known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking.¶ Though the basic principles of shale gas formation are fairly
well understood, generation of the gas within individual shales may differ significantly. Better knowledge is needed e.g. on basin modeling,
the
production of gas through fossil fuels is now becoming increasingly difficult, a true shale gas revolution
has started in our country, not in the least because of the fantastic financial possibilities this offers.¶ The Financial Side of Shale Gas¶
As stated, extracting shale gas is a complicated and complex process. As a result, an entire new industry is starting to develop
in order to extract these gases safely. This means new technology has to be developed as well. The
development of technology and fracking itself is swiftly becoming a multi-million dollar industry.¶ The US
shale gas revolution will offer considerable low risk investment opportunities over the coming two
decades. [...] There’s going to be a lot of winners we expect from the shale revolution. But the most obvious
petrophysical characterization, or gas flow in shales for an improved understanding of unconventional reservoirs.¶ Because
one to us is the amount of energy infrastructure that will need to be spent. [...] Thanks to high demand, relaxed regulations, plentiful reserves
and permission-to-drill waiting periods of less than two weeks, there are copious incentives for investors at every stage of the supply chain.
Infrastructure is the least risky link in this chain.
Indicts
AT: Berman
Throw out your Berman cards - he is an unqualified expert who has been rejected
Klump and Polson ’09 (Edward, is a reporter for Bloomberg News in Houston, Jim, is an energy
reporter for Bloomberg News, “Shale-Gas Skeptic’s Supply Doubts Draw Wrath of Devon”, Bloomberg,
November 17, 2009, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=asEUlpJcuZB4,
Accessed: 7/8, SD)
Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Arthur
Berman runs a one-man energy consulting firm out of his home near Houston, producing research
that says forecasts for natural-gas production in the U.S. are flawed. He’s won the industry’s attention and
its anger.¶ Since last month, Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Devon Energy Corp., two of the five largest gas producers in the
U.S., attacked Berman’s claims. Berman, 59, had his monthly column pulled from the November issue of
World Oil after gas companies complained, prompting him to quit the trade journal.¶ Oil geologist Berman, who
worked two decades for Amoco Corp., says company production projections for so-called shale gas in the U.S. are at least double what drill
results justify. At issue are the rates of production decline in shale wells, where water, sand and other materials are injected to fracture rock
and make gas flow.¶ “I think that the wells decline at a much higher rate than the operators think they do,” Berman said in an interview in
Houston. “They’re being overly optimistic.”¶ Companies
such as Chesapeake, which had climbed 55 percent this year before today
in New York stock trading, say their shale wells will produce for four or more decades. In an Oct. 12 speech at a conference
in Denver, Berman said data he’s seen filed with the Texas Railroad Commission suggests the life of shale-gas wells is 10 to 20 years.¶
Credentials Challenged¶ “There’s a huge vested interest in the status quo because if these wells do not work, there’s going to be hell to pay,”
said John E. Olson, who manages $50 million at Houston Energy Partners. Olson left his analyst job at Merrill Lynch & Co. in 1998, after being
told he was too critical of Enron Corp., which collapsed in 2001.¶ Chesapeake fell 84 cents, or 3.3 percent, to $24.30 today on the New York
Stock Exchange. Devon dropped 37 cents to $70.62.¶
Questions about Berman’s research were so frequent that
investment bank Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. in Houston put out an e-mail to clients rejecting claims by shale
skeptics, said Dave Pursell, a managing director at the firm.¶ “If you read his stuff, he’s basically said there’s fraud being committed by Wall
Street, E&P companies and reserve engineers all in collusion,” Pursell said. “When you start calling companies out by name and you start
insinuating and implying very strongly that there’s a degree of fraud going on, you get our attention.” ¶ Berman said he’s not alleging fraud;
rather, he disagrees with how producers are interpreting well data.¶ ‘Game Changer’¶ Berman
doesn’t have the experience in
unconventional gas projects to validate his assertions, Pursell said. U.S. shale-gas output will climb to
about 22 billion cubic feet a day at the end of 2013 from 8 billion at the end of last year, Tudor Pickering
said in August.¶ If exploited properly, shale formations will be a “game changer” to boost U.S. energy supplies and help cut carbon
emissions, said Porter Bennett, chief executive officer at consulting firm Bentek Energy LLC near Denver. ¶ “There’s a preponderance of
evidence that suggests that those shale plays are very real,” Bennett said in an interview.¶ David Hager, exploration chief at Oklahoma Citybased Devon, took on Berman’s claims with an Oct. 19 op-ed piece in the Oklahoman newspaper. Hager likened shale-gas development to a
home run to win the World Series and said Berman “is in the stands speculating on whether the slugger is on steroids.” ¶ Chesapeake, also
based in Oklahoma City, ignored Berman’s arguments until it learned of speeches the geologist gave calling shale production a speculative
bubble, Chief Operating Officer Steve Dixon said in a telephone interview.¶ Chesapeake Responds¶ “He
called us out,” said Dixon,
who devoted part of Chesapeake’s analyst and investor meeting in New York on Oct. 14 to rebutting
Berman. “He left me no choice.”
Berman is wrong and has financial motives - multiple execs and industry performance
prove him wrong
Parkinson ’12 (David, is an editor for the Globe and Mail, “Meet the man the shale gas industry
hates”, Apr. 17 2012, The Globe and Mail, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globeinvestor/investment-ideas/meet-the-man-the-shale-gas-industry-hates/article4100942/, Accessed: 7/8,
SD)
But to
some of the biggest natural gas producers in the United States, Mr. Berman is the kind of “friend” who
keeps tattling to your mom. The 34-year industry veteran, who operates a modest one-man consulting and research business from
has risen from obscurity to media prominence because he has spent the past five years
raising doubts about the shale gas business – even in the face of an unprecedented boom that has seen
production increase roughly five-fold, from a mere blip in U.S. supplies to now roughly one-quarter of
total natural gas production.¶ Mr. Berman’s analyses of drilling and financial data tell him there’s less economically recoverable gas in
his Texas home,
the shale deposits than others have been saying, that production rates decline more rapidly than anticipated, and that natural gas prices would
need to more than triple to make most shale production profitable.¶ While his stance has made him popular among opponents of shale
development as well as the media, it has drawn venom from pro-shale forces.
Executives at shale-gas giants Chesapeake
Energy Corp. and Devon Energy Corp. have disputed the validity of his research. Energy websites and
pro-shale bloggers have called him everything from an under-qualified crackpot to an egotistical
attention seeker to a fraudster.¶ “They feel that the message that I give makes their investors feel uncomfortable,” he said. “They
hate that I actually dig into the data more deeply than a research analyst for an investment bank.Ӧ Chesapeake took a swipe at Mr.
Berman even as it declined comment for this article. Company spokesman Jim Gipson said chief operating officer Steven Dixon, who has
publicly criticized Mr. Berman before, was too busy “working on things that actually matter.”¶ Yet, Chesapeake still has on its
website a scathing attack against Mr. Berman that Chesapeake posted in mid-2011, shortly after a controversial New York Times story on shale
gas was published. The posting, written by business-ethics commentator Jon Entine and originally published on Internet news site Real Clear
Politics, went well beyond the science of Mr. Berman’s views, questioning his motives and even his professional ethics. ¶ “Berman
has
direct and indirect financial ties to a range of critics of shale gas,” the posting said. “Did Berman tell his strategic
partners and clients [in advance about the Times article] and directly profit from the Times story?” ¶ “That was a sobering experience,” Mr.
Berman said. “I realized that these organizations and their professional writers had escalated this to another level … Suddenly, I’m unpatriotic,
I’m opposed to jobs, I’m a disreputable person who’s possibly being investigated for insider trading, shorting stock – I wouldn’t even know how
Chesapeake went after Mr. Berman again last month, after Rolling Stone
magazine quoted him in an article highly critical of shale gas plays and of Chesapeake specifically. In a
to short a stock if I wanted to!Ӧ
formal rebuttal to the article, Chesapeake took aim at Mr. Berman’s forecasting abilities, specifically in the Haynesville play in the southern U.S.
– an area that Mr. Berman once doubted could ever become commercially viable.¶ “In March 2011, the Haynesville
became the top
producing natural gas field in the U.S., and now stands among the top 10 producing fields in the entire
world,” Chesapeake said. “For years, Mr. Berman has been underestimating natural gas reserves and the
promise presented by the industry.Ӧ To many of his critics, this is where the most damning evidence against
Mr. Berman’s arguments lies: in the performance of the major shale plays themselves. They point out that
Mr. Berman has already been forced to change his tune on the commercial viability of shale, and argue
that his warnings look less relevant with each passing quarter that production continues to boom.¶ “We
kind of look at Arthur Berman as a dinosaur,” said Devon Energy spokesman Chip Minty. “With every day that goes by and these shale
production numbers come in, the
validity of Arthur Berman’s claims becomes more questionable.”
Solvency
No Production
No Production---Demand
No demand for OCS drilling-onshore production is cheaper
Santos 12 (Paulo, independent trader, analyst and algorithmic trading expert, having worked for both
sell side (brokerage) and buy side (fund management) institutions, Paulo has been trading professionally
for about 16 years, “Potential Issue With Offshore Drilling”, http://seekingalpha.com/article/976851potential-issue-with-offshore-drilling)
Offshore drillers have had an easy market lately, with rather high utilization rates and increasing daily (price) rates for the rigs in the last three
years. Due to this, the stocks have done mostly well. Ensco (ESV) is going up on account of better-than-expected earnings. Ensco carries a 10
times EV/EBITDA. Ocean Rig UDW (ORIG), another offshore drilling contractor, also trades at an optimistic 10.8 times EV/EBITDA. Other
competitors such as Diamond Offshore Drilling (DO) or Transocean (RIG) carry healthy valuations as well, at 7.4 and 8 times EV/EBITDA. None of
these equities seem particularly worried, with all the charts looking reasonably healthy (except perhaps RIG). These companies usually
sell/lease their services on long-term contracts and a high crude price ensures continuous demand for those expensive services. Rig rates can go
as high as half a million dollars per day for a drillship rig. Drilling
offshore doesn't come cheap, but the high crude prices make it
might be trouble brewing in the distance; the same kind of trouble which hit
natural gas (UNG) and land-locked WTI crude (USO). The thesis is simple Drilling for oil onshore is a lot
cheaper than drilling for it offshore. Up until recently inshore exploration was seen as somewhat exhausted with U.S. crude
production falling steadily since the 70s and thus exploration had to move offshore. But with the shale boom - using horizontal
drilling and fracking techniques - onshore exploration and production of natural gas boomed with wellknown consequences for natural gas prices. What is new here, is that now those consequences are
flowing over to the natural gas liquids and crude markets. WTI crude production is increasing, reversing
a 4 decade trend towards lower production in the U.S. (source: EIA) (click to enlarge) The trouble for offshore
drilling contractors is that this revolution is happening onshore - that place where drilling is cheaper.
Already we have seen a collapse of offshore natural gas production, as we can observe in the production chart below
all worth it. However, there
(SOURCE: EIA) (click to enlarge) How long until the same effect happens to the offshore drilling rigs looking for crude? Were such a thing to
happen, the companies servicing the industry would naturally suffer tremendously. Conclusion
In yet another consequence of
the shale boom, the increased productivity and lower cost of inshore crude wells might drive a
temporary stake through the offshore drilling business. This would probably require that the shale boom
turn international to have an effect, but given the healthy valuations on the offshore drilling services
sector the possible impact cannot be ignored. If this thesis comes to pass, the offshore drilling services
stocks will see lowered utilization, lowered day rates and the sector will turn ugly ending the present
smooth sailing. Since this is not taking place yet - only the U.S. is seeing increased onshore production, but for this trend to emerge the
shale revolution would have to be exported - for now only some monitoring is required.
No demand for offshore drilling-the market is focused on fracking
Ben Finley, 10-19-2012, “Obama’s Drilling Denials,” Fact Check,
http://factcheck.org/2012/10/obamas-drilling-denials/
But Romney’s claim fails to tell the whole story. Oil production on federal lands and in federal waters has seen an overall increase under
Obama. And
natural gas production under federal jurisdiction has been falling since 2003, long before
Obama took office. To Romney’s credit, he did specify earlier in the debate that the decline was over a one-year period, although “this
year” is not the correct year. Romney: As a matter of fact, oil production is down 14 percent this year on federal land, and gas production is
down 9 percent. Why? Because the president cut in half the number of licenses and permits for drilling on federal lands and in federal waters.
It’s true — as Romney claimed — that production of oil
and natural gas on federal lands and in federal waters fell
14 percent and 9 percent respectively in fiscal year 2011 (see table 1), according to the U.S. Energy
Information Administration, an independent agency within the Department of Energy. But overall, oil production in areas
under federal jurisdiction increased under Obama. We again compared the last three full fiscal years of Bush’s term with the
next three years, a period that falls almost entirely under Obama’s time in office Oil production on federal lands and in federal waters grew by
14 percent — or 241 million barrels of oil — during that time (see table 2). (The increase is 15 percent when we exclude fiscal year 2009 and
compare fiscal years 2007 and 2008 with 2010 and 2011.) Adam Sieminski, the
administrator of the EIA, explained to
Congress in August that oil production on federal lands and in federal waters is dominated by offshore
drilling. He said the decrease in production in 2011 reflects the impact and aftermath of the 2010 Gulf of
Mexico oil spill. As we noted before, the Obama administration instituted a temporary moratorium on new drilling following the spill. But
Sieminski offered a more complex explanation for why natural gas production on federal lands and in
federal waters has declined, stating that federal policies are only one factor. Natural gas production on
federal lands and in federal waters has fallen 9 percent overall under Obama (see table 3). We again compared the
last three full fiscal years of Bush’s term with the next three years. (The decrease is 12 percent when we exclude fiscal year 2009 and compare
fiscal years 2007 and 2008 with 2010 and 2011.) But natural
gas production on federal lands and in federal waters has
been falling since 2003. Sieminski credited the decline with the boom in the method of extracting gas
from shale formations, known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” which occurs mostly on private and
state-owned lands. Fracking has driven down the price of natural gas. And as a result, Sieminski explained, drilling
on federal lands and in federal waters has become a less attractive method for producing natural gas.
No interest in solely gas fields-no demand unless all resources are included in the
lease
Marc Humphries 8, Analyst in Energy Policy in the Resources, Science, and Industry Division of the
Congressional Research Service, 1/22/8, “Outer Continental Shelf: Debate Over Oil and Gas Leasing and
Revenue Sharing,” http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rl33493.pdf
Under current law, all OCS lease sales include both oil and gas, and a lessee is required to develop the
gas or the oil once it is discovered. Natural gas-only leases have been met with much skepticism by
many experts in geology, who note that most of these offshore fields are likely to contain both oil and
gas. Further, industry might be reluctant to bid on leases that did not transfer ownership of all
discovered resources. Proponents argue that production of natural gas only would lessen states’
concerns.
No Production---Onshore Offsets
Increased offshore production results in reduced production onshore---no net increase
Robert Pirog 12, Specialist in Energy Economics at the Congressional Research Service, and Michael
Ratner, Specialist in Energy Policy at the CRS, 11/6/12, “Natural Gas in the U.S. Economy: Opportunities
for Growth,” http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42814.pdf
If offshore drilling opportunities were expanded, as oil and natural gas were discovered, domestic
supplies would increase, causing the price of natural gas to fall. Falling prices would benefit consumers
in the short-term, but would likely reduce the development of on-shore shale resources in the longer
term, depending upon which sources had lower costs. These two examples show that unintended
consequences of policy decisions could affect natural gas markets. The results could upset the
calculation of net economic benefits that the United States might expect to experience from
development of the expanded shale gas resource base.
Long Timeframe
Long Production Timeframe
It’s not a matter of leasing-huge increases in timeframe destroy aff solvency and
certainty
SRPC 12 – Senate Republican Policy Committee, Sen. John Barrasso, Chair, 7/25/12, “Obama’s No New
Access Energy Plan,” http://www.rpc.senate.gov/policy-papers/obamas-no-new-access-energy-plan
When the Obama Administration agrees to lease offshore federal lands, it slow-walks required
approvals, wrapping America’s economic prosperity and energy security in needless red tape. • As of
May 15, 2012, the average time to get approval for an offshore oil and gas exploration and development
plan was 207 days. Before the temporary deepwater drilling moratorium imposed by President Obama
after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the average time was only 50 days. • Offshore oil and gas operators
need a predictable backlog of approved drilling permits (APDs) to secure long-term rig contracts –
generally three APDs for each active rig. In May, the active deepwater rig count was 18, so an approved
APD inventory of at least 54 was needed. Because of the Obama Administration’s transition to “just in
time” permitting, the approved APD inventory stood at only six in March. • In 2011, the average
approval time for an offshore oil and gas exploration and development plan was 109 days – an 80
percent increase over the average of the previous five years, 61 days. At the same time, only 34 percent
of plans were approved in 2011, a 54 percent decrease from the 73 percent approval rate of the
previous five years. President Obama's temporary deepwater drilling moratorium and permitorium cost
America close to 20,000 jobs, $700 million in lost wages, and more than $500 million in lost federal,
state, and local tax revenues. They have led to decreased oil production in the Gulf of Mexico by more
than 200,000 barrels per day in 2012 compared with levels before the President took office. Researchers
forecast that closing this gap could generate from 110,000 to 230,000 jobs. Slow-walking approvals has
wreaked havoc not only on Gulf of Mexico oil and gas exploration and production companies, but on the
offshore supply and service businesses they employ. Of the various oil and gas, health and safety,
transportation, marine services, ship owners and operators, and other businesses supporting offshore
oil and gas development in the Gulf of Mexico: • 41 percent are not making a profit; • 50 percent have
laid off employees; • 65 percent have not hired or replaced lost workers; • 46 percent have moved all or
some of their operations away from the region; • 82 percent of their owners have lost personal savings.
No solvency-costs and timeframe mean it can’t outweigh any revenue
Spakovsky and Loris 12 Hans A. von Spakovsky is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Center for Legal and
Judicial Studies, and Nicolas D. Loris is the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe
Institute for Economic Policy Studies, at The Heritage Foundation, August 13, 2012, “Offshore Drilling:
Increase Access, Reduce the Risk, and Stop Hurting American Companies”,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/08/offshore-drilling-increase-access-reduce-the-riskand-stop-hurting-american-companies
Development of offshore oil and gas takes years of operational and financial planning. As illustrated by
ATP’s Titan project, labor and equipment must be secured far in advance of actual drilling, and
enormous investments are required before a single dollar is earned through production of oil and gas.
While the government’s moratorium curtailed ATP’s ability to generate revenue, it did not reduce ATP’s
costs or expenses. In fact, for ATP—which had already borrowed $1.5 billion and spent years preparing
to drill these deepwater wells and constructing the safety-redundant Titan platform—the nightmare had
just begun: In addition to the expensive ATP Titan platform, the company was burdened with paying for
two other drilling rigs idled by the government’s arbitrary moratoria.
Delays cost solvency because of uncertain timeframe-fiat doesn’t solve
Spakovsky and Loris 12 Hans A. von Spakovsky is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Center for Legal and
Judicial Studies, and Nicolas D. Loris is the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe
Institute for Economic Policy Studies, at The Heritage Foundation, August 13, 2012, “Offshore Drilling:
Increase Access, Reduce the Risk, and Stop Hurting American Companies”,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/08/offshore-drilling-increase-access-reduce-the-riskand-stop-hurting-american-companies
One of the primary culprits behind this continued lag in Gulf production is obvious: the regulatory risk
companies incur when attempting to explore and drill. As demonstrated by the ATP lawsuit, the glacial
pace at which the Obama Administration considers permits is unnecessarily delaying drilling projects.
Although federal law requires the Department of the Interior to accept permit applications and review
them promptly in a given time frame,[7] the agency routinely takes longer than necessary with no
repercussions. The time to obtain approval for an exploration and drilling plan increased significantly
after BP’s Macondo well blowout—a delay that has made it extremely difficult for companies to plan for
projects.
Arctic Advantage
Alt Causes
Infrastructure Alt Cause
Can’t develop the Arctic---infrastructure issues the plan can’t resolve
Andrea Charron 12, assistant professor in political studies at the University of Manitoba. She is also a
research associate at Carleton University’s Centre for Security and Defence Studies at the Norman
Paterson School of International Affairs; et al, November 2012, “Canada-US Arctic Marine Corridors and
Resource Development,” http://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/no24v4.pdf
The shrinking Arctic ice cap is creating unprecedented geophysical change in the circumpolar region, a trend that is very likely to
continue. Together, this “great melt” and the delineation of extended national economic zones afford
increased access to economic resources in the Arctic Ocean. Intense activities in commercial, investment, diplomatic,
legal, scientific and academic sectors abound in the new Arctic, but the region’s long-term significance is only gradually penetrating North
American public consciousness. Media reports such as the recent, virtually icefree trans-polar transit of a Chinese icebreaker through the
Russian Northern Sea Route, or the transit of the Northwest Passage by a large cruise ship, are only the tip of the proverbial economic
iceberg. In preparing for the commercialization of the Arctic Ocean, Canada and the United States, as major nations bordering the Arctic,
face enormous opportunities in protecting economic and environmental interests; however, a number of challenges impede the fulfillment
of this vision.
Governance and Infrastructure Challenges
As the Arctic Ocean’s sea ice continues to melt, developing
the North American Arctic’s marine, resource and
community potential is a clear imperative for both Canada and the United States. Such development will
require an intense and focused effort in multi-level domestic and binational governance . At the same
time, a dramatic gap in leadership and infrastructure is emerging between North America on one side, and Russia
and Scandinavia on the other, in maritime transport facilitation, search and rescue facilities, port
infrastructure and resource development priority in the Arctic Ocean. The lack of progress in developing publicprivate infrastructure in the North American Arctic is the product of a well-intended but complex and incoherent
governance structure in the North American Arctic.
The organizational structure of the two North American governments means that national responsibility
for the Arctic is fragmented among numerous federal agencies and departments, all of which face
budget pressures and are mostly preoccupied with southernbased issues. The economic development
potential of the Canadian territories and Alaska is not yet fully understood by Ottawa and Washington. New
business opportunities in the Canadian and American Arctic regions could contribute directly to local, regional and national economic
growth.
Leaders in both Alaska and the Canadian territories have expressed frustration with the lack of
national strategic vision, resources and divided accountability in southern capitals. While northern
governments have local knowledge and public trust, and are working to strengthen their capacities in
the maritime field, they have limited authority and face complex jurisdictional issues. Given their
budgetary and capability constraints, northern municipal governments, including Aboriginal
communities, are struggling to provide adequate services to their people and need the solid
economic development that comes with better public infrastructure, private investment and
economic activity.
Lack of supporting infrastructure deters resource development, not the other way
around
Andrea Charron 12, assistant professor in political studies at the University of Manitoba. She is also a
research associate at Carleton University’s Centre for Security and Defence Studies at the Norman
Paterson School of International Affairs; et al, November 2012, “Canada-US Arctic Marine Corridors and
Resource Development,” http://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/no24v4.pdf
Economic activity in the Arctic would benefit from planned and improved public-private
infrastructure. The poor infrastructure in the North American Arctic impedes economic growth and
the development of local jobs that private investment in energy and mineral projects could be
creating. This lack of infrastructure slows community development, delays essential maritime
environmental protection regimes and undermines the North American continent’s long-term
economic and security interests.
The private sector remains deeply uneasy about lengthy delays in project approvals, multiple,
complex and overlapping layers of governance, and the lack of American and Canadian federal
government planning and action on strategic marine transport, resource development and
infrastructure issues.
The responsibility for Canadian and American marine transportation and ports in the North American
Arctic cannot simply be downloaded to the private sector on an ad hoc, stovepiped project-byproject basis. The costs and risks to individual small- and medium-sized project proponents are often
prohibitively high, and regional synergies are lost if a project proceeds, however well done.
Infrastructure is a prerequisite to the plan
The Wilson Center ’13 (“Opportunities and Challenges For Arctic Oil and Gas Development”, Eurasia
Group report, 2013, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Artic%20Report_F2.pdf, Accessed:
7/10, SD)
The Arctic’s western
hemisphere has significant medium- to long-term hydrocarbon resource potential,
but the likely development timeframe will be from 2025 and beyond due to current limitations. Insufficient
infrastructure is possibly the most critical limiting factor. Especially in North America, the remote Arctic regions are less
attractive investment destination for oil and gas companies, since resources compete for market access with the abundant oil sands, shale oil,
and gas reserves already being developed in Alberta, elsewhere in Canada, and the U.S. lower 48. And yet the North American Arctic contains
huge undeveloped discovered resources. The U.S. and Canadian Arctic alone is estimated to hold 45 percent of all undiscovered Arctic energy
resources.
Law of the Sea---1NC
No Law of the Sea accession means leadership’s impossible
Robert J. Papp 12, Admiral, U.S. Coast Guard, February 2012, “The Emerging Arctic Frontier,”
http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2012-02/emerging-arctic-frontier
Because of these opportunities and the clamor of activities they bring, a
legally certain and predictable set of rights and
obligations addressing activity in the Arctic is paramount. The United States must be part of such a legal regime to
protect and advance our security and economic interests.
In particular, for the past several years there
has been a race by countries other than the U nited S tates to file
internationally recognized claims on the maritime regions and seabeds of the Arctic. Alaska has more than 1,000 miles of
coastline above the Arctic Circle on the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. 7 Our territorial waters extend 12 nautical miles from
the coast, and the exclusive economic zone extends to 200 nautical miles from shore (just as along the rest of the U.S.
coastline). That’s more than 200,000 square miles of water over which the Coast Guard has jurisdiction.
Below the surface, the United States also may assert sovereign rights over natural resources on its continental shelf out to 200 nautical
miles. However, with
accession to the Law of the Sea Convention, the United States has the potential to
exercise additional sovereign rights over resources on an extended outer continental shelf, which might reach as far as
600 nautical miles into the Arctic from the Alaskan coast. Last summer, the Coast Guard cutter USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) was under
way in the Arctic Ocean, working with the Canadian icebreaker Louis S. St-Laurent to continue efforts to map the extent of the continental
shelf.
The United States is not a party to the Law of the Sea Convention. While this country stands by, other
nations are moving ahead in perfecting rights over resources on an extended continental shelf .
Russia, Canada, Denmark (through Greenland), and Norway—also Arctic nations—have filed extended
continental-shelf claims under the Law of the Sea Convention that would give them exclusive rights to oil and
gas resources on that shelf. They are making their case publicly in the media, in construction of vessels to patrol these waters,
and in infrastructure along their Arctic coastline. Even China, which has no land-mass connectivity with the Arctic Ocean, has raised interest
by conducting research in the region and building icebreakers. 8 The
Convention without delay to
United States should accede to the Law of the Sea
protect our national security interests: sovereignty, economy, and energy.
Law of the Sea---2NC
Failure to ratify makes Arctic leadership impossible---clearly overwhelms the aff
Bert 12 (Captain Melissa – USCG, 2011-2012 Military Fellow, U.S.Coast Guard, “A Strategy to Advance
the Arctic Economy”, February, http://www.cfr.org/arctic/strategy-advance-arctic-economy/p27258)
U.S. Leadership in Arctic Governance Is Lacking
Governance in the Arctic requires leadership. The United States is uniquely positioned to provide such
leadership, but it is hampered by its reliance on the eight-nation Arctic Council. However, more than
160 countries view the LSOC as the critical instrument defining conduct at sea and maritime obligations. The
convention also addresses resource division, maritime traffic, and pollution regulation, and is relied
upon for dispute resolution. The LOSC is particularly important in the Arctic, because it stipulates that the
region beyond each country's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) be divided between bordering nations that can
prove their underwater continental shelves extend directly from their land borders. Nations will have
exclusive economic rights to the oil, gas, and mineral resources extracted from those outer
continental shelves, making the convention's determinations substantial. According to geologists, the
U.S. portion is projected to be the world's largest underwater extension of land—over 3.3 million
square miles—bigger than the lower forty-eight states combined. In addition to global credibility and
protection of Arctic shelf claims, the convention is important because it sets international pollution
standards and requires signatories to protect the marine environment.
Critics argue that the LOSC cedes American sovereignty to the United Nations. But the failure to ratify
it has the opposite effect: it leaves the United States less able to protect its interests in the Arctic and
elsewhere. The diminished influence is particularly evident at the International Maritime Organization
(IMO), the international body that "operationalizes" the LOSC through its international port and
shipping rules. By remaining a nonparty, the United States lacks the credibility to promote U.S. interests in
the Arctic, such as by transforming U.S. recommendations into binding international laws.
LOST prevents credible US influence
Bert 12 (Captain Melissa Bert, 2011-2012 Military Fellow, U.S. Coast Guard, “A Strategy to Advance the
Arctic Economy”, February, http://www.cfr.org/arctic/strategy-advance-arctic-economy/p27258)
Critics argue that the LOSC cedes American sovereignty to the United Nations. But the failure to ratify it has
the opposite effect: it leaves the United States less able to protect its interests in the Arctic and elsewhere.
The diminished influence is particularly evident at the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the
international body that "operationalizes" the LOSC through its international port and shipping rules. By
remaining a nonparty, the United States lacks the credibility to promote U.S. interests in the Arctic, such as by
transforming U.S. recommendations into binding international laws.
LOST means we’re dead last in the Arctic
Reiss 12 (Bob, bestselling New York based author and journalist, a former Chicago Tribune reporter
and former correspondent for Outside Magazine. His work has also been published in The Washington
Post Magazine, Smithsonian, Parade, Rolling Stone and other national publications, and has been
featured in collections of the best of the Washington Post Magazine, and the best of Outside., “Why we
should look to the Arctic”, 7/16, http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/16/opinion/reiss-arcticdrilling/index.html)
-- In Washington, politicians are jockeying over whether to ratify "The Law of the Sea Treaty," under which countries
abutting oceans will be able to claim up to 200 extra miles of undersea territory if they can prove it an extension of their continental
shelves. For the U.S., that could mean extra territory the size of California off Alaska.¶ President Barack Obama and former President
George W. Bush support the treaty, as does an oddly aligned group including the Pentagon, Sierra Club, oil companies, shipping companies
and environmentalists, who favor the part of the treaty designed to help protect the world's oceans. Although every other Arctic country
has ratified the treaty, in the U.S. it has been blocked for years by conservative senators who fear that it gives too much influence to
multinational bodies.¶ -- An undersea land rush has started under the treaty, with Russia claiming an area the size of France
and Spain combined. Norway's claim has been granted, and other Arctic nations preparing to file claims. One U.S. Coast Guard
admiral, speaking of the treaty, told me, "If this was a ball game, the U.S. wouldn't be on the field, in the stadium or
even in the parking lot. We're last in this race."
Status Quo Solves
Squo Solves---Arctic Governance
Squo solves---DOD’s investing in capabilities necessary for Arctic leadership
Kristofer Bergh 12, Researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s Armed
Conflict and Conflict Management Programme, where he works on the Arctic Futures project, MA in
social sciences with a major in peace and conflict studies from Uppsala University, July 2012, “THE
ARCTIC POLICIES OF CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES: DOMESTIC MOTIVES AND INTERNATIONAL
CONTEXT,” http://books.sipri.org/files/insight/SIPRIInsight1201.pdf
In addition to the roadmap, a 2011 DOD report on Arctic operations and the Northwest Passage
assesses the national security objectives in the region; the capabilities required in order to achieve
these objectives; and the need for new infrastructure, including a new deep-water port and new
icebreaking capacity.54 The report also discusses the advantages and disadvantages of designating
the Arctic as an area of responsibility of two commands and a single combatant commander,
envisaging a strategic future for the Arctic as ‘a stable and secure region where US national interests
are safeguarded and the US homeland is protected’. According to the report, future challenges will
include ‘shortfalls in ice and weather reporting and forecasting; limitations in command, control,
communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) due to lack of
assets and harsh environmental conditions; limited inventory of ice-capable vessels; and limited
shore-based infrastructure’.55 The region’s development must be closely monitored and needs
should be reassessed continuously in order to develop capacity ‘just- in-time’, as opposed to ‘late-toneed’. As far as military posturing in the region, the DOD assesses that the current US presence is
adequate for the achievement of short-term objectives.
Status quo solves – UNCLOS, Arctic Treaty and Arctic Council
Brigham ’10 (Lawson W., is distinguished professor of geography and Arctic policy at the University of
Alaska, Fairbanks, “THE ARCTIC”, Foreign Policy, No. 181 (September/October 2010), pp. 70-74, JSTOR,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20753989, Accessed:7/10, SD)
Do we need a new international system to make ¶ sure the Arctic's future is managed equitably and
respon ¶ sibly? That was what the seven countries with territorial ¶ claims on Earth's other polar region
decided in 1959, when ¶ they set them aside to join five other countries in the Ant ¶ arctic Treaty.
Conceived at the height of the Cold War, the ¶ treaty reserved the uninhabited Antarctic for peaceful pur
¶ poses, notably scientific research, banning military activity ¶ and prohibiting nuclear explosions and
disposal of radioac ¶ tive waste. A half-century later, it stands as a landmark of ¶ peaceful cooperation,
demilitarization, and shared gover ¶ nance among the 47 countries that have signed. ¶ It's highly
unlikely, however, that the Arctic countries ¶ would ever agree to the same sort of comprehensive
treaty for ¶ the north. All have huge economic stakes in the Arctic; some ¶ have centuries of sovereign
claims to the region, and others ¶ still use its waterways for strategic purposes, even 20 years ¶ after the
Cold War. And that's fine, because we already have ¶ a diplomatic framework to deal with most of the
Arctic: the ¶ U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. The treaty allows ¶ coastal states everywhere not
just those in the Arctic to ¶ extend their seabed claims beyond their sovereign waters, ¶ but only after
extensive scientific surveys and submissions of ¶ geologic data to the New York-based U.N. Commission
on ¶ the Limits of the Continental Shelf. It is a complex process, ¶ but an orderly one. And it isn't new:
More than 50 claims ¶ have been submitted to the commission over the past decade. ¶ The International
Maritime Organization, a U.N. agency, ¶ can also craft binding rules for shipping in the Arctic Ocean. ¶
Then there's the Arctic Council, a 14-year-old intergovern ¶ mental forum that brings the eight Arctic
states to the table ¶ along with six indigenous groups (and other observers) to ¶ discuss environmental
protection and sustainable develop ¶ ment. The council is essentially toothless, at least in a legal ¶ sense:
It's not bound by any treaties, and members have ¶ chosen not to deal with military and security issues,
or even ¶ fisheries management. But it has nonetheless been a force for ¶ good, getting everyone in the
habit of discussing the future of ¶ the region in a diplomatic setting. It has also conducted several
pioneering assessments on climate change, oil and gas, ¶ and Arctic shipping. Look for it to take a more
forceful role ¶ as Arctic relations become ever more important. Already, it ¶ has a task force negotiating
the first legally binding agree ¶ ment among its members, on search and rescue in the region.
Impact Defense
No Arctic Impact
No conflict – Arctic states are building cooperation and trust
Brigham ’10 (Lawson W., is distinguished professor of geography and Arctic policy at the University of
Alaska, Fairbanks, “THE ARCTIC”, Foreign Policy, No. 181 (September/October 2010), pp. 70-74, JSTOR,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20753989, Accessed:7/9, SD)
The Arctic
has been a geopolitical flashpoint before: During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union
faced off directly in the region. But that was then. Today's Arctic is governed by eight developed states that
arguably cooperate more than they have at any other period in history. International collaboration in
scientific research, for instance, is at record levels in the Arctic today. The looming Arctic resource boom
doesn't threaten this stability? It reinforces it. States such as Norway and Russia have much to lose
economically from Arctic conflict, as do the many non-Arctic countries and multinational corporations that will be among the
eventual investors in, and consumers of, future Arctic ventures. No one is contesting anyone else's sovereignty in the
region; in fact, the Arctic might one day play host to the emergence of a new sovereign state, Greenland,
with the support and encouragement of Denmark, its long-time colonial ruler. This isn't to say that saber rattling
hasn't happened and won't happen again in the future. Canada, Norway, and Russia have conducted military and naval operations in the region
to showcase their capabilities and demonstrate their sovereignty. (The United States has been more modest in this regard, though the U.S.
Navy last fall did release a "roadmap" for the Arctic, emphasizing the need for military readiness in the far north.) NATO's role in the Arctic is
Arctic states are members, but three (Sweden, Finland, Russia) are not? And the organization
could go a long way toward reducing tension and building trust in the Arctic by promoting cooperation
on matters of military security, law enforcement, and counterterrorism there. But none of this friction is
beyond the realm of diploma y. Even Chilingarov, the flag-wielding champion of Russian northern expansionism, understands the
uncertain and unfocused? Five
virtues of negotiation. When he met Chuck Strahl, Canada's minister of northern affairs, in June, the first thing he reportedly did was invite his
would-be adversary to a conference? Called "The Arctic: Territory of Dialogue" Scheduled for this September in Moscow. The two countries'
representatives have since trumpeted their thawing relations in the Arctic, meeting regularly and even dis cussing plans to work together on
The lesson is clear enough: The world has plenty of
regions where serious conflict is a way of life already. Let's worry about them first.
mapping the seafloor where Chilingarov planted the Russian standard.
No disputes over Arctic region now – governance solves
Brigham ’10 (Lawson W., is distinguished professor of geography and Arctic policy at the University of
Alaska, Fairbanks, “THE ARCTIC”, Foreign Policy, No. 181 (September/October 2010), pp. 70-74, JSTOR,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20753989, Accessed:7/10, SD)
And maybe the only thing heating up faster than the Arctic Ocean is the hyperbole over ¶ what's under it.
"Without U.S. leadership to help develop ¶ diplomatic solutions to competing claims and potential conflicts," scholar Scott G. Borgerson wrote
region could erupt in an armed mad dash for ¶ its resources." ¶ It could but it
won't. Anarchy does not reign at the top ¶ of the world; in fact, it's governed in a manner not unlike ¶ the
rest of the planet. The region's land borders shared ¶ by Canada, Denmark (which controls Greenland), Finland, ¶ Iceland,
Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States? ¶ are all set and uncontested. Several maritime boundaries do ¶
remain under dispute, most notably those between Cana ¶ da and the United States in the Beaufort Sea and between ¶ Canada and
Denmark in Baffin Bay. But progress has been ¶ made recently in resolving even the thorniest disagreements: ¶
in Foreign Affairs
¶
in 2008, "the
In April, after 40 years of negotiating, Norway and Russia ¶ were able to forge an equitable deal for a new boundary in ¶ the Barents Sea, a
continental-shelf area rich in fisheries and ¶ oil and gas reserves. ¶ What about the part of the Arctic where sovereignty ¶ remains unresolved:
the seafloor that Chilingarov tried ¶ to claim? Despite
being covered with ice for much of the ¶ year, the Arctic Ocean
is governed much like the rest of the ¶ world's oceans? By a maritime treaty that has been ratified ¶ by all
the Arctic countries except the United States, which ¶ generally abides by its terms anyway.
No Russian Drilling
Russia physically can’t drill in the Arctic
Michael Schuman 12, writes about Asia and global economic issues as a correspondent for TIME in
Beijing, 16 years of experience reporting from a dozen countries, 7/5/12, “Why Vladimir Putin Needs
Higher Oil Prices,” http://business.time.com/2012/07/05/why-vladimir-putin-needs-higher-oilprices/#ixzz2JakGtLol
Though Russian oil production continues to rise and is currently approaching Soviet-era levels,
forecasts predict it will soon peak and then decline, causing potential problems both for global oil
importers and the Russian government’s budget.
Averting this decline will require applying more-advanced production techniques to existing fields
and exploiting new ones in the Arctic Ocean and elsewhere. Russia’s oil companies will be unable to
accomplish this transformation on their own, however. To do so, they will need to secure greater
foreign investment and partnerships offering more-advanced technologies and the exposure to
better management skills. The benefits of increased foreign investment in the Russian oil sector
would be felt by Russians, in terms of their everyday socio-economic conditions, as well as in U.S.Russian relations, which would be widened and strengthened. Yet, foreign companies, especially
those based in the United States, will continue to hold back from supporting the Russian oil sector
until the Russian government creates a more benign environment for foreign investment.
Last year, Russian oil production increased by an average of 100,000 barrels per day (bpd), to 10.4
million bpd, the highest total since the collapse of the Soviet Union. As Russia exports about half its
production, the increase has helped keep oil prices down, with follow-on benefits for a global
economy struggling to return to strong growth.
These oil exports are also essential for the Russian economy, which derives more than half of its
export income from oil, and the Russian government, which depends on oil and natural gas exports
for about 40 percent of its budget revenue. In recent years, the government has used this
hydrocarbon money to support investment, defense modernization, welfare and pension benefits,
and other government programs.
The problem for Moscow is that almost all of Russia’s current oil production comes from the giant
West Siberian fields developed during the Soviet period. Production there has been declining during
the past few years. While Russia has brought a few other smaller fields online in recent years, their
production potential is much less and the costs of developing them are much higher.
Russian oil production may continue to rise for a few more years, but without new fields entering
operation, or the application of more-sophisticated production techniques to the existing fields,
Russian oil production is expected to decline starting around 2015, with steady decreases after that.
Production could fall to as low as 8 million bpd by 2020.
The drop-off in exports could be even greater, as Russian domestic oil consumption continues to rise,
almost equaling recent production increases. Last year, for instance, though production increased by
100,000 bpd, domestic consumption rose by 80,000 bpd. With Russians making little progress in
conserving energy or using it more efficiently, the trend toward increased domestic consumption is
likely to continue.
Russia can most logically expand its production through two means: exploiting unconventional
sources like oil sands or shale oil, and developing the potentially enormous oil and gas deposits
located beneath Russia's continental Arctic shelf. Although development of these sources is just
beginning, experts believe that Russia could produce enormous quantities of oil, and natural gas,
from them.
But Russia will be unable to exploit these “tight oil” and Arctic sources without outside help. Its
companies lack the technologies and management skills to produce oil in such challenging locations,
which combine remoteness with brutal climate conditions. Russia's limited experience with
deepwater oil drilling further hampers its ability to exploit certain sources. As Thane Gustafson, the
author of a new book on the Russian oil industry, has observed, “The next generation of Russian oil
will have to come from places that are colder, deeper, more remote, geologically more complex and
technologically far more demanding than anything Russian companies have tackled to date.”
AT: Companies Going to Russia (Sullivan)
Tons of alt causes like litigation, federal regs aren’t key, and the squo solves because
states are repealing restrictions
Dan Sullivan 12, Commissioner, Department of Natural Resources, State of Alaska, 8/2/12, “The
American Energy Initiative,” Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on
Energy and Power,
http://dnr.alaska.gov/commis/testimony/Sullivan_House%20Energy_Power_8_2_2012.pdf
In recent years, regulatory
delay in the United States has become the rule rather than the exception. Over the
and the executive branch have developed and accepted a regulatory system that almost
guarantees significant delay and endless litigation for resource development projects.
years, Congress
Take for example the minerals sector in the United States. In 2012, the investment firm Behre Dolbear Group’s annual global survey of the
mineral sector ranked the United States the lowest out of 25 countries in the category of “permitting delays” tying with Papua New Guinea.
This was attributed to the fact that because of federal rules that states are bound to enforce results in a 7- to 10-year waiting period to
complete permitting work before mine construction and development can begin in the United States. By contrast, in other industrialized
countries like Australia and Canada, the average permitting time is about three years.
Overlapping jurisdictions and the endless opportunities provided to opponents of resource
development to litigate a project add to these permitting delays. Alaskans witness this type of litigation on almost
every resource development or infrastructure expansion project in the state.
C.
Jobs and the Environment are Undermined
Unfortunately, potential investors
have expressed reluctance to pursue resource development projects in the
United States and Alaska, in particular, because of the risk of permitting delays and litigation. We believe that such a
reputation discourages investment, significantly hurts job creation and undermines global environmental
protection. By discouraging responsible development in our own country, we are passing energy and mineral investment to countries with
substandard environmental regulations and little capacity or desire to protect the environment. Take the Russian hydrocarbon sector. Last
year, some of America’s largest energy companies announced multi-billion dollar investments in the Russian Arctic, even though the U.S.
Geological Survey estimates that offshore and onshore Alaska has greater oil potential. The fact that the U.S. regulatory system has
delayed or blocked many hydrocarbon development projects in Alaska was likely a factor driving American companies to invest in Russia.
Alaska has some of the world’s most comprehensive environmental protections regarding the oil sector. And Russia? Last year, the
Associated Press investigated Russia’s abysmal record regarding oil spills and pollution. The estimates given in the AP article ranged from 5
million to 20 million tons of oil leaked a year. Even at the lower end, that would be the equivalent of a Deepwater Horizon blowout about
every two months. Russia experienced approximately 18,000 oil pipeline ruptures in 2010 – the figure in the U.S. for the same year was
341.
Clearly, the global environment would be much better off if hydrocarbons and other natural resources were produced in countries with the
highest environmental standards rather than some of the lowest. Yet, the significant flaws in our own system are partly to blame for the
investment in lax overseas jurisdictions where environmental degradation is common.
D.
The Good News: Growing Consensus that Regulatory Reform and Modernization is Needed
The good news is the growing recognition that something serious needs to be done. The Economist recently
ran a cover story called “Over-regulated America” in which it concluded that “America needs a smarter approach to regulation” that will
“mitigate a real danger: that regulation may crush the life out of America’s economy.” Former President Bill Clinton has weighed in
similarly. In a Newsweek article last year, he lamented that it can take three years or more to permit major economic development
projects. His number one recommendation to put Americans back to work was to speed up the regulatory approval process and grant state
waivers on environmental rules to hasten start times on construction projects.
We recognize that there
are efforts to reform our regulatory system that are being undertaken by the U.S.
House of Representatives and I testified last year in support of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee’s American Energy
Initiative. The introduction and passage from committee of H.R. 4382 Providing Leasing Certainty for American Energy Act and H.R. 4383
Streamlining Permitting of American Energy Act are steps in the right direction and we hope that these two bills will be passed on the
House floor and transmitted to the U.S. Senate. Another positive sign has been the House passage of H.R. 4402, National Strategic and
Critical Minerals Protection Act.
Alaska, other states and Canada are not waiting for federal regulators to take action . They are
undertaking reforms to make state permitting processes more efficient, timely, and certain. States as
politically diverse as Alaska, California, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Kansas are fully engaged in modernizing their
regulatory systems. This is a bipartisan effort driven by policymakers’ recognition of the economic
benefits of allowing large-scale development projects to proceed in a responsible manner.
AT: Leadership
Drilling Bad for Leadership
Turn - halting Arctic gas development is better for the environment and US leadership
Kelly et al ’14 (Cathleen, is a Senior Fellow at American Progress, “Helping the Arctic Council Find Its
True North”, Center for American Progress, http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/04/ArcticPolicyReport.pdf, Accessed: 7/8, SD)
Of all the emerging industrial uses of the Arctic, offshore oil and gas development is the riskiest. While a
melting Arctic signals opportunity for some, the dearth of oil spill cleanup know-how, infrastructure, and
response capacity in this harsh and remote area may spell disaster for the region’s people and
environment, including indigenous communities who rely on healthy populations of fish and other wild-life for
their livelihoods. The environmental and social devastation caused by the Exxon Valdez oil spill demonstrate the
vulnerability of Alaskan coastal ecosystems to oil pollution and the length if time spilled oil can persist in
damaging the marine environment. More recently, Shell Oil’s long string of failures in its Arctic drilling venture-despite billions of
dollars of investment and preparation-show how ill prepared even the largest, most technically competent oil companies are for operations in
the Arctic. Arctic fossil-fuel extraction will also accelerate disruptive climate changes already underway in the region and globally. The
United
and gas
States should set an example for other Arctic states by freezing domestic Arctic offshore oil
development in its Arctic Ocean exclusive economic zone, much as it has already done by imposing a moratorium on
commercial fishing in U.S. Arctic waters. This action should also include collaboration with the Department of the
Interior to cancel additional Arctic lease sales slated for 2016 and 2017 under the current five-year leasing program.
Economy Advantages
AT: Price Spikes
Spikes/Volatility Inevitable
Natural gas is structurally volatile-lower entry costs, easier access and technological
innovation
Escher and Wilczynski 2010-Al, director and executive advisor at Schlumberger Business
Counseling, MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and Herve, Vice
President, Partner - Head of the Houston office at A.T. Kearney, Past Vice President at Schlumberger
(“Managing Through the Volatile North American Gas Market”, Schlumberger Business Consulting,
http://www.sbc.slb.com/Our_Work/Energy_Expertise/~/media/Files/Point%20of%20View%20Docs/Ma
naging_Through_the_Volatile_North_American_Gas_Market.ashx date accessed 7/8/14) HC
Market volatility dictates a different approach for gas vs. oil The oil and gas exploration and production industry (E&P) is
certainly used to cycles, even extreme cycles, in activity. The industry also has become used to oil and gas price variations being somewhat out
of phase as oil has become a global commodity and gas remains a regional commodity, and there is relatively little switchable demand.
However, looking
more closely at the difference between global oil and North American gas, the issue is
not simply that the cycles do not always coincide. North American gas follows a fundamentally different
kind of dynamic, behaving more like an agricultural commodity than like oil. Certainly the results of the recent gas
cycle bear witness to a need to re-think how companies manage their North American gas E&P businesses. We need a bit less "oil thinking."
The big difference in the cycle for oil vs. North American gas is that gas is much more volatile. Of course, the
value of oil used in North America is still much higher than the value of gas, so the oil cycle attracts more attention from the media and even
Congress. There were Congressional hearings when gasoline went over $4 per gallon in 2008, but no similar hearings when natural gas went
above $12 per MMBtu. But
from a producer's perspective, gas prices are twice as volatile as oil prices, putting
gas on a par with commodities like cotton and pork bellies (Figure 1). In comparison, the oil business looks
staid and predictable! The higher volatility of North American gas markets compared to global oil
markets is a long term phenomenon, and seems to be structural. Low cost of entry: Companies can
enter, or increase their exposure to the North American gas market for a few million, or a few tens of
millions of dollars. In contrast, the cost to enter or ramp up in the global oil market, with its larger, mostly
offshore or Arctic investments, is easily in the billions of dollars. So, gas is 100 times easier to enter
compared to oil. This attracts more players to North American gas—100's or 1000's compared to more
like 10's of major companies in the global oil markets. And it means that the gas market has many
players who can respond quickly, for example if prices are above long term averages. Time to add capacity: Capacity to
produce North American gas, especially onshore and on the Gulf of Mexico shelf, can move from
concept to production in under a year. In contrast, oil-related mega-projects take a decade or more to go through the same
process. As a result, the gas market can above long term averages. Turndown potential: As we have seen
during Q4 2008 and YTD 2009. the North American gas industry can shut down roughly 2/3 of expansion
capacity in a matter of months. In contrast, longer term oil projects will tend to remain funded through price cycles, unless the cycle
extends through many years. This means that the gas industry respond much more quickly when prices are can turn
down capacity much faster, runner ,the higher average decline rates of North American gas wells vs.
global oil fields means that production rates will fall even more sharply as drilling activity declines.
Industry governance: OPEC has a long term interest in the stability of global oil markets, and has shown
the willingness and the ability to add incremental production when prices are high, and the discipline to
with- draw production when prices are depressed. There is no corresponding group governing North
American gas production. Access to Resources: Much like the agricultural industry can increase planted
acreage when prices of, for example corn, are high, the North American gas industry is relatively open in
terms of access. Granted there are environmental and other restrictions, but they do not impede the
market enough to effectively restrict supply. In contrast, access to oil resources is heavily regulated and restricted by
governments. So, companies can respond to changes in Norm American gas prices in a way that is much more muted with oil. Technology:
Tremendous innovations have affected recovery for both oil and gas. Most innovations affecting oil, like deepwater and subsea systems, and
improved reservoir management and pressure maintenance techniques, tend to impact feasibility and long term recovery rates. In contrast,
most technological innovations affecting gas tend to impact initial production rates, especially
completion and stimulation techniques. This difference creates a stronger link between technical
innovation and near-term market prices for gas. Other external factors such as alternative sources of gas supplies or changes
in taxation can add to price volatility For example, the flow of LNG and associated gas can disrupt the supply and demand balance in North
America depending on macro trends such as gas consumption in Europe and Asia, especially since LNG shipments to North America will be a
"last stop" for unwanted gas that can be priced at variable cost Another example of possible disruption is the current push from the Obama
administration to raise fees and taxes for gas producers. The ability of the US government to artificially dampen oil market investment is much
less, as most domestic drilling activity is for gas rather than oil.
Spikes Inevitable---Conventional Gas
Volatility will likely result from conventional natural gas not shale gas - prices will stay
steady
Hefner ’14 (Robert, is founder and owner of The GHK Company, an Oklahoma-based natural gas and
oil firm, “The United States of Gas: Why the Shale Revolution Could Have Happened Only in America”,
Foreign Affairs, May/June 2014, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141203/robert-a-hefner-iii/theunited-states-of-gas, Accessed: 7/8, SD)
The shale
revolution has its naysayers, who point to the cyclical nature of natural gas prices in the past to
argue that future price spikes could render the fuel unreliable and costly. But past volatility resulted
from stringent government price controls followed by a complex process of deregulation and from the
high risk involved in exploring for pockets of conventional natural gas. In other words, prices were subject to both
the vagaries of national policy and the complexities of subsurface geology.¶ Neither of those problems exists today, since
price controls were abandoned long ago and U.S. companies now know exactly where vast quantities of
accessible natural gas lie, and so the extraction of gas is a reliable manufacturing process rather than a
crapshoot. The future price of natural gas will be determined not so much by the size of the supplies of
gas found, as was the case with conventional natural gas, as by the manufacturing cost of extraction.
Prices, therefore, should stay steady in the long run, possibly even for the next half century. They may
even fall as the industry continues to lower costs and improve productivity at the wellhead. Additional
innovation downstream -- in the transportation, distribution, and consumption sectors -- has not yet even truly begun. When it does,
efficiency gains will generate billions of dollars more in consumer savings.¶ The bottom line is that thanks to
the shale revolution, the United States has already insulated itself from unpredictable fluctuations in
global natural gas prices and is coming close to doing so in terms of oil prices. Domestic oil shortages due to foreign natural disasters
or political disruptions could someday become a thing of the past, particularly if natural gas starts fueling U.S. cars and trucks. Growing
energy independence will give Washington a leg up on its competitors. Should the flow of oil be threatened by some
event in the Middle East, such as the fall of the Saudi regime, the United States will be able to weather the storm better than any other large
economy.
Manufacturing
Status Quo Solves
The status quo locks in manufacturing gains---impossible to reverse it
Verleger 12 (Philip K. Jr.-visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and was
director of the Office of Energy Policy at the US Treasury in the Carter administration, “The coming US
boom and how shale gas will fuel it,” 4/23/12, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/09fbb2ac-87b8-11e1ade2-00144feab49a.html#axzz2KHYJuFvm)
Today, few realise that the US stands on the cusp of significant economic gains stimulated by low energy costs.
The consensus view discounts the economic boost from natural gas, arguing that the energy sector cannot generate so many jobs. The doubters
wear blinkers; they see nothing but the energy market. They commit the mistake made by forecasters in 1991. They miss the tectonic shifts in
trade, shifts that US economist Tyler Cowen identified in his paper in the US magazine The American Interest, What Export-Oriented America
Means . Shale
could bring energy independence for many nations, freeing them from a reliance on imports The
backward-focusing observers who dismiss the impact of shale gas fail to understand four conditions that
will contribute permanently to a big improvement in the competitive position of the US. First, the US has
perfected a means of “manufacturing” natural gas from shale, in effect breaking the monopolistic control on
hydrocarbon supply once enjoyed by the majors. Second, this advantage gives manufacturing plants in the US a 60 per cent,
70 per cent or even 80 per cent cost advantage over those operating in China, Japan, South Korea or
European countries. Third, US financial markets (principally futures markets) enable producers and consumers to
lock in profits for years ahead. Low cash prices now do not deter producers that sold today’s production a year ago at much higher
and profitable prices. Fourth, competitive and open pipeline systems prevent any single large participant from
denying these economic benefits to any producer or consumer. No country other than Canada enjoys US
competitive conditions. Nor will any other country probably enjoy them in the future. Recognising this, groups
such as Michelin and Shell intend to build plants in the US to take advantage of the country’s permanently lower-cost energy supplies. Steel
mills are also being planned. In short, low-cost energy provided primarily by shale gas production
advances will almost certainly contribute to an investment boom across the US economy. Leaders outside the
US recognise the threat shale gas poses to their competitive position. Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia’s national energy company must
respond to the challenge. State energy groups, as well as the world’s integrated oil companies, will no doubt try. One can be confident of their
failure, though. The development of shale oil and gas involves drilling hundreds of thousands of low-cost wells. Large energy companies fall flat
on their faces every time they attempt such endeavours. The big multinationals cannot run projects involving thousands of workers on many
small sites. This is not their forte. Instead they excel at developing a few very expensive, highly productive projects that yield high-cost supplies.
Their executives and shareholders should be thankful that the unique institutional conditions behind the US shale revolution cannot be found
anywhere else. The US and Canada will be, for the foreseeable future, a low-cost energy hegemony. We are the only nations that have
promoted small, efficient, low-cost energy producers. Every other country relies on the Exxon type. As a result of these circumstances, the
benefits of low-cost energy supplies will spread throughout the US economy, stimulating exports of
goods and services and creating millions of jobs.
Squo solves---we’re maxing out gas storage capacity---the plan can’t possibly lower
prices for manufacturers any further
Philips 12 (Matthew-Associate Editor for Bloomberg Businessweek, , “Why Lower Natural Gas Prices
Help the U.S. Only a Little,” 4/26/12, http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-26/why-lowernatural-gas-prices-help-the-u-dot-s-dot-only-a-little)
We’re also severely limited in our capacity to export natural gas right now. The U.S. has just one export
facility, in Alaska. A recently approved LNG export terminal in Louisiana will bring that to a grand total of two once completed in 2015.
Regulators aren’t likely to approve any more LNG export projects in the coming year, though they probably will in the future. Depending
on domestic demand, abundant natural gas could significantly reduce the U.S. trade deficit and perhaps
turn us into a net exporter. Although we have massive amounts of natural gas—an estimated 2,214 trillion
cubic feet, enough to last 100 years by some measures—we still don’t use that much of it. Case in point:
We’re drilling so much and using so little, it’s conceivable that we’ll max out our 4.3 trillion cubic feet of
storage capacity at some point this year. Americans burn about 22 trillion cubic feet of natural gas every
year, enough to fill up about 595,000 Empire State Buildings. But we could use a whole lot more, and certainly will soon. Until
we do, the U.S. economy won’t see that big of an upside from cheap prices.
Manufacturing industry perceives that the shale boom is permanent---solves all their
certainty internal links
Shively 12 (Bob-not the framework Shively, Enerdynamics President and Lead Instructor, “Why Low
Natural Gas Prices Matter A Lot,” 10/29/12, http://blog.enerdynamics.com/2012/10/29/why-lownatural-gas-prices-matter-a-lot/
U.S. natural gas prices have fallen to lows not seen in a decade and have stayed at the lowest levels
we’ve seen in a decade. As I write this in late October 2012, the Henry Hub price is $3.43, which is at
least half what was considered “normal” fall pricing in the last 10 years. Expectations are that prices will
stay well below recent levels for a number of years due to the huge amount of supply that has been
made available through exploitation of shale gas and other non-traditional sources of supply. We have
discussed many of these impacts in earlier writing on our blog, Energy Currents. In May we wrote about
how U.S. chemical companies are being buoyed by low prices. And in April we wrote about how the U.S.
electric generation mix has dramatically changed and also how the much lower prices in the U.S. relative
to the rest of the world may lead to LNG exports. But, of course, we aren’t the only ones noticing this.
On Oct. 25, the Wall Street Journal published a front-page article titled “Cheap Natural Gas Gives New
Hope to the Rust Belt.” The articles discusses how low natural gas prices in the U.S. as compared to
other key manufacturing areas in the world (prices in Europe are at least two times higher than in the
U.S., and in Japan are threefold), are resulting in significant U.S. expansion of natural gas-intensive
industries. These include chemical, fertilizer, aluminum, steel, and glass industries. In some regions that
assumed manufacturing jobs were gone forever, new facilities are being constructed to take advantage
of low natural gas prices. In case you missed the article, it’s worth passing on a few key quotes from
industry personnel: “I never would have expected that as a region we’d have a second chance to be a
real leader in American manufacturing. Suddenly we’re back in the game.” – Bill Flanagan of the
Allegheny Conference on Community Development “The U.S. is now going to be the low-cost
industrialized country for energy.” – Philip Verleger, energy economist[1] “It has been a complete 180degree change in our thought process.” – Steve Wilson, CEO of CF Industries “We convinced ourselves
that this is not a temporary thing. This is a real, durable phenomenon, a potential competitive
advantage for the United States.” – Peter Cella, CEO of Chevron Phillips Chemical Company No doubt
we’ve seen low natural gas prices before, followed by price rises. But many in the energy industry now
believe that prices may stay low for a number of years, allowing investments in natural-gas consuming
facilities to really pay off.
Not-unique - producers are manufacturing in the US - shale gas prices are low and will
remain so
Hagerty ’13 (James R., covers manufacturing for The Wall Steet Journal, “Shale-Gas Boom Alone Won't
Propel U.S. Industry”,
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324392804578362781776519720, March 19,
2013, Accessed: 7/3, SD)
For some companies, low gas prices are changing the game. That includes makers of petrochemicals
(whose raw materials include natural gas) and producers of materials or equipment used in energy
production and exploration. For example, U.S. Steel Corp. X +1.52% has benefited from rising sales of pipes used in shale-gas
¶
production and distribution. Over the past two years, the company has upgraded its capacity for the kind of finishing work needed to make
pipes rugged enough to be drilled thousands of feet into the earth; those investments include a new $100 million facility at its Lorain, Ohio,
plant.¶
Another big energy user, Orascom Construction Industries ORSCY -7.10% of Egypt, plans a fertilizer
plant in Iowa that would benefit from cheap gas.¶ The shale-gas boom should help hold down electricity
costs in the U.S. and may lower transportation costs too, helping the entire economy. BNSF Railway Co.
recently said it plans to test using natural gas rather than diesel fuel to power locomotives. FedEx Corp. FDX
+0.88% said it is likely to use natural gas for many trucks within the next decade, which in turn should spur
investment in new types of engines.¶ So far, however, trade figures don't show an overall improvement in U.S. competitiveness: The deficit in
trade of manufacturing goods widened to about $687 billion last year from $673 billion in 2011, according to Manufacturers Alliance for
U.S. manufacturing employment has
edged up 4.5%, to nearly 12 million, but remains far below the more than 17 million employed in 2000 .¶
Economists say the outlook for U.S. manufacturing has improved for several reasons. As wages in China
rise swiftly, the labor-cost advantages of manufacturing there are diminishing. Meanwhile, U.S. companies
have become warier of losing control of intellectual property in overseas plants and of relying on long
supply lines overseas that can be disrupted by earthquakes or other natural disasters.¶ Now the gas
boom is adding another reason for manufacturers to consider making things in America, at least to
supply the North American market, says Dave Sievers, a principal at Hackett Group, a Miami-based consulting firm that advises
Productivity & Innovation, a research group in Arlington, Va. Since the beginning of 2010,
manufacturers. But "it's not going to turn everything upside down," Mr. Sievers says. "It's not like the U.S. is going to be the workshop for the
world."
Gas Not Key
Natural gas has a minimal impact on the manufacturing sector-only 1.5% increase and
a huge deficit make it impossible
Mathieu et al 2014-Mathilde, researcher at The Institute for Sustainable Development and
International Relations, Thomas Spencer, research fellow at the IDDRI, and Oliver Sartor, research fellow
at IDDRI (3/22/14, “Economic analysis of the US unconventional oil and gas revolution”, VOX,
http://www.voxeu.org/article/limited-economic-impact-us-shale-gas-boom date accessed 7/8/14) HC
Figure 2 shows the share of gas as a feedstock and fuel in value added in gas-consuming manufacturing subsectors. This is compared with
sectoral expenditure on employer-sponsored health insurance in order to give a point of comparison. Gas-intensive sectors make up
a relatively small share of the US manufacturing sector, and only about 1.2% of US GDP. There is no
evidence that the shale gas revolution will contribute to a ‘reindustrialisation’ in the US at the level of
the manufacturing sector as a whole. Exports have increased in gas-intensive sectors, but only to a total
of $23.6 billion in 2012 compared to a US manufacturing trade deficit of $779.4 billion (Figure 3). Coupled
with other factors since 2007 which would tend to boost exports and reduce imports, including declines
in the US real exchange rate during this time, and the effects of the recession on net imports, it is
difficult to conclude that any evidence exists of a US manufacturing renaissance led by shale gas. This
conclusion is similar to that reached in an IMF staff working paper which concluded that the benefits of cheaper gas are likely to
be limited to the chemicals, primary metals, and paper and print sectors, and that, on average, a
doubling of the US–G7 gas price gap was associated with only a 1.5% increasing in US manufacturing
production (Celasun et al. 2014).
Natural gas prices irrelevant to manufacturing
Levi 12 (Michael-senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations,
director of CFR Program on Energy Security and Climate Change, "Oil and Gas Euphoria Is Getting Out of
Hand,” 5/7/12, https://blogs.cfr.org/levi/2012/05/07/oil-and-gas-euphoria-is-getting-out-of-hand/)
“Energy
security would be one building block of a new prosperity. The other would be the revival of U.S.
manufacturing and other industries. This would be driven in part by the low cost of electricity in the United
States, which West forecasts will be relatively flat through the rest of this decade, and one-half to one-third that of economic competitors
such as Spain, France or Germany.” Once again, these sorts of claims have become increasingly common. Indeed the
quantitative assertions are perfectly plausible. But the big picture implications don’t make sense. As of
2010, total sales of U.S. manufactured goods were about five trillion dollars. At the same time, the
sector spent about 100 billion dollars on energy. That’s a mere two percent of total sales. You could
slash energy costs to zero, and it would barely move the needle for most U.S. manufacturers . There
are, of course, exceptions, like some iron, steel, cement, and paper makers. But even these industries care about
much more than their electricity prices. Will lower energy costs move things at the margin? Of course
they will, and that’s good news. But they are nowhere close to what’s needed for U.S. manufacturing to broadly
thrive.
Tangible impact on manufacturing is near-zero---their ev is just hype
Plumer 12 (Brad-Washington Post Reporter on Energy and Environment Issues, “Will cheap shale gas
revive U.S. manufacturing? Not so fast,” The Washington Post, 5/21/12,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/will-cheap-natural-gas-revive-usmanufacturing/2012/05/21/gIQAOORZfU_blog.html
It’s hard to think of an extravagant prediction that hasn’t been made about America’s recent natural-gas
boom. Let’s see: Cheap natural gas will wipe out coal. It will make the U.S. energy independent. And, oh
yes, it will create one million manufacturing jobs and revitalize the Midwest. Someone has to make these pipes.
(Keith Srakocic - AP) That last claim comes via a recent report from PricewaterhouseCoopers. But over at the Council on Foreign Relations,
Michael Levi casts a more skeptical eye on arguments that the age of cheap natural gas from shale will really lead to a dramatic revival of U.S.
manufacturing. There
are reasons to think the overall impact will be fairly muted. Energy costs are still a
small factor for many manufacturers. Levi points to a 2009 paper (pdf) by Joseph Aldy and William Pizer finding that “only one
tenth of U.S. manufacturing involved energy costs exceeding five percent of the total value of
shipments.” Aldy and Pizer estimated that a carbon tax, which raises energy prices, would affect manufacturing
employment slightly — less than 3 percent — in the most energy-intensive industries like aluminum, cement, glass, and steel.
The flipside is that lower energy costs, thanks to cheap natural gas, would have a similarly marginal
impact.
Prices would have to hit $17 for the U.S. to lose competitive advantage
Pickering 12 (Gordon-Director of the Energy Practice at Navigant Consulting, “The Resurgence of the
U.S. Petrochemical Sector and the Natural Gas Industry - 'Strange Bed Fellows' or a 'Match Made in
Heaven'?,” April 2012,
http://www.navigant.com/~/media/WWW/Site/Insights/Energy/NG_Notes_April_2012.ashx
Finally, U.S.
gas prices will need to rise dramatically before the relative advantage of the U.S.
petrochemical industry disappears. As a general rule of thumb in the chemical industry, gas-based steam crackers will be
economically favor- able (as compared to oil-based crackers) when the oil-gas price ratio is higher than 7*. Today's Brent price level of $120 per
barrel, then, implies that Henry Hub prices
will need to rise beyond $17/MMBtu before the U.S. petrochemical
players lose their cost advantage. The possibility of this looks inconceivable for the foreseeable future.
Therefore, even at long-term sustainable prices in the range of $5-7/MMBtu (unless there is a drastic crash of the oil prices), the U.S. chemical
industry will remain comfortably competitive against foreign competitors.
Prices are durable---the U.S. is insulated
Pirog 12 (Robert-Specialist in Energy Economics at the Congressional Research Service, and Michael
Ratner, Specialist in Energy Policy at the CRS, “Natural Gas in the U.S. Economy: Opportunities for
Growth,” 11/6/12, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42814.pdf
The advent of shale gas and the decline of U.S. natural gas prices has attracted global attention and prompted
countries to try to emulate the U.S. success in developing their unconventional gas resources. Although
other countries have touted their unconventional natural gas resources, no country has achieved the level of development
of the United States, except Australia, in developing their coal seam gas. Canada is moving ahead with its shale gas development, but
lags behind the United States. As can be seen in Figure 5, U.S. and other regional natural gas prices around the world moved in sync for most of
the last decade even though there is not a global market for natural gas as there is with oil. From 2008 to 2009, natural gas prices dropped
worldwide because of the decrease in demand from the decline in economic activity.
U.S. shale gas was beginning to come to market in
2007/2008 and by 2010/2011 it changed the trajectory of U.S. natural gas prices from those of the rest of the
world. In 2011, the rest of world faced higher prices than in 2010 for natural gas, but the United States
saw its natural gas price decline by 9%. U.S. natural gas prices have continued to trend lower ever since,
and many analysts forecast U.S. natural gas prices to remain relatively low at least through the end of this decade and possibly for longer. The
differential between the U.S. spot price and the average for the other major natural gas markets has
been growing each year since 2007. Although there are many factors that can affect natural gas prices in a particular market for a
certain period, such as the nuclear accident in Japan, the
growing differential highlights how the U.S. natural gas
market has been insulated from external events and the impact of the expanding U.S. natural gas
resource base.
Gas prices don’t make or break manufacturing---if a company’s competitiveness turns
on single-digit swings in gas prices, they’re doomed anyways
Ebinger 13 (Charles- senior fellow and director of the Energy Security Initiative at the Brookings
Institution, “The Department of Energy’s Strategy for Exporting Liquefied Natural Gas,” 3/19/13,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/testimony/2013/03/19-liquefied-natural-gas-ebinger)
I am similarly skeptical about the negative consequences of exports on our industrial sector. Some of the
more vocal industry opponents to LNG exports contend that price increases will reverse the trend of
manufacturing investment returning to the United States. I firmly disagree with this assessment. For starters, I don’t
believe that multi-billion dollar industrial investments in factories that will be a part of the capital stock
for decades will be rendered unprofitable by single-digit percent changes to natural gas prices. As one
analyst put it, “if your margins are so thin that [modest price increases] could break them, then there isn’t
much benefit to putting up a plant here. Conversely, if it is so beneficial to do it here, then a small
change in price probably won’t undermine those benefits
Manufacturers locate near demand---gas prices are irrelevant
WSJ 13 – Wall Street Journal, “Shale-Gas Boom Alone Won't Propel U.S. Industry,” 3/18/13,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324392804578362781776519720.html
Still, the
price of natural gas is only one factor manufacturers consider when deciding where to locate
plants. Taxes, labor costs and skills, regulation and government incentives also figure into the mix. Perhaps the biggest factor is
long-term demand for goods. The biggest growth in demand is still expected to be in China, India and other emerging markets.
Global companies typically want to locate production near their biggest customers. International Paper's
strategy illustrates the thinking of many global companies. The company spends roughly $1 billion a year on energy for 32
mills around the world, or about 10% of its total manufacturing costs. As a heavy energy user, International Paper expects benefits from lower
gas prices, largely because cheaper energy should stimulate the entire U.S. economy, increasing demand for packaging. But International
Paper's competitors
for American sales mostly also produce in the U.S. and will get the same energy-cost
advantage. International Paper is putting most of its capital investment in such overseas markets as Russia, China, India and Brazil; it
doesn't plan any new plants in the U.S., where demand for paper has been shrinking and packaging sales
are growing only modestly. "Our investments are really driven by demand, not costs," says Mr. Faraci, the CEO.
Gas doesn’t get close to boosting overall competitiveness
WSJ 13 – Wall Street Journal, “Shale-Gas Boom Alone Won't Propel U.S. Industry,” 3/18/13,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324392804578362781776519720.html
The shale-gas boom should help hold down electricity costs in the U.S. and may lower transportation costs too,
helping the entire economy. BNSF Railway Co. recently said it plans to test using natural gas rather than diesel fuel to power
locomotives. FedEx Corp. FDX -0.16% said it is likely to use natural gas for many trucks within the next decade, which in turn should spur
investment in new types of engines. So far, however, trade
figures don't show an overall improvement in U.S.
competitiveness: The deficit in trade of manufacturing goods widened to about $687 billion last year
from $673 billion in 2011, according to Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity & Innovation, a research group in Arlington, Va. Since
the beginning of 2010, U.S.
manufacturing employment has edged up 4.5%, to nearly 12 million, but remains
far below the more than 17 million employed in 2000.\
Energy costs don’t change manufacturing competitiveness
Levi 12 (Michael Levi- senior fellow for energy and the environment at Council on Foreign Relations,
director of CFR Program on Energy Security and Climate Change, "Energy and U.S. Manufacturing: Five
Things to Think About," May 16, 2012, CFR< blogs.cfr.org/levi/2012/05/16/energy-and-u-smanufacturing-five-things-to-think-about/)
Take a look at the sweep of major energy-intensive industries, and you’ll find that most are still quite
insensitive to energy prices. IHS-CERA, which is not shy about extolling the benefits of the “shale gale” (a term it coined), surveyed
these areas in an ANGA-funded study on shale jobs late last year and came to some striking conclusions. Aluminum: “Lower U.S.
natural gas prices could potentially slow or even halt the slow decay in the aluminum industry. However, it
is unlikely that they would change the economics of primary aluminum production enough, even in the
long-term, to redirect investment here.” Steel: “Cheaper electricity [due to low gas prices] will have only
a small positive effect on this industry in terms of profitability and competitiveness.” Cement: “The
electricity fraction of costs for cement production is too small to generate a significant impact on
competitiveness, and the cost savings are not expected to cause production expansion and capacity
investment.”
Current price increases will stabilize around $5 to $6---that’s plenty low for
manufacturing
Kelly-Detwiler 12(Peter-Forbes Energy Technology and Policy Contributor, “Driven by Oil Shale
Economics, Natural Gas Prices Primed for Slow and Steady Rise,” 12/3/12,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdetwiler/2012/12/03/driven-by-oil-shale-economics-natural-gasprices-primed-for-slow-and-steady-rise/print/
On the demand side, LNG exports are set to boom in coming years (requested permits are equivalent to more than 60% of current
consumption). The demand for gas in power gen is increasing (coal to gas switching has been significant, and most new fossil
power plants will be gas-fired). Transportation (use of LNG for long haul trucking driven by Clean Energy‘s natural gas highway plan) is
seen as pushing up future demand for gas as well. And don’t forget the potential for rising industrial use where gas is utilized
as a raw material feedstock. As long as oil stays close to $90 per barrel, it appears likely that the gas supply will continue to
throttle back, and the supply overhang will continue to dwindle. In the meantime, demand is likely to
grow in a variety of sectors, prices will rise, and a longer-term price equilibrium will eventually kick into
place. Gas at $5 to $6 per mmBtu may well be in our foreseeable future.
The natural gas manufacturing renaissance is a myth- current positive figures
represent cyclical behavior and natural gas has yet to produce a significant output
increase in the manufacturing industry
Singleton 13 (Malik-Manufacturing reporter for the International Business Times, “Goldman Sachs
Analysts Warn US Manufacturers That Performing Better Than Europe And Japan Is Nothing To Get
Excited About” International Business Times, 3/26/13, http://www.ibtimes.com/goldman-sachsanalysts-warn-us-manufacturers-performing-better-europe-japan-nothing-get-excited//AJB)
Goldman Sachs has a sober analysis of the U.S. manufacturing renaissance. In its new report, "The U.S.
Manufacturing Renaissance: Fact or Fiction?" Goldman's chief economist, Jan Hatzius, said that U.S.
manufacturing's positive figures are a good sign but warns that such recent figures actually show cyclical
behavior that should be expected -- not structural behavior that could be considered extraordinary. One
of the main points he makes in the study, which was released Monday, is that the industry's growth in
the U.S. compared with the performances of manufacturing in other countries says more about the
weakness in other parts of the global economy than about the strength of U.S. manufacturing. "Outside
the goods-producing sector, U.S. real GDP has grown just 0.5 percent (annualized) since the start of the
recovery in the middle of 2009, by far the slowest rate of any postwar cycle," Hatzius said. "And of
course, the gap between U.S. and foreign industrial output mostly reflects the weakness in Europe and
Japan following the intensification of the European financial crisis and the Japan earthquake in early
2011." US Production Advantage Industrial production has fallen outside of the U.S. Goldman Sachs
Hatzius' report also says there has not yet been a significant output pickup in the production of
aluminum, steel, plastics, basic chemicals and fertilizer production as one would expect from currently
low natural gas prices. "Total output in the truly energy-sensitive sectors shown account for 7 percent
of overall industrial production, or around 1 percent of GDP," Hatzius said. "So unless the impact of low
U.S. energy prices on output growth in these sectors is dramatic, the macroeconomic repercussions are
likely to be fairly limited." US Gas Advantage Analysis of U.S. advantage in natural gas prices Goldman
Sachs "Over the next few years, the manufacturing sector should continue to grow a bit faster than the
overall economy. But the main reason is likely to be a broad improvement in aggregate demand, rather
than a structural U.S. manufacturing renaissance," he added.
The thesis of the advantage is wrong
-Low prices only save 1% of total cost
-impact on the economy is too tiny too matter
-corporations won’t drill to drive prices back up
-Far too many alt causes to manufacturing decline
OADBS 14 (Oxford Analytica Daily Brief Service-a news bulletin that specializes in economic global
analysis, “United States: Gas prices may not propel manufacturing” Oxford Analytica Daily Brief Service,
2/25/14, proquest//AJB)
The overall economic benefits of shale gas production should not be exaggerated. Estimated cost
savings from lower natural gas prices amount to less than 1% of annual manufacturing sales revenue.
Projected energy savings for the steel industry, for instance, amount to just 1.7% of total production
costs. The cumulative impact of gas extraction and supporting infrastructure, new capital investments
by industry and the electricity sector and the additional output that is expected to be generated across
the US economy is likely to contribute less than three percentage points to GDP and two percentage
points to total employment numbers by the year 2020. It is far from certain that low natural gas prices
will continue to generate the economic benefits that analysts predict. It will take manufacturers three to
five years to recoup the capital costs they incur in expanding production facilities. As a result, raw
materials costs will be slow to fall as producers increase margins to recoup their investments. There is
no guarantee that electricity rates will decline -- residential rates have actually increased since 2008 (
see UNITED STATES: Shift from coal power will be gradual - December 3, 2013). Projections of future
shale gas production and resulting manufacturing growth may be overly optimistic if regulatory
approvals prove difficult to obtain or if other capacity constraints emerge, such as limited availability of
infrastructure or skilled personnel, rising exchange value of the US dollar, or if natural gas prices in
international markets decline ( see UNITED STATES: Exports will provide swing inventory - December 18,
2013). US gas prices may also rise if producers cut output in order to maximise profits. The EIA reports
that the number of active gas drilling rigs fell from 1,400 in 2008 to fewer than 400 in 2013. Outlook.
The shale gas revolution is only one of many factors that will determine the future competitiveness,
investment trends and growth prospects of manufacturing in the United States. Proximity to customers,
the availability of skilled workers, tax and regulatory compliance costs, the need to ensure intellectual
property rights and product quality, location incentives, currency exchange rates and rising production
and logistics costs in other industrial economies are all considerations in investment location decisions
that may outweigh savings from low gas prices. CONCLUSION: Abundant shale reserves will not be
sufficient to guarantee an extended period of low natural gas prices or the competitiveness and growth
of manufacturing in the United States. The future of manufacturing worldwide will depend far more on
the ability to develop and commercialise new products, adopt new technologies and reliably deliver
specialised products and services to customers in domestic and international markets.
Alt Causes
Too many alt causes to solve for manufacturing
Moutray and Newhouse 13 (Chad-Chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers,
Aric-senior vice president for policy and government relations at the National Association of
Manufacturers, “Don’t Write off the Manufacturing Renaissance,” Biztimes.com, 05/23/13,
http://www.biztimes.com/article/20130523/BLOGS/130529905/-1/milwaukee_blog/Don%E2%80%99twrite-off-the-manufacturing-renaissance-//AJB)
Current economic conditions in the United States, however, are full of uncertainty, largely due to
policies made in Washington. The United States erects a number of barriers that deter investment. Without a
comprehensive, pro-growth overhaul of U.S. economic policies, manufacturing will never achieve the
renaissance that many envision. Such policies include the following: Getting our long-term fiscal health
in order to end uncertainty related to tax and regulatory policies. Reforming the tax system to make the United States
more attractive globally for investment. Moving toward a regulatory environment that effectively
balances the trade-offs between benefits and costs and includes the participation of the manufacturing
community. Increasing trade opportunities to boost export sales to new foreign markets Addressing the
skill needs of the manufacturing community so they have the talent needed to meet additional demand and offset retiring
workers. With pro-growth initiatives such as these and a stronger global economy, manufacturing will rebound.
However, if Washington harms our opportunity to create jobs, manufacturing’s doubters could very well
be proven right. Falling energy prices in the United States and rising production costs overseas aren’t
enough to bring about a manufacturing renaissance. They cannot overcome the many obstacles to
competitiveness that manufacturers face due to U.S. policy.
Steel
AT: Steel Impact
NatGas alone can’t solve the US steel industry-government policies need to be
reworked for the US to even have a chance of competing with Japan
Rogawski 9 (Jerry, MA in business and policy studies Empire State College, “An investigation of steel
industry problems facing the United States in its competition with Japan,” 2009, Proquest//AJB)
My research indicates that industry policies and governmental
policies in the United States have to change in order to
initiate change in the steel industry. The government has to provide some sort of platform and impetus
for the American steel industry to chart a new course into the 21st century. One possibility is the rebuilding of the
American infrastructure: the roads, bridges, railways, and new projects, which are environmentally friendly as mentioned by Mcbee. Japan's
policies will not change; the partnership between government and industry is a tradition, which works and is an efficient method that benefits
the government and the Japanese steel industry. In my opinion based on the research I have done, the relationship may expand further with
more governmental subsidies, and further partnership among the larger Japanese steel corporations. Lastly, the American steel industry initially
Rogawski 69 failed for many years to match the Japanese steel industry production levels, but currently the domestic steel industry appears to
be close to rebounding, and can perhaps effectively compete in the future with their Japanese counterparts. In the present economic downturn, policies in the United States and Japan will again determine which direction and course the American steel industry will aim. The research
that I have presented shows
that through sound governmental and industry policies, and the integration of
new technologies, the Japanese steel industry has surpassed the American steel industry in terms of
capacity and production. Policy measures introduced by the United States to limit the flow of Japanese steel products failed to protect
the American steel industry. Poor planning and decision-making on the part of American steel producers further
widened the production and capacity gap between the United States and Japan. Only recently have the American
steel mills been able to effectively compete with Japanese steel producers. To this end the results of the research are sufficient to support the
basic stance of the position paper, which is that the
United States' steel industry has been surpassed by the Japanese
steel industry. The historical relationship between the Japanese and the United States, the policies utilized to support steel industries in
both countries, and the recent industrial policies and strategies; confirm the stance of this position paper.
Turn- cheaper steel and natural gas trade off with manufacturing jobs
Depillis 14 (Lydia, Writer for the Washington Post, “Is Cheap Steel Killing American Jobs?” The
Washington Post, 5/13/14, proquest//AJB)
The American steel industry is in trouble. It's long been under pressure from cheaper foreign imports. Then, demand dropped
off a cliff during the recession as construction slowed. And over the past few months, as activity was recovering -- especially natural gas
extraction, which requires miles and miles of steel tubing -- a flood of production started coming online
from Asia, sending prices through the floor. Unable to compete, U.S. steel companies have cried foul. In a hearing on the Hill a
couple months ago, executives said that South Korean steel companies were dumping massive amounts of supply
on the American market, vaguely suggesting they were up to dirty tricks. So far, though, the Commerce Department has disagreed.
Since Korean companies weren't artificially depressing prices, it didn't qualify as illegal dumping, the department ruled in February. But the U.S.
companies -- as well as the unions whose membership depends on domestic production -- haven't given up. They've asked the Department of
Commerce to reevaluate its decision, and on Tuesday they put out a report by the Economic Policy Institute making the case for why America
ought to fight back. In a rare moment of accord, Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) -- both from heavy steel-producing
states -- got on a call with reporters to drive that message home. The argument boils down to this: Regardless of whether or not Korean firms
were selling their steel for lower prices, many of the companies are state-owned and thus receive advantages that U.S. private industry doesn't.
Also, not being market-driven actors, the Koreans don't adjust production when demand stagnates, driving the price lower than it might
otherwise be. "They
see us as a big fat market that they can exploit when they're in trouble to keep their
employees working," as Sessions put it. "We're not in a free market... I think the ideal of trade is correct, but I don't think the single,
overriding goal must always be the lowest price for everybody in America." He's put his finger on the tradeoff between economic freedom and
American jobs: Someone's cheap goods are another person's pink slip. Except it's a little more complicated than that. If
the natural gas industry can get cheaper tubing, maybe it will produce even cheaper gas, which has created hundreds of thousands of jobs by
making American manufacturing more competitive. Even Brown agrees with that -- he signed a letter a couple days ago asking that the United
States not allow gas exports to China, which would theoretically keep prices lower for Americans. But Brown thinks that gas
companies
don't pass savings from cheaper inputs onto consumers, and in any case, insists that those low prices are
ill-gotten gains. "Drilling into the Marcellus shale is profitable enough already," he said. "It's a little bit like arguing that it's okay
for people to buy stolen TVs just because they're cheaper."
Aff can’t solve Steel- Foreign companies artificially lower prices, costing thousands of
jobs
Pete 14 (Joseph, writer for McClatchy - Tribune Business News, “Study: Steel Dumping Puts Half a
Million Jobs at Risk,” McClatchy-Tribune Business News, 6/17/14, ProQuest//AJB)
U.S. steelmakers have collectively lost $3.6 billion over the past five years. They are getting slammed by
imports from state-bankrolled foreign competitors that are so heavily subsidized they don't have to
worry about turning a profit. A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute and Law Offices of Stewart and Stewart found the
U.S. steel industry "is facing its worst import crisis in more than a decade" and steel dumping threatens
583,600 jobs nationwide. Indiana and Illinois could be two of the hardest hit states if the flood of imports results in more idled plants.
Illinois could lose up to 28,400 jobs, while 26,000 jobs are at risk in Indiana. The estimates include jobs in the steel industry, as well as those
supported by the sector and the wages of steelworkers. "The
excess capacity plaguing the steel industry is a result of
massive government support for the steel industry in other countries," said Terence Stewart, managing partner of
Stewart and Stewart. "Half of the world's top steel companies are state-owned. These companies have ramped up capacity and are producing
much more steel than the market demands. The U.S. steel market is the No. 1 target for offloading excess supply." Steelworkers have held
rallies across the country -- including in Illinois, Ohio and Texas -- to urge federal action against the deluge of cheap imports. A Save our Steel
Jobs rally took place Monday at U.S. Steel Fairfield Works and Tubular Operations in Alabama. Bipartisan groups of 56 senators and 153
congressmen have sent letters to the U.S. Department of Commerce asking it to impose duties on pipe and tube imports from South Korea. The
federal agency decided in February not to level tariffs to discourage South Korean dumping of steel pipe, and it will reach a final decision by July
10. Overall, steel
imports rose to 32 million tons last year, up from 28.5 million in 2011. But that surge is not the
result of market demand, the study found. Half of the world's 46 top steelmakers are state-owned, and those
companies account for 38 percent of steel production worldwide. They get tax breaks, grants, forgiven debt and
subsidized loans that enable them to sell steel below market rates, often in the United States. Foreign
steelmakers, especially in Asia, have increased capacity without having any sound economic rationale
grounded in sales or expected demand. Global overcapacity, or the difference between the amount of steel that could be produced by
all the existing mills and the amount that is actually made, has soared from 228 million tons in 2000 to 517 million tons last year.
The subsidized foreign companies keep making more steel than they need and unload what they cannot sell in
the United States at below-market prices. The average unit value of imports has fallen by $259 per ton, or 23.1 percent, since
2011. U.S. steelmakers have been forced to cut prices, hurting their profitability. Shipments fell slightly last year
from 95.9 million tons to 95.4 million tons, but sales dropped off significantly from $52 billion to $49.4 billion since U.S. steelmakers were
forced to sell their products for less. The diminished revenue already has taken a toll, leading U.S. Steel to idle tubular plants in Pennsylvania
and Texas. The indefinite closures put 260 people out of work. "The steel industry is hugely important to the U.S. economy," said Robert Scott,
director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Research for the Economic Policy Institute. "It directly supports half a million jobs, and those jobs
are in imminent danger. The
import surge has led to sharp declines in income in the steel industry, layoffs for thousands of
workers, and reduced wages for many more."
Export Advantages
Status Quo Solves
Squo Solves---Export Dominance
International resource production low - other countries are dependent on our natural
gas exports in sq
Hefner ’14 (Robert, is founder and owner of The GHK Company, an Oklahoma-based natural gas and
oil firm, “The United States of Gas: Why the Shale Revolution Could Have Happened Only in America”,
Foreign Affairs, May/June 2014, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141203/robert-a-hefner-iii/theunited-states-of-gas, Accessed: 7/8, SD)
It is highly unlikely that other countries will ever catch up to the United States. True, China and Europe sit on
vast shale resources (in China’s case, possibly containing more natural gas than U.S. reserves). But those resources won’t get
extracted anytime soon. Since other countries cannot sustain thousands of independent oil and gas
companies, their resources must be exploited by bureaucratic, slow-moving national companies and
international giants (which have to deal with even more bureaucratic governments and often Byzantine legal and regulatory systems).
Hammering out huge shale deals in foreign countries and then completing the resulting projects will take decades. Even in China, where the
government exercises near-complete control of both surface and subsurface land use, only a few national companies and a few more foreign
ones are planning on developing shale gas. And because fewer minds will be working on fewer operations, it will take longer to move up the
learning curve and the productivity gains will be smaller than in the United States. So costs will be high, and profits, thin.¶
In many
democracies, development is also being slowed by the “not in my backyard” syndrome. Unlike Oklahomans
and Texans, who have grown up with the oil and gas industry, foreign populations are usually unfamiliar with it; most of the 1.5 million oil and
gas wells outside the United States are located either in deep offshore waters or remote onshore areas. And because governments in other
countries own or control virtually all the underground resource rights, landowners have no skin in the game. Receiving none of the economic
benefits and facing only the downsides of intrusive projects in their own backyards, they justifiably tend to resist drilling projects.¶ Such is the
case in Europe, where the problem is magnified by a hyperactive green movement determined to block the development of shale gas. France
has banned fracking entirely, and Germany has put a de facto moratorium in place. Without a massive change in attitude,
Europe will
take even longer than China to develop its shale gas resources. Even if it does develop them, the results
will be less robust and very slow in coming.¶ Europe is also burdened by misguided energy policies. At the
beginning of this century, European politicians argued that their continent should lead the world in shifting to green energy and reducing
carbon dioxide emissions. They committed tens of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to subsidize green energy projects, principally to
develop wind and solar power, that were not yet efficient or reliable enough to compete. Unfortunately, it is doubtful that Europe’s move
toward green energy will result in the utopian future its advocates have predicted. In
order to meet growing power demands,
dirty coal freed up by the U.S. shift to natural gas is already finding its way to Europe. The reality is that
these European countries have saddled themselves with a costly, not very efficient energy infrastructure
that will act as a brake on long-term economic growth. And so while the United States reindustrializes,
Europe, without new political leaders who better understand the economics of energy, may well face decades of deindustrialization and
economic stagnation.
Exports Bad---Manufacturing
Exports Bad---Manufacturing
Turn- Exporting NatGas increase prices and kills manufacturing
Cicio 14 (Paul, president of Industrial Energy Consumers of America, “My view: Liquid natural gas
exports threaten US jobs” Deseret News, 4/30/14,
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865602069/Liquid-natural-gas-exports-threaten-USjobs.html?pg=all//AJB)
Ukraine-Russia crisis has Congress rushing to consider legislation to accelerate exports of natural gas,
which will increase U.S. natural gas and electricity prices. This is despite the fact that the U.S. will not have any liquified
natural gas (LNG) export terminals ready to ship until 2015, and that Ukraine does not have an import facility. The justification for such
drastic and reckless action does not add up. So what is driving congressional action that could threaten
manufacturing jobs? Even though the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has already approved shipments of LNG equal to Qatar, the
largest LNG exporter in the world, Congress is pushing ahead to export volumes over three times that size. Natural gas prices have
already increased almost 20 percent in 2014, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is
forecasting a 42 percent rise by 2019. The concern is that high energy prices could stop the
manufacturing renaissance that has created so many new jobs. On April 9, 2014, the U.S. House Subcommittee on
The
Energy and Power voted on H.R. 6 the “Domestic Prosperity and Global Freedom Act,” a bill that would approve all LNG export applications.
H.R. 6 passed by a vote of 15 to 11. Almost identical legislation has been introduced in the Senate. The
real reason is that the oil
and gas industry is pushing Congress to accelerate exports so that it can increase natural gas prices here.
Two DOE reports confirm that LNG exports result in increased domestic natural gas prices. This is
exactly what happened in Australia, which has been exporting LNG for over a decade. Now, natural gas
prices have tripled and manufacturing companies are being asked to pay the higher LNG export price
and are closing their doors. On March 27, 2014, ABC news reported that families are going without food and
medicine to pay their energy bills. The report states, “The irony is that Australia is producing more gas
than ever, and is on track to become the world's largest exporter of gas, with contracts to supply fuelstarved Asian markets prepared to pay triple the prices Australians do for energy.”
Warming/Bridge Fuel Advantage
Solvency
Warming---No Solvency
Expanding gas reliance locks in catastrophic warming
Joe Romm 12, Fellow at American Progress and editor of Climate Progress, “Natural Gas Is A Bridge To
Nowhere Absent A Carbon Price AND Strong Standards To Reduce Methane Leakage,” 4/9/12,
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/09/460384/natural-gas-is-a-bridge-to-nowhere-absent-acarbon-price-and-strong-standards-to-reduce-methane-leakage/
September saw the publication of a remarkable study by Tom Wigley of the National Center for
Atmospheric Research (NCAR), which concluded: In summary, our results show that the substitution of
gas for coal as an energy source results in increased rather than decreased global warming for many
decades. What NCAR’s new study added was more detailed modeling of all contributors to climate
change from fossil fuel combustion — positive and negative. Reducing coal use reduces sulfate aerosols
that have a short-term cooling effect. The new study does not consider the potential drop in sulfate
aerosols from switching off coal. It discusses Wigley’s work and argues that he overestimated the
impact. But it seems likely that a significant impact remains and further undercuts the benefit of a major
switch from coal to gas. Analyzing the switch from coal to gas is certainly complicated. I’ve discussed it
at length with coauthor Steven Hamburg. And I’ve run this new study by climatologist Ken Caldeira, who
stands by his approach that finds basically no benefit in the switch whatsoever — see You Can’t Slow
Projected Warming With Gas, You Need ‘Rapid and Massive Deployment’ of Zero-Carbon Power.
Caldeira certainly supports efforts to reduce methane leakage, but as he has said before, “Natural Gas Is
‘A Bridge To A World With High CO2 Levels’.” I cannot do justice to his comments on this study by
excerpting them, so I’ll post them in full tomorrow. Doing in situ studies of actual methane leakage
under different conditions is valuable. It’s great that groups like EDF are working with industry to get a
better grip on this. Cutting methane leakage sharply makes a lot of sense, but, realistically, it is all but
certain to require federal standards that the industry will oppose. And who precisely is going to achieve
such standards globally as the technology for fracking is exported around the world? Building lots of new
gas plants simply doesn’t make much sense since we need to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions
and the rate of growth of warming in the next few decades if we’re to have any chance to avoid
catastrophic global warming. We only want an outcome, which doesn’t exist yet, where natural gas only
replaces coal. We don’t want new gas plants to displace new renewables, like solar and wind — since
that would negate what little benefit switching from coal to gas might bring. That requires a carbon
Natural gas is a bridge to nowhere- not enough time to switch over and see real
effects on temperatures
Joe Romm 12, Fellow at American Progress and editor of Climate Progress, “Natural Gas Is A Bridge To
Nowhere Absent A Carbon Price AND Strong Standards To Reduce Methane Leakage,” 4/9/12,
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/09/460384/natural-gas-is-a-bridge-to-nowhere-absent-acarbon-price-and-strong-standards-to-reduce-methane-leakage/
The concept of natural gas as a “bridge fuel” was pushed by the American Gas Association as far back as
1981. It’s the longest bridge in history! Heck, the Golden Gate Bridge only took 4 years to build! But the window where gas can
be a major bridge fuel to a world with a livable climate appears to be almost completely closed, now. Had we acted back in the
1980s or even 1990s as climate scientists and world leaders had been urging, then, yes, an expansion of gas use
might have made sense. The fact that natural gas is now a bridge fuel to nowhere was first shown by the
International Energy Agency in its big June report on gas — see IEA’s “Golden Age of Gas Scenario”
Leads to More Than 6°F Warming and Out-of-Control Climate Change. The IEA’s well-named GAG
scenario assumes that not only does oil production peak in 2020 — but so does coal! Remember, warming
beyond 6°F (3.5°C) is “incompatible with organized global community, is likely to be beyond
‘adaptation’, is devastating to the majority of ecosystems & has a high probability of not being stable (i.e.
4°C [7F] would be an interim temperature on the way to a much higher equilibrium level),” according to Professor Kevin Anderson, director of
the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change in Britain (see here). We would be self-destructively irrational to risk even 5°F warming. If your goal
is a livable climate, we need to transition off of all fossil fuels ASAP. September saw the publication of a
remarkable study by Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), which concluded: In
summary, our results show that the substitution of gas for coal as an energy source results in increased
rather than decreased global warming for many decades. What NCAR’s new study added was more
detailed modeling of all contributors to climate change from fossil fuel combustion — positive and
negative. Reducing coal use reduces sulfate aerosols that have a short-term cooling effect. The new study
does not consider the potential drop in sulfate aerosols from switching off coal. It discusses Wigley’s work and argues that he overestimated
the impact. But it
seems likely that a significant impact remains and further undercuts the benefit of a major
switch from coal to gas. Analyzing the switch from coal to gas is certainly complicated. I’ve discussed it at length with coauthor Steven
Hamburg. And I’ve run this new study by climatologist Ken Caldeira, who stands by his approach that finds basically no benefit in the switch
whatsoever — see
You Can’t Slow Projected Warming With Gas, You Need ‘Rapid and Massive Deployment’
of Zero-Carbon Power. Caldeira certainly supports efforts to reduce methane leakage, but as he has said before, “Natural Gas Is ‘A
Bridge To A World With High CO2 Levels’.” I cannot do justice to his comments on this study by excerpting them, so I’ll post them in full
tomorrow. Doing in situ studies of actual methane leakage under different conditions is valuable. It’s great that groups like EDF are working
with industry to get a better grip on this. Cutting methane leakage sharply makes a lot of sense, but, realistically, it
is all but certain to
require federal standards that the industry will oppose. And who precisely is going to achieve such
standards globally as the technology for fracking is exported around the world?
Locks in warming at 650ppm---causes catastrophic feedbacks
Joe Romm 11, Fellow at American Progress and editor of Climate Progress, 6/7/11, “IEA’s “Golden Age
of Gas Scenario” Leads to More Than 6°F Warming and Out-of-Control Climate Change,”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/06/07/238578/iea-golden-age-of-natural-gas-scenario-warmingclimate-change/
The International Energy Agency has just issued a special report titled, “Are We Entering a Golden Age of Gas?” The answer to that question is
“yes” only if you are a natural gas producer who doesn’t care much about humanity. For the rest of us, the report makes clear natural gas by
itself does nothing to avert catastrophic climate change. Quite the reverse. The UK Guardian‘s story put it well: Natural
gas is not the
“panacea” to solve climate change that fossil fuel industry lobbyists have been claiming, according to
new research from the International Energy Agency. Reliance on gas would lead the world to a 3.5C
temperature rise, according to the IEA. At such a level, global warming could run out of control, deserts would take
over in southern Africa, Australia and the western US, and sea level rises could engulf small island states.
Not exactly a champagne moment. UPDATE: I’ve added a featured comment (and link) by Tyler Hamilton, business columnist at The Toronto
Star. Ironically, the IEA report is built around what it calls “The Golden Age of Gas Scenario (GAS Scenario)” — except, of course, the acronym
for “Golden Age of Gas Scenario” should be GAG Scenario not GAS Scenario. And GAG is exactly what the planet would do if the dash to gas
becomes our primary energy policy, rather than a high and rising price for CO2. The reason is clear.
Absent a high CO2 price, gas
displaces as much low-carbon electricity as it does high-carbon coal. That was precisely the point made by Nobuo
Tanaka, executive director of the IEA, at a London press conference: “While natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel, it is still a
fossil fuel. Its increased use could muscle out low-carbon fuels such as renewables and nuclear,
particularly in the wake of Fukushima. An expansion of gas use alone is no panacea for climate change.”
The Guardian notes, “The IEA also warned that gas could push out renewables, if governments come under pressure
to reduce renewables subsidies and opt for gas instead, as gas companies have been urging. The report itself
makes clear that in the GAG scenario: Natural gas displaces coal and to a lesser extent oil, driving down emissions,
but it also displaces some nuclear power, pushing up emissions…. This puts emissions on a long-term
trajectory consistent with stabilising the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at
around 650 ppm, suggesting a long-term temperature rise of over 3.5°C. Note that the GAG scenario assumes that
not only does oil production peak in 2020 — but so does coal! Yet we still get 650 ppm and more than 6°F warming even
with that incredibly optimistic assumption — and with the additional optimistic assumption that industrial
coal consumption (and CO2 emissions) only rises 22% from 2008 to 2020. And assuming we don’t have a lot of that gas
leaking into the air (see New study questions shale gas as a bridge fuel and Is natural gas cleaner than coal?). Oh yes, and then we have
the assumption that we can actually stabilize at 650 ppm. In fact, once we go above 450 ppm, the carboncycle feedbacks are going to accelerate and shoot us to much higher levels of greenhouse gas
concentrations — see “NSIDC bombshell: Thawing permafrost feedback will turn Arctic from carbon sink to
source in the 2020s, releasing 100 billion tons of carbon by 2100.” In any case, 650 ppm is probably
sufficient to lead to the ultimate disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet and many tens of feet of sea
level rise — see New study of Greenland under “more realistic forcings” concludes “collapse of the ice-sheet was found to
occur between 400 and 560 ppm” of CO2. That SLR is likely to kick in sooner rather than later — see JPL bombshell: Polar ice
sheet mass loss is speeding up, on pace for 1 foot sea level rise by 2050. Finally, back in October, the National Center for
Atmospheric Research published a complete literature review, “Drought under global warming: a review,” (See NCAR analysis
warns we risk multiple, devastating global droughts even on moderate emissions path). That study makes clear that DustBowlification may be the impact of human-caused climate change that hits the most people by midcentury, as the figure below suggests (click to enlarge, “a reading of -4 or below is considered extreme drought”): drought map 3 2060-2069
The PDSI [Palmer Drought Severity Index] in the Great Plains during the Dust Bowl apparently spiked very briefly to -6, but otherwise rarely
exceeded -3 for the decade (see here). The large-scale pattern shown in Figure 11 [of which the figure above is part] appears to be a robust
response to increased GHGs. This is very alarming because if the
drying is anything resembling Figure 11, a very large population
will be severely affected in the coming decades over the whole United States, southern Europe,
Southeast Asia, Brazil, Chile, Australia, and most of Africa. The National Center for Atmospheric Research notes “By the
end of the century, many populated areas, including parts of the United States, could face readings in
the range of -8 to -10, and much of the Mediterranean could fall to -15 to -20. Such readings would be
almost unprecedented.” For the record, the NCAR study merely models the IPCC’s “moderate” A1B scenario “” atmospheric
concentrations of CO2 around 520 ppm in 2050 and 700 in 2100, which is pretty darn close to the GAG scenario So much for a Golden Age.
Even best categories of Gas can only stabilize CO2 at 450ppm at best---that’s still
catastrophic warming
David Roberts 13, writer for Grist, 1/7/13, “Natural gas: It’s a hedge, not a bridge,” Grist,
http://grist.org/climate-energy/natural-gas-its-a-hedge-not-a-bridge/)
Boosters of natural gas frequently argue that it can serve as a “bridge fuel,” spanning the chasm
between our current global electricity systems, dominated by coal, and systems mostly or completely
comprised of low-carbon sources like wind and solar. The idea is, we ramp up natural gas, the least dirty
of the fossil fuels, to displace coal, thereby giving ourselves a few more decades to develop renewable
energy, which will then replace natural gas. Natgas gets us from here to there. This argument has
become popular for a broad swath of U.S. elites, not only typical fossil-fuel boosters but lefty luminaries
like Center for American Progress founder John Podesta and green leaders like Environmental Defense
Fund President Fred Krupp. Despite the notion becoming common to the point of cliché, however,
there’s been almost no effort to model a natural gas bridge — that is to say, to construct a climate
scenario that a) stabilizes atmospheric carbon dioxide at a safe level and b) includes a large-buttemporary increase in natural gas consumption. There have been climate scenarios that incorporate a
baseline level of natural gas consumption (assuming no significant policy shifts), and some that model
consumption substantially and permanently increasing, but none that explicitly model a bridge, that is, a
rise and subsequent decline. Into the breach steps Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations, with
a new paper, “Climate consequences of natural gas as a bridge fuel,” published in the journal Climatic
Change. It’s a fascinating and timely bit of work that takes as its goal “to explore the properties of
scenarios that feature natural gas as a bridge and that stabilize CO2 concentrations at or near the oft
discussed targets of 450 and 550 ppm.” The paper’s got some intriguing things to say about methane
emissions from natural gas production, which is a hot topic right now. (Long story short, the paper
claims that methane emissions don’t have much bearing on long-term climate outcomes.) But I hope
that doesn’t distract from the more central conclusion, which is that true climate safety leaves very, very
little room for a natural gas bridge. Here’s how the abstract puts it: In the context of the most ambitious
stabilization objectives (450 ppm CO2), and absent carbon capture and sequestration, a natural gas
bridge is of limited direct emissions-reducing value, since that bridge must be short. Natural gas can,
however, play a more important role in the context of more modest but still stringent objectives (550
ppm CO2), which are compatible with longer natural gas bridges. [my emphasis] It’s important to note
that 450 ppm is not the most ambitious stabilization objective. Climate scientist James Hansen and
others have argued that anything over 350 ppm is an unacceptable risk. (Hitting 350 would mean
reducing current atmospheric CO2 levels — we recently hit 394.) I asked Levi about this and he said that
there just aren’t many 350 ppm scenarios to work with in the climate modeling world. Nonetheless, I
think it stands to reason that if the natural gas bridge in a 450 ppm scenario is “short,” the bridge in a
350 ppm scenario is … not there at all. There are detailed proposals out there for getting to 350 ppm,
but they involve a heroic, wholesale shift directly to carbon-free energy. They do not include a ramping
up of natural gas, temporary or otherwise. The conclusion is inescapable: There is no natural gas bridge
to true climate safety.
CO2 reductions from natgas are net-zero and are offset by increased emissions from
other sectors
Jim Pierobon 12, founder, Pierobon & Partners LLC, has co-managed the energy and environmental
practice at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, served as VP-Market Development and Chief Marketing
Officer of Standard Solar, Inc. and was the Chief Energy Writer at the Houston Chronicle, 8/15/12, “Shale
gas helping reduce carbon & overall emissions – but by how much?,”
http://theenergycollective.com/jimpierobon/103281/shale-gas-helping-reduce-carbon-overallemissions-how-much
The results are adding up. It’s hard to ignore how the surging deployment of natural gas for industrial uses and power generation is reducing
the growth in U.S. carbon and other harmful emissions and possibly lowering overall emissions. Two
recent studies draw from
different data sets so one should be careful not to jump to an overly optimistic conclusion. That said, the
trends are encouraging for anyone aspiring to breathe cleaner air and displace burning coal. The 2012 Benchmarking Air
Emissions report by CERES is the eighth report in a series highlighting environmental performance and
progress in the nation’s electric power sector. The report is based on 2010 generation and emissions data from the U.S. Energy
Information Administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and also includes analysis of preliminary 2011 emissions data. Using
preliminary sector-wide emissions data from 2011, the report reflects a continued downward trend in CO2 emissions, falling an additional five
percent compared to 2010. Emissions of CO2 had increased by about five percent from 2009 to 2010 as demand for electricity increased with
the recovering economy. But CO2 emissions declined by a similar amount from 2010 to 2011 due to a shift away from coal-fired generation.
Preliminary data also indicate that in 2011, sector-wide power plant SO2 and NOx emissions continued to fall, dropping 40 percent and 35
percent below 2008 levels, respectively. Emissions of these pollutants are expected to decline further as power plant owners install additional
pollution controls and plan to retire roughly 12 percent of the nation’s coal-burning fleet. Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, which prepared the
report with M.J. Bradley & Associates, NRDC, Entergy, Exelon, Tenaska and Bank of America, asserted: “This is an historic transition for the
electric power industry. More and more power producers are shifting away from coal-fired generation in favor of lower-emitting natural gasfired plants, renewable power and energy efficiency.” In
addition to the natural gas boom, industry adaptations to
stronger Clean Air Act emissions standards and state-driven efficiency and renewable energy incentives
are playing key roles. The CO2 Scorecard, in its own report, found similar threads explaining declining emissions. The left-leaning
research group was quick not to give shale natural gas too much credit over a longer time-frame. The
Scorecard concluded that “price driven displacement of coal by natural gas can account for just around
10% of the CO2 reductions during the period 2006-11. “Nearly 90% of the cuts in CO2 emissions were
caused by: (1) the decline in petroleum use in the transportation sector, (2) displacement of coal by
mostly non-price factors, and (3) its replacement by wind, hydro and other renewables. “Each ton of
CO2 saved from price driven displacement of coal by gas in the electricity sector was offset by a ton or
more of CO2 from its increased use in commercial, residential and industrial sectors .” Only a ‘peripheral role’
for natural gas? “We also show,” the CO2 Scorecard continued, “that both renewables and energy efficiency measures
independently outperform the CO2 savings from coal-to-gas displacement, indicating that natural gas
can at best play a peripheral role in cutting CO2 emissions, and it cannot substitute for authentic
climate policies based on regulations, clean energy standards and carbon price. “Natural gas deserves credit
where it is due, but pro-gas advocacy has led to a significant overstatement of the true CO2 cutting
credentials of shale gas. This is a mistake and it undercuts the effort to keep policy discussions
accurate.” Early this month, the Energy Information Administration reported that CO2 emissions resulting from energy use during the first
quarter of 2012 were the lowest in two decades for any January-March period. Normally, CO2 emissions during the year are highest in the first
quarter because of strong demand for heat produced by fossil fuels. However, CO2
emissions during January-March 2012 were low
due to a combination of three factors:A mild winter that reduced household heating demand and
therefore energy use, A decline in coal-fired electricity generation, due largely to historically low natural
gas prices, reduced gasoline demand.
Absent a carbon price, gas locks in catastrophic warming
Joe Romm 12, Fellow at American Progress and editor of Climate Progress, “Natural Gas Is A Bridge To
Nowhere Absent A Carbon Price AND Strong Standards To Reduce Methane Leakage,” 4/9/12,
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/09/460384/natural-gas-is-a-bridge-to-nowhere-absent-acarbon-price-and-strong-standards-to-reduce-methane-leakage/
Building lots of new gas plants simply doesn’t make much sense since we need to sharply reduce
greenhouse gas emissions and the rate of growth of warming in the next few decades if we’re to have any
chance to avoid catastrophic global warming. We only want an outcome, which doesn’t exist yet, where natural gas only replaces coal. We
don’t want new gas plants to displace new renewables, like solar and wind — since that would negate
what little benefit switching from coal to gas might bring. That requires a carbon price. So the only
scenario I can see in which more gas makes sense is the one I laid out 3 years ago. We have a rising price for carbon.
We have a short-term transition — lasting to about 2020 — to fill the existing underutilized gas-fired capacity and replace coal cheaply. In this
scenario,
very few new natural gas plants are built. And, of course, during this time we still push hard on
efficiency and all forms of renewables to keep bringing them rapidly down the cost curve. Post-2020 it needs
to be pretty much all carbon-free power. What this new study adds is that even this approach doesn’t make much sense without an additional
effort to cut methane leaks sharply. BOTTOM LINE:
If you want to have a serious chance at averting catastrophic
global warming, then we need to start phasing out all fossil fuels as soon as possible. Natural gas isn’t a
true bridge fuel from a climate perspective. Carbon-free power is the bridge fuel until we can figure out how to go carbon negative on a
large scale by the end of the century.
Impossible for gas reliance to solve warming enough to avoid catastrophic tipping
points and undermines renewables
Plumer 12 Brad, Washington Post, "Can natural gas help tackle global warming? A primer." Aug 20
www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/20/can-natural-gas-really-help-tackle-globalwarming-heres-everything-you-need-to-know/?print=1
6) Natural gas is still a fossil fuel and can't, on its own, avert significant global warming. The International
Energy Agency has outlined some "golden rules" for natural-gas production that include plugging those pesky leaks at relatively low cost. If all
those rules came to pass and natural gas use surged around the world, displacing coal in countries like China and India, then the IEA estimates
that worldwide greenhouse gases would be about 1.3 percent lower in 2035. That's a real dent, though only a partial one. (See Andrew Revkin
if this was the only change made to our energy
system, the IEA estimates that the world would still be on track to increase atmospheric carbon
emissions to about 650 parts per million, "a trajectory consistent with a probable temperature rise of
more than 3.5°C in the long term, well above the widely accepted 2°C target." In other words, relying solely
on natural gas to clean up emissions would put the world on pace for global warming that Tyndall Center
director Kevin Anderson says is “likely to be beyond ‘adaptation.' " This basically comes down to what Bill McKibben has called
for a longer look at what would happen if China shifted from coal to gas.) Now,
the "new math" of global warming. The best climate science suggests that world can only emit about 500 more gigatons of carbon by midcentury if we want a shot at staying below that 2°C threshold. Even
if natural gas displaced coal entirely, we'd likely still
reach that point soon (albeit at a slower pace). 7) At the moment, cheap natural gas appears to be
hindering the development of even lower-carbon energy sources. In addition to pushing aside dirty coal, the flood
of cheap shale gas in the United States has also undermined the advance of lower-carbon sources such
as wind, solar, and nuclear power. And some analysts fear that could prove counterproductive in the long run.
One study from MIT suggested that cheap natural gas could actually lead to higher greenhouse-gas emissions in
the United States by 2050 if it stunts the growth of renewable energy. "Shale gas is a great advantage to the U.S. in the short term, for
the next few decades," MIT study author Henry Jacoby said in January. "But it is so attractive that it threatens other energy
sources we ultimately will need."
Natural gas will increase CO2 concentration-the trajectories are unrealistic
MIT 2011-(“The Future of Natural Gas”, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
https://mitei.mit.edu/system/files/NaturalGas_Report.pdf date accessed 7/7/14) HC
While current investment and policy decisions appropriately focus on a shorter horizon, policy decisions related to atmospheric stabilization of
GHG concentrations inevitably involve a very long-term perspective. Though
gas frequently is touted as a "bridge" to the
future, continuing effort is needed to prepare for that future, lest the gift of greater domestic gas
resources turn out to be a bridge with no landing point on the far bank. To explore this issue, we conducted model
simulations extending the horizon to 2100 assuming GHG emissions cuts that deepen to 80% below
2005 levels. The result is that, until gas with CCS begins to penetrate after 2060, the cost of CO,
emissions from gas generation becomes too high to support its use in generation (Figure 3.12). Nuclear is
cheaper than coal or gas with CCS for much of the period and so it expands to meet the continuing
electricity demand. Different cost assumptions well within the range of uncertainty would lead to a different mix of low-C02 generation
sources, but the picture for gas without CCS would remain the same. One implication of this longer-term experiment is that
while we might rely on plentiful supplies of domestic gas in the near term, this must not detract us from
preparing for a future with even greater GHG emissions constraints. Barriers to the expansion of nuclear
power or coal and/or gas generation with CCS must be resolved over the next few decades so that over
time these energy sources will be able to replace natural gas in power generation. Without such
capability, it would not be possible to sustain an emissions mitigation regime.
Not enough natural gas to solve low carbon emissions-even in the highest amounts,
the effect is minimal
MIT 2011-(“The Future of Natural Gas”, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
https://mitei.mit.edu/system/files/NaturalGas_Report.pdf date accessed 7/7/14) HC
Not surprisingly, the
results indicate that the greatest opportunities for displacement of coal generation exist
during average and low demand periods. Figure 4.7 also shows that coal generation is dispatched in every time
period, indicating that not enough NGCC surplus exists in ERCOT to completely displace coal; conversely,
surplus NGCa, capacity exists and can displace some coal capacity in all demand periods examined, even
during the super peak, although the amount is small.
Studies prove the aff’s model doesn’t decrease CO2 emissions-increases electricity and
displaces helpful resources
Krupnick et al 2014-Alan, Director of Resources for the Future’s Center for Energy
Economics and Policy and a Senior Fellow at RFF, regular member of expert
committees from the National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. EPA, PhD in
economics from University of Maryland, Raymond J. Kopp, Senior Fellow and Director,
Center for Climate and Electricity Policy, PhD in economics, Kristin Hayes, Economics
and Policy and Center for Climate and Electricity Policy, Skyler Roeshot, research
assistant at Resources for the Future (March 2014, “The Natural Gas Revolution:
Critical Questions for A Sustainable Energy Future”, Resources for the Future,
http://www.rff.org/RFF/Documents/RFF-Rpt-NaturalGasRevolution.pdf date accessed
7/7/14) HC
Looking at the global scale,
researchers at the Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI) recently used their
large-scale, global change assessment model (GCAM) to examine the natural gas bridge on a global and
far longer time scale. The JGCRI team ran the GCAM through midcentury (2050) under two gas scenarios (Flannery,
Clarke, and Edmonds 2013). In the first, natural gas is viewed from the year 2000, where large global gas
resources exist but they are too costly to exploit on a grand scale. In the second (circa 2010) the same
gas resources exist, but they are extractable at considerably lower cost. The 2010 scenario is designed to mimic
current understanding of future gas availability and pricing. Not surprisingly, natural gas production and use expand globally under the
abundant gas scenario and are 37 percent greater in 2050 than they are predicted to be under the more conservative supply and pricing case.
Consistent with both RFF studies, gas expands its share in all energy sectors with the greatest increase coming in electric power generation
displacing coal and renewables (10 percent less coal, 10 percent less renewables). Emissions of CO2 from coal decline 12 percent, but lower gas
prices lead to lower electricity prices and a 3.7 percent increase in electricity consumption. Most important,
there was no difference
in CO2 emissions between the conservative and abundant gas scenarios—that is, the widespread market
penetration of gas did not lower CO2 emissions in the absence of government mitigation policy. The
result that abundant gas does not reduce emissions is due to offsetting factors. While gas does displace
high-carbon coal, it also displaces zero-carbon nuclear and renewables. Importantly, lower-priced gas
leads to increased electricity generation from all fuel types.
Natural gas can’t solve emissions- cannot get us past Copehagen goals for 2025
Levi 12 (Michael Levi - senior fellow for energy and the environment at Council on Foreign Relations,
director of CFR Program on Energy Security and Climate Change. “The Climate Change Limits of U.S.
Natural Gas,” August 20, 2012, http://blogs.cfr.org/levi/2012/08/20/the-climate-change-limits-of-u-snatural-gas/)
The Associated Press reported last week that U.S. greenhouse gas carbon dioxide emissions have dropped to a twenty-year low on the back of
abundant natural gas. “The question,” it correctly observed, “is whether the shift is just one bright spot in a big, gloomy [climate change]
picture, or a potentially larger trend.” I’ve argued repeatedly in the past that surging supplies of natural gas are good news for climate change.
But there are important limits to what U.S. natural gas can do. This post is going to illustrate those with some simple numbers. Let’s start with a
reference point. In 2009, in advance of the Copenhagen climate summit, the United States pledged to reduce (PDF) its greenhouse gas
emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. It also repeatedly emphasized its intention to reduce those emissions to 30 and 42 percent
below 2005 levels by 2025 and 2030 respectively. How far down that road could a shift from coal to gas get the United States? I’m going to
focus on carbon dioxide emissions from energy. The EIA currently projects that U.S. emissions will be 5,429 million metric tons of carbon
dioxide (MtCO2) by 2020, assuming that currently pending fuel economy rules for 2017-25 go ahead as planned. 1,787 MtCO2 of that total
would come from coal; 1,371 would come from natural gas. That already reflects a gradual substitution of gas for coal. But
what would
happen if natural gas completely replaced coal? Assume that the emissions from gas are about half those from coal. Then U.S.
emissions would drop to 4,536 MtCO2. That’s 24 percent below 2005 levels. That leads to our first conclusion: substituting natural gas
for coal has the theoretical potential to get us to our 2020 carbon goals. But, unless we deploy it with
carbon capture and sequestration, it cannot get us to our 2025 or 2030 goals. (The 2025 and 2030 comparisons
require a little bit of extra math that I won’t go through here.) One can push this a bit farther, supposing that natural gas
completely replaced oil in residential, commercial, and industrial applications. Oil use in those three sectors is
projected to generate 462 MtCO2 in 2020; replacing oil with natural gas could in principle reduce those emissions by somewhere around 150
MtCO2. That
doesn’t change our bottom-line conclusions. But we’re not done. These figures are extreme limits
that assume spectacular gains in natural gas use. Alas those gains aren’t practical. Focus on the coal-togas shift. I estimated that a complete replacement of coal with natural gas could slice 894 MtCO2 off of U.S.
emissions. You need to burn about 18.2 Mcf (thousand cubic feet) of natural gas to generate a ton of greenhouse gas emissions. This implies
that completely replacing U.S. coal with natural gas would require roughly 16 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of
additional natural gas. That’s a 60 percent increment to projected natural gas supplies in 2020. Put another
way, it’s more than double the amount of natural gas currently used in U.S. power plants. This is almost
certainly not a practical addition to U.S. natural gas production. Perhaps a more reasonable (but still
challenging) outer limit would see half of the U.S. coal use currently anticipated for 2020 replaced with
natural gas. That would result in U.S. emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels, meeting the strict part of
the Copenhagen commitment but leaving a big lift for other shifts to deliver on the follow-on targets.
The bottom line? Natural gas can do a lot to bend the U.S. emissions curve over the coming years. In even the
medium run, though, simply moving from coal to gas is not a substitute for broader policy, at least not if the
United States wants to realize the sorts of emissions cuts that both Barack Obama and John McCain talked about only four years ago. Best to
think of gas as a climate opportunity – to forestall construction of long-lived and highly polluting infrastructure, to make carbon capture and
sequestration cheaper, to balance intermittent renewable sources – rather than as a solution in itself.
Gas switching can’t reduce emissions enough to stay below catastrophic thresholds
Plumer 12 (Brad Plumer - reporter focusing on energy and environmental issues. He was previously an associate editor at The New
Republic. August 20, 2012 “Can natural gas help tackle global warming? A primer.” Washinton Post,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/20/can-natural-gas-really-help-tackle-global-warming-heres-everything-youneed-to-know/)
Natural gas is still a fossil fuel and can't, on its own, avert significant global warming. The International
Energy Agency has outlined some "golden rules" for natural-gas production that include plugging those
pesky leaks at relatively low cost. If all those rules came to pass and natural gas use surged around the
world, displacing coal in countries like China and India, then the IEA estimates that worldwide
greenhouse gases would be about 1.3 percent lower in 2035. That's a real dent, though only a partial
one. (See Andrew Revkin for a longer look at what would happen if China shifted from coal to gas.) Now,
if this was the only change made to our energy system, the IEA estimates that the world would still be
on track to increase atmospheric carbon emissions to about 650 parts per million, "a trajectory
consistent with a probable temperature rise of more than 3.5°C in the long term, well above the widely
accepted 2°C target." In other words, relying solely on natural gas to clean up emissions would put the
world on pace for global warming that Tyndall Center director Kevin Anderson says is “likely to be
beyond ‘adaptation.' " This basically comes down to what Bill McKibben has called the "new math" of
global warming. The best climate science suggests that world can only emit about 500 more gigatons of
carbon by mid-century if we want a shot at staying below that 2°C threshold. Even if natural gas
displaced coal entirely, we'd likely still reach that point soon (albeit at a slower pace).
Warming---No Solvency---Timeframe
Gas can’t be a bridge fuel---any delay in rolling out carbon-free energy makes
temperature reductions impossible
David Roberts 12, writer for Grist, 2/28/12, “Myhrvold finds we need clean energy yesterday (and no natural gas) to avoid being cooked,”
http://grist.org/climate-change/climate-safety-requires-massive-clean-energy-transition-with-no-natural-gas-myhrvold-finds/
Flash forward a few years:
Myhrvold is out with a paper on his results, co-authored with respected climate
scientist Ken Caldeira, published in Environmental Research Letters. The results are … grim. Myhrvold and Caldeira ask
the right question: What effect will deployment of clean energy have on global temperature? They take for granted
that economic growth will continue as it has in the past (no small assumption, granted) and thus that 10-30 terawatts of carbonneutral power will be needed by 2050 to meet global energy needs while limiting atmospheric CO2
concentrations to 450 ppm. (Always worth noting: 450 ppm would, according to the latest science, itself
be quite dangerous.) In their results, Myhrvold and Caldeira highlight a few poorly appreciated but crucial features of energy
transitions. The first is that they take quite a while to have an appreciable effect on CO2 concentrations. The
world’s oceans have considerable “thermal inertia” — it takes them a long time to absorb heat and a long time to release it. Even after
CO2 concentrations start falling, it will take the oceans a while to stop releasing the excess heat they’ve
already absorbed. Also, the building of a clean-energy infrastructure itself involves enormous
expenditures of energy and thus CO2 emissions. For a given power source, the emissions released during its construction put
it into “carbon debt” and it takes a while of generating carbon-free energy for it to work itself to the breakeven point. Only then does it begin producing net reductions in CO2. Combine thermal inertia and carbon debt and you get a fairly
long time lag between the energy transition and its carbon effects. The second is that so much CO2
accumulation is already “baked in” that temperature will continue to rise for a while even in the context
of rapid emission reductions. We’ve already gotten drunk on fossil fuels; there’s no way to avoid the hangover. The consequences of
this time lag are twofold. First, substantially affecting global temperature in the first half of the century is all but impossible; even to secure
temperature reductions in the second half of the century, a
rapid transition to clean energy needs to begin immediately.
Second, lower-carbon energy — like, say, natural gas — just won’t do it. If we transitioned to something
with half of coal’s emissions, it would take more than a century to produce even a 25 percent decline in
CO2 relative to the status quo baseline. By then we’d be cooked. In summary, Myhrvold and Caldeira have shown in
pretty stark terms that, if we’re not willing to substantially reduce population growth or economic growth, we’re going to need an absolutely
gargantuan amount of zero-carbon energy, without delay. They conclude: Despite
the lengthy time lags involved, delaying
rollouts of low-carbon-emission energy technologies risks even greater environmental harm in the second
half of this century and beyond. This underscores the urgency in developing realistic plans for the rapid
deployment of the lowest-GHG-emission electricity generation technologies. Technologies that offer only modest
reductions in emissions, such as natural gas and — if the highest estimates from the life-cycle analyses are correct — carbon capture and
storage, cannot yield substantial temperature reductions this century. Achieving substantial reductions in
temperatures relative to the coal-based system will take the better part of a century, and will depend on rapid and massive
deployment of some mix of conservation, wind, solar, and nuclear, and possibly carbon capture and
storage. [my emphasis] In other words, the hippies are right: We’re going to need “immediate and precipitous anti-carbon initiatives.”
Warming’s too fast for gas to be a bridge
Susan Phillips 13, NPR Reporter, 1/7/13, “Study: Natural Gas No Bridge to Zero Fossil Fuel Future,”
http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2013/01/07/study-natural-gas-no-bridge-to-zero-fossil-fuelfuture/)
Proponents of natural gas tout new shale deposits, such as Pennsylvania’s Marcellus, as a way to reduce carbon emissions while the world
eases itself off fossil fuels, and moves toward alternatives such as wind and solar. Natural gas power plants emit less CO2 than coal, which still
dominates electricity generation worldwide. In the U.S., low natural gas prices have allowed natural gas to catch up with coal-fired electricity.
But this “bridge fuel” scenario is controversial. Some say the
world is warming too quickly to even consider the concept
legitimate. Still others say the process of extracting natural gas at the wellhead emits enough methane,
a greenhouse causing gas, to negate any benefits of lower carbon dioxide emissions at power plants.
Climatic Change, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, has just published online a report that has something to make both sides happy and sad.
Written by Michael Levi, “Climate consequences of natural gas as a bridge fuel,” is one of the only reports to look at the issue from a vantage
point of global emissions reduction goals. The bottom line, says Levi, is that
any potential “natural gas bridge” would be
useless because it would be so short. He does say, however, that natural gas can play a role in easing nations off of coal.
“Collectively, these results suggest that it may be useful to think of a natural gas bridge as a potential hedging tool against the possibility that it
will be more difficult to move away from coal than policymakers desire or can achieve, rather than
merely (or primarily) as a way to achieve particular desired temperature outcomes.”
Natural gas is a slow bridge- CO2 in the atmosphere means no decrease in
temperatures for up to 250 years
Lemonick 12 (Michael D. Lemonick - senior staff writer at Climate Central and a former senior science writer at Time, "Natural Gas Our
New Savior? Not So Fast.."February 28th, 2012, www.climatecentral.org/blogs/natural-gas-our-new-savoir-not-so-fast/0
The bottom line that emerges from this “life-cycle analysis,” or LCA, said Myhrvold, is that by the time
we could switch from coal to gas, there would already be so much more CO2 and methane in the
atmosphere that we’d be much deeper in the hole. “It’s like living on a credit card,” he said. “It’s easy
to get into a situation where it will take years and years to pay back.” In fact, he argues, because CO2
stays in the atmosphere for so long once it’s up there, a switch to natural gas would have zero effect on
global temperatures by the year 2100. “If you take 40 years to switch over entirely to natural gas,” he
said, “you won’t see any substantial decrease in global temperatures for up to 250 years. There’s
almost no climate value in doing it.” A switch to renewables (true renewables, that is, not corn-based
ethanol) would also incur a carbon debt: it takes energy to manufacture solar panels and wind turbines
too, after all. If we made that switch, according to Myhrvold and Calderia’s calculations, you wouldn’t
see a change in temperatures for decades either. But by 2100, the decrease would start to kick in (he
explicitly rejects the idea of new hydropower dams, by the way, whose energy is renewable but which
are, he said, “much worse than coal for the first hundred years”: the trees and other vegetation that rot
beneath backed-up water release lots of methane).
Warming---Exports Bad for Climate
Exports are catastrophic for warming---locks in infrastructure, and LNG’s particularly
energy-intensive
Joe Romm 12, Fellow at American Progress and editor of Climate Progress, 8/16/12, “Exporting
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Is Still Bad For The Climate — And A Very Poor Long-Term Investment,
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/16/699601/exporting-liquefied-natural-gas-lng-bad-forclimate-poor-long-term-investment/
The surge in U.S. production of shale gas is creating a surge in permit requests to build liquefied natural
gas (LNG) terminals. That’s because the glut of U.S. gas has dropped domestic prices sharply below global price levels. I explained back
in June why “Exporting LNG Is Bad For The Climate.” But the New York Times has just run a misleading op-ed, “The Case for Natural Gas
Exports,” so the issue clearly merits a revisit. LNG Value Chain The NY Times piece offers this paragraph as the sole defense to the well-known
charge that LNG exports are bad for the climate: “At the same time, exports would likely reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover,
the small price increases that would result from allowing exports would have at most a marginal impact on the use of natural gas as fuel for cars
and trucks. Blocking exports wouldn’t push natural gas into automobiles — it would mostly keep it in the ground, because there would be less
incentive to extract it.” The argument about cars and trucks is a red herring (at best) since replacing gasoline with natural gas in vehicles is
pretty clearly a loser from a global warming perspective — and always will be – as a major 2012 Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences study makes clear. It
is head-scratching to say the least to claim that exports would reduce greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions when the Times acknowledges that blocking exports would leave this fossil fuel in the ground! Burning
natural gas releases GHGs. We need to slash global GHGs 50% in four decades merely to have a shot at
keeping total warming anywhere near 2°C (3.6°F), a point beyond which risks to human civilization
multiply exponentially. Worse, natural gas extraction is leaky, and natural gas is mostly methane, a highly
potent GHG (with some one hundred times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 20-year
period). Most of the new natural gas in this country comes from hydraulic fracturing, which is widely thought to be leakier than conventional
gas extraction. Worst of all, cooling natural gas to about −162°C (−260°F) and shipping it overseas for use in distant
countries is costly and energy-intensive: The process to bring the gas to such low temperatures requires
highly capital intensive infrastructure. Liquefaction plants, specially designed ships fitted with cryogenic
cooling tanks, regasification terminals and domestic transmission infrastructure all make LNG relatively
expensive in construction and operational cost. When you factor in the energy and emissions from this
entire process, including shipping, you get a total life-cycle energy penalty of 20% or more. The extra
greenhouse gas emissions can equal 30% or more of combustion emissions, according to a pretty definitive 2009
Reference Report by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Liquefied Natural Gas for Europe – Some Important Issues for
Consideration. The NY Times piece actually makes this odd argument on behalf of LNG exports: “It will take years before any export terminals
are up and running — in the meantime, producers and regulators should strengthen safeguards so that gas is extracted safely.” But this is yet
another reason why LNG exports make no sense. Why
would we want to start massive exports of natural gas around
the end of this decade, with costly new infrastructure that lasts until mid-century? If avoiding
catastrophic climate change is your goal, then spending huge sums on even conventional natural gas
infrastructure is clearly not the answer, as a recent International Energy Agency report made clear: The
specific emissions from a gas-fired power plant will be higher than average global CO2 intensity in
electricity generation by 2025, raising questions around the long-term viability of some gas
infrastructure investment if climate change objectives are to be met. Duh! Or is that D’oh? And as we’ve seen, LNG
shipped from the U.S. is much worse from a GHG perspective than regular gas, so by the time a lot of
new LNG terminals are up and running in this country, it seems likely that LNG-fired plants overseas will
be have a higher GHG intensity than the average plant in the electric generation system needed to be
anywhere near a non-catastrophic emissions path.
Exports lock in catastrophic warming
Joe Romm 12, Fellow at American Progress and editor of Climate Progress, 8/16/12, “Exporting
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Is Still Bad For The Climate — And A Very Poor Long-Term Investment,”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/16/699601/exporting-liquefied-natural-gas-lng-bad-forclimate-poor-long-term-investment/
We do not want to build a global energy system around natural gas (see IEA’s “Golden Age of Gas Scenario” Leads to
More Than 6°F Warming and Out-of-Control Climate Change). At the time, the UK Guardian‘s story put it well” At such a level, global
warming could run out of control, deserts would take over in southern Africa, Australia and the western
US, and sea level rises could engulf small island states. The extra emissions from LNG all but eliminate
whatever small, short-term benefit there might be of building billion-dollar export terminals and other LNG infrastructure,
which in any case will last many decades, long after a sustainable electric grid will not benefit one jot
from replacing coal with gas. Asserting any net benefit requires assuming the new gas replaces only coal
— and isn’t used for, say, natural gas vehicles, which, as noted, are worse for the climate or that it doesn’t replace new renewables. If even
a modest fraction of the imported LNG displaces renewables, it renders the entire expenditure for LNG
counterproductive from day one. Remember, a major 2012 study on “technology warming potentials” (TWPs) found that a big
switch from coal to gas would only reduce TWP by about 25% over the first three decades (see “Natural Gas Is
A Bridge To Nowhere Absent A Carbon Price AND Strong Standards To Reduce Methane Leakage“). And that is based on “EPA’s latest estimate
of the amount of CH4 released because of leaks and venting in the natural gas network between production wells and the local distribution
network” of 2.4%. Many experts believe the leakage rate is higher than 2.4%, particularly for shale gas. Also, recent air sampling by NOAA over
Colorado found 4% methane leakage, more than double industry claims. A different 2012 study
by climatologist Ken Caldeira and
tech guru Nathan Myhrvold finds basically no benefit in the switch whatsoever — see You Can’t Slow
Projected Warming With Gas, You Need ‘Rapid and Massive Deployment’ of Zero-Carbon Power. That study
takes into account the near-term impact of the construction of new infrastructure. BOTTOM LINE: Investing billions of dollars in
new shale gas infrastructure for domestic use is, at best, of limited value for a short period of time if we
put in place both a CO2 price and regulations to minimize methane leakage. Exporting gas vitiates even that limited
value and so investing billions in LNG infrastructure is, at best, a waste of resources better utilized for
deploying truly low-carbon energy. At worst, it helps accelerates the world past the 2°C (3.6°F) warming
threshold into Terra incognita — a planet of amplifying feedbacks and multiple simultaneous
catastrophic impacts.
Exports make domestic emissions worse too
Joe Romm 12, Fellow at American Progress and editor of Climate Progress, 6/18/12, “Exporting
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Is Bad For The Climate,”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/06/18/500954/exporting-liquefied-natural-gas-lng-is-bad-forthe-climate/
Furthermore, the U.S. Energy Information Administration concluded in a 2012 report on natural gas exports done for DOE’s Office of Fossil
Energy that such exports would also increase domestic greenhouse gas emissions: [W]hen
also accounting for emissions
related to natural gas used in the liquefaction process, additional exports increase CO2 levels under all
cases and export scenarios, particularly in the earlier years of the projection period. Asserting any net
benefit for the importer requires assuming the new gas replaces only coal — and isn’t used for, say, natural gas
vehicles, which are worse for the climate or that it doesn’t replace new renewables. If even a modest fraction of the imported LNG displaces
renewables, it renders the entire expenditure for LNG counterproductive from day one. Remember,
a major new 2012 Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences study on “technology warming potentials” (TWPs) found that a big
switch from coal to gas would only reduce TWP by about 25% over the first three decades (see “Natural Gas Is
A Bridge To Nowhere Absent A Carbon Price AND Strong Standards To Reduce Methane Leakage“). And that is based on “EPA’s latest estimate
of the amount of CH4 released because of leaks and venting in the natural gas network between production wells and the local distribution
network” of 2.4%. Many experts believe the leakage rate is higher than 2.4%, particularly for shale gas. Also, recent air sampling by NOAA over
Colorado found 4% methane leakage, more than double industry claims. A different 2012 study by climatologist Ken Caldeira and tech guru
Nathan Myhrvold finds basically no benefit in the switch whatsoever — see You Can’t Slow Projected Warming With Gas, You Need ‘Rapid and
Massive Deployment’ of Zero-Carbon Power. So spending
vast sums of money to export natural gas from this country
is a bad idea for the climate. A new paper published last week by Brooking’s Hamilton Project, “A Strategy for U.S.
Natural Gas Exports,” asserts a different conclusion, primarily because it ignores all of the issues discussed
above. Indeed, the paper rather amazingly asserts “Natural gas, though, has the same climate
consequences whether it is burned in the United States, Europe, or Asia,” which would be true for
exported U.S. gas only if we could use magic to take the U.S. shale gas and put it into European or Asian
gas-fired power plants. In the real world, it takes a massive amount of energy and greenhouse gas
emissions to get gas from here to those markets, as is well known in the climate policy arena. BOTTOM LINE:
Investing billions of dollars in new shale gas infrastructure for domestic use is, at best, of limited value
for a short period of time if we put in place both a CO2 price and regulations to minimize methane
leakage. Exporting gas vitiates even that limited value and so investing billions in LNG infrastructure is,
at best, a waste of resources better utilized for deploying truly low-carbon energy. At worst, it helps
accelerates the world past the 2°C warming threshold into Terra incognita — a planet of amplifying feedbacks and
multiple simultaneous catastrophic impacts.
Coal Switching
No Coal Switching
Gas doesn’t displace coal---other factors caused coal to decline---if gas hadn’t filled in,
renewables would have
Shakeb Afsah 12, the President and CEO of CO2 Scorecard, and Kendyl Salcito, Policy Communications
Specialist for the CO2 Scorecard, 8/7/12, “Shale Gas And The Overhyping Of Its CO2 Reductions,”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/07/651821/shale-gas-and-the-fairy-tale-of-its-co2reductions/
Further accounting of displaced coal If only 89 million MWh (35%) from coal was displaced by natural gas due to the relative price advantage,
how do we account for the remaining 167 million MWh that coal lost during the period of the shale gas boom? Stephen Lacey of Climate
Progress (Lacey 2012) and David Roberts of Grist (Roberts 2012A) have put
forth seven factors that are together shutting
down coal generation—two are the respective prices of coal and gas, as calculated above. The remaining 167
million MWh (65%) that coal lost during the period of the shale gas boom was due to Roberts’ and Lacey’s other five
factors— (1) regulations, (2) energy efficiency/demand management, (3) improving cost-competitiveness of
renewables, (4) recession and (5) NGO campaigns. Where the low price of natural gas failed to fill the
void left by coal, the other five factors show their significance. Renewables filled in about 120 million
MWh of the coal generation gap—with wind accounting for around 82 million (Appendix-3). These non-carbon sources
typically don’t have much price advantage over coal, yet they account for 46% of its replacement. This
gives some indication of the impacts of clean energy programs like production and investment tax credit (PTC & ITC), state level
Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) and the increasing cost competiveness of wind. Nuclear supplied around 2 million MWh.
Gas stepped in to fill up the remaining 48 million MWh (~19%) of power shed by coal—but it’s not
appropriate to say it “displaced” coal; rather it “replaced” coal which was “displaced” by other non-price
factors (Exhibit-4). That 48 million MWh of electricity was not going to be generated by coal, regardless of the price differential
with gas. If gas were not excessively cheap, it is quite likely that some of this 48 million MWh would
have come from renewables.
Coal Switching Inevitable
Coal’s decline is structurally locked in and has nothing to do with availability of cheap
gas
Shakeb Afsah 12, the President and CEO of CO2 Scorecard, and Kendyl Salcito, Policy Communications Specialist for the CO2 Scorecard,
8/7/12, “Shale Gas And The Overhyping Of Its CO2 Reductions,” http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/07/651821/shale-gas-and-the-fairytale-of-its-co2-reductions/)
The tangled web of coal displacement Our analysis leads us to conclude that irrespective
of the low price of natural gas and
the underlying elasticity of fuel substitution, electricity generation from coal would have declined
significantly between 2006 and 2011. Primary evidence of this comes from two observations. First nearly 117 million MWh of
electricity from wind, hydro and other renewables replaced 46% of the generation void left by coal—these sources
could not compete with coal or natural gas on the basis of generation cost during the period. And second,
the biggest drop in coal generation (230 million MWh) occurred during 2008-09—the year when recession peaked in the US. During the same
period, relative price of coal to gas increased by 103%; yet natural gas added a meager 38 million MWh—16.5% of the total electricity shed by
coal. Clearly
natural gas wasn’t displacing coal due to its low price. Instead, the demand for electricity
tanked due to recession. So why didn’t natural gas replace all of the 256 million MWh of electricity shed by coal? The insight on this
comes from the EIA’s estimate of the overall average elasticity of coal to gas fuel substitution in the US during the
period 2005-10—this value is just 0.14 (rather inelastic). In other words the move from coal (mostly baseload) to gas is not as
seamless as the move between petroleum and gas, which are often peak and intermediate load units and sometimes involve dual-fuel
technology where fuel switching is comparatively easier (read EIA’s explanation in supplemental Exhibit-S1). In the future we
expect the
price of natural gas to increase (Fordney 2012 and Finger 2012) but we will continue to see a decline in coal
generation. A big part of that trend will reflect the impact of USEPA’s regulation and the aging stock of
coal-fired generation units, as more than 80% of coal units are forty years or older (Exhibit 5), and many will
simply fade away. Industry experts have already written off coal (Tierney 2012), and recently Michael Liebreich of Bloomberg
New Energy Finance called it a “…sunset for traditional, old-style, inefficient coal plants” (Roberts 2012B). Just last week, their predictions got
affirmed by the EIA (EIA 2012C). In some
sense the demise of coal may be on auto-pilot now.
This means the plan has nothing to do with solving climate change---gas contributed
.18% to emissions reductions over the past five years
Shakeb Afsah 12, the President and CEO of CO2 Scorecard, and Kendyl Salcito, Policy Communications
Specialist for the CO2 Scorecard, 8/7/12, “Shale Gas And The Overhyping Of Its CO2 Reductions,”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/07/651821/shale-gas-and-the-fairy-tale-of-its-co2reductions/
Natural gas is an even smaller factor in reducing CO2 emissions than it is in displacing coal. In fact, natural
gas is the only fossil fuel that added emissions to the US inventory between 2006 and 2011 – a total of
138 million metric tons during the period (Exhibit-6). This figure is important because many have justified the low
price of natural gas as good for our climate because it saves CO2 by displacing coal. But the portion of
those emissions that displaced coal and oil emissions was limited. Table-1 shows the emissions savings involved in the
price driven switching from coal and oil to gas. For coal the savings is a half-ton of CO2 per MWh displaced. For oil, it is around 0.15 tons. As
shown in Table-1, natural gas displaced around 89-96 million MWh of coal electricity and 19 for petroleum. The two together generate a
savings of »50 million metric tons of CO2—that seems significant at first glance, but total CO2 emissions declined by 446 Million metric tons
between 2006 and 2011. The
50 million metric ton savings from natural gas accounts for just 11% of that. In other
words, nearly 90% of the decline in the total CO2 emissions during the period 2006-11 should be
attributed to other factors that slashed the consumption of both petroleum and coal. Even where
natural gas is displacing coal, this substitution is not having a meaningful impact on CO2 emissions. Set
on a national scale, the difference is negligible. Emissions dropped at a rate a 1.56% per year in the 5 years up to 2011,
dropping from 5,919 to 5,473 million metric tons. If the 50 million metric tons of CO2 savings from natural gas were excluded from this
calculation, emissions would have dropped 1.38%. That 0.18% change
is within any reasonable margin of error. Shale
gas has indeed contributed to CO2 reduction, but trivially compared to other factors.
Coal Switching---No Solvency
The plan’s irrelevant to emissions reductions in the electricity sector---absent gas,
renewables would have reduced emissions even more
Shakeb Afsah 12, the President and CEO of CO2 Scorecard, and Kendyl Salcito, Policy Communications
Specialist for the CO2 Scorecard, 8/7/12, “Shale Gas And The Overhyping Of Its CO2 Reductions,”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/07/651821/shale-gas-and-the-fairy-tale-of-its-co2reductions/
Our analysis highlights how little the low price of shale gas has achieved in abating carbon pollution
from fossil fuels. It also exposes the weaknesses in arguments of those who are keen to brand shale gas
as a solution for climate change. Natural gas deserves credit where it is due. But our findings show that
there’s been a significant over-statement regarding shale gas’s contribution to cutting CO2 emissions in
the recent years. This is surprising because readily available data point to the contrary. Natural gas
cannot be credited with the reductions in the US CO2 emissions observed in the last half-decade. Most
reductions, nearly 90%, were caused by the decline in petroleum use, displacement of coal by mostly
non-price factors, and its replacement by wind, hydro and other renewables. Where low price of natural
gas saved some CO2 by displacing coal, it was quickly offset by its increased use in other sectors—
highlighting the pitfall of justifying the current market for natural gas as a “bridge” or an interim phase
of transition towards clean energy. In comparison, each MWh replacement of coal by renewables
eliminated a ton of CO2, adding to more than a 100 million metric tons of CO2 savings. Energy
efficiency/conservation efforts as estimated by the falling economy-wide energy intensity also saved
significant amount of CO2 between 2006 and 2011 (see Appendix-4). Clearly, these measures
independently outperform the CO2 savings from the low-price driven coal-to-gas displacement, showing
that authentic climate policies based on regulations and clean energy standards are essential for lasting
cuts in CO2 emissions. Carbon price still remains a missing piece in the US, but the timing cannot be
better for putting it back on the table. Coal appears to be on its way out, so we are likely to see some
reductions in CO2 emissions. But the US needs far bigger cuts than what it can achieve from the
autonomous rate of decline in coal generation—after all, CO2 per capita in the US is fifty percent higher
than the average for OECD countries. This is not the time to be passive on the policy front. The ongoing
transition in the electricity sector opens up at least two opportunities for lawmakers—first we can
strengthen our energy efficiency and conservation programs to permanently eliminate some of the
electricity shed by coal, and second we can try to maximize the replacement of coal by renewables. We
know that natural gas can displace some coal through its price effect. To date, over-production of shale
gas has given it this relative price edge. But natural gas can also get the same or better price edge over
coal through a carbon tax. This tax will ensure that natural gas is economically superior to coal without
giving it an upper hand on renewables. Shakeb Afsah is the President and CEO of CO2 Scorecard. and
Kendyl Salcito is the Policy Communications Specialist for the CO2 Scorecard. This piece was originally
published at CO2 Scorecard and was reprinted with permission.
Simulations prove switching has minimal effect on temperatures
Atmos News 11 (University Corporation for Atmospheric Research press release, “SWITCHING FROM
COAL TO NATURAL GAS WOULD DO LITTLE FOR GLOBAL CLIMATE, STUDY INDICATES,” 9/8,
http://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/5292/switching-coal-natural-gas-would-do-little-globalclimate-study-indicates)
BOULDER—Although the burning of natural gas emits far less carbon dioxide than coal,
a new study concludes that a greater
reliance on natural gas would fail to significantly slow down climate change. graph coal and methane Coal, natural
gas, and climate: Shifting from coal to natural gas would have limited impacts on climate, new research indicates. If methane leaks
from natural gas operations could be kept to 2.5% or less, the increase in global temperatures would be
reduced by about 0.1 degree Celsius by 2100. The reduction in global temperatures would be more
minor with higher methane leakage rates. (Courtesy Springer, modified by UCAR.) The study by Tom Wigley, who is a senior
research associate at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), underscores the complex and sometimes conflicting ways in which
fossil fuel burning affects Earth’s climate. While
coal use causes warming through emission of heat-trapping carbon
dioxide, it also releases comparatively large amounts of sulfates and other particles that, although detrimental
to the environment, cool the planet by blocking incoming sunlight. The situation is further complicated by uncertainty over the
amount of methane that leaks from natural gas operations. Methane is an especially potent greenhouse gas. Wigley’s computer
simulations indicate that a worldwide, partial shift from coal to natural gas would slightly accelerate
climate change through at least 2050, even if no methane leaked from natural gas operations, and
through as late as 2140 if there were substantial leaks. After that, the greater reliance on natural gas would
begin to slow down the increase in global average temperature, but only by a few tenths of a degree. “Relying
more on natural gas would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, but it would do little to help solve the
climate problem,” says Wigley, who is also an adjunct professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia. “It would be many
decades before it would slow down global warming at all, and even then it would just be making a difference around the
edges.” The study will appear next month in the peer-reviewed journal Climatic Change Letters.
Switch process to natural gas makes net effects worse- pollution from construction
and too long before results
Lemonick 12 (Michael D. Lemonick - senior staff writer at Climate Central and a former senior science writer at Time, "Natural Gas Our
New Savior? Not So Fast.."February 28th, 2012, www.climatecentral.org/blogs/natural-gas-our-new-savoir-not-so-fast/)
Remember how ethanol was going to save us? It was the perfect solution to not one, but two different problems. The first was energy security:
since it’s a type of alcohol distilled from home-grown corn, ethanol would replace the gasoline made from oil imported from Bad People in
places like Iran. The second was climate change. Ethanol emits heat-trapping CO2 like gasoline does, but the corn sucks in CO2 while it’s
growing, so it’s mostly a wash. That was the sales pitch, anyway, and for a while, lots of people bought it. The Federal government subsidized
ethanol production, and an EPA regulation requiring the use of renewable fuels boosted ethanol’s stock still further. Then scientists began
calculating the actual climate impact of corn ethanol, and discovered it wasn’t much better than gas — and might actually be worse. Engineers
maneuver a motor and drill bit on a natural gas drilling platform in Fort Worth, Texas. Credit: Robery Nickelsberg/Getty Images. You’d
think
we’d have learned something from this cautionary tale. Evidently not, though: we have a new savior
called natural gas. It’s the perfect solution, because it’s plentiful and home-drilled, (thank you, fracking), and it emits only half the CO2
that coal does. If we could replace our current coal-fired power plants with gas plants, it wouldn’t solve the problem of climate change, but it
would buy us time to shift over to true renewables like wind and solar. You know what’s coming next, right? I’m afraid so. Just
as
happened with ethanol, scientists and engineers are starting to take a more serious look at natural gas,
and the story turns out to be more complicated and less ideal than it originally seemed. First, the good news:
natural gas emits drastically less soot and other particulates than coal. Soot is bad for the lungs, and it contributes to global warming all by
itself, so cutting back on it would clearly be a good thing. And
if you could magically flip a switch and turn all existing
coal plants in to gas plants, you would indeed cut CO2 emissions significantly. But there is no magic
switch, and therein, according to a recent analysis published in Environmental Research Letters, lies a
problem. “The most surprising thing we found,” lead author Nathan Myhrvold told me recently, “is that unless you switch to a
form of energy that cuts emissions really drastically” — and he isn’t talking about any piddling 50%, either — “you
basically don’t get any real effect.” (If you recognize Myhrvold’s name, it might be because he used to be a top executive at
Microsoft, or it might be from his exploits as a barbecue champion or as a donor to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence — but he also
holds a degree in theoretical physics from Princeton.) His point, and that of his
co-author Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist
with the Carnegie Institution of Washington, is that before a new natural-gas power plant can go into
operation it’s already made the climate problem worse. It takes energy to build the plant, most of
which comes from fossil fuels. The process of drilling for natural gas and piping it to the plant, moreover
is prone to leakage — and methane, the main component of natural gas, is itself a powerful greehouse
gas . And while the construction is going on, says the Myhrvold-Calderia study, you’re still emitting CO2
from those old, dirty coal plants, which can’t be switched off until the new gas plants are ready to go. The bottom line
that emerges from this “life-cycle analysis,” or LCA, said Myhrvold, is that by the time we could switch from coal to gas,
there would already be so much more CO2 and methane in the atmosphere that we’d be much deeper
in the hole. “It’s like living on a credit card,” he said. “It’s easy to get into a situation where it will take years and
years to pay back.” In fact, he argues, because CO2 stays in the atmosphere for so long once it’s up there, a switch to natural gas would
have zero effect on global temperatures by the year 2100. “If you take 40 years to switch over entirely to natural gas,” he said, “you won’t
see any substantial decrease in global temperatures for up to 250 years. There’s almost no climate value in doing
it.” A switch to renewables (true renewables, that is, not corn-based ethanol) would also incur a carbon
debt: it takes energy to manufacture solar panels and wind turbines too, after all. If we made that switch,
according to Myhrvold and Calderia’s calculations, you wouldn’t see a change in temperatures for decades either. But by 2100, the decrease
would start to kick in (he explicitly rejects the idea of new hydropower dams, by the way, whose energy is renewable but which are, he said,
“much worse than coal for the first hundred years”: the trees and other vegetation that rot beneath backed-up water release lots of methane).
“You can quibble about LCA numbers,” he said, “and a number of people have emailed us criticizing some of our assumptions. But the main
idea is that
if you’re transitioning to something that’s only twice as good as coal, it’s not really worth your
time. If you’re doing something that’s better by a factor of 10, it’s reasonable.”
Tech Lock-In
Gas Bad---Tech Lock-In
Gas locks in infrastructure that means we never get off the bridge to lower-carbon
fuels
Christopher F. Jones 12, the Ciriacy-Wantrup Fellow, University of California-Berkeley, 8/29/12,
“Natural Gas: Bridge or Dead End?,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-f-jones/bridge-ordead-end_b_1837015.html
Natural gas is often touted as a bridge fuel: an interim step between the heavily polluting fossil fuels we depend on today and the clean
renewable energy systems we hope for tomorrow. But
the infrastructure we deploy to increase natural gas may
actually inhibit the transition to solar and wind power. Rather than a bridge, natural gas may be a dead
end. The idea of natural gas as a bridge draws on three main points. First, natural gas produces significantly less carbon dioxide than coal or
oil. Second, it releases fewer impurities like sulfur and mercury compared with other fossil fuels. Third, many experts anticipate that obtaining
even 20 percent of our energy from renewables in the next couple decades will be difficult. Natural gas, advocates argue, offers a more realistic
large-scale carbon reduction strategy in the short-term because we have already addressed many of the technical challenges of producing,
transporting, and consuming it. These considerations merit attention from the pragmatic environmentalist. Greatly reducing
carbon
emissions without lowering overall energy consumption is a laudable goal if it can be done in an
environmentally responsible manner. Yet in addition to thinking about how we build a natural gas bridge,
it is imperative that we devote equal attention to how we get off. A good bridge requires off-ramps. If
we consider the role of infrastructure in energy transitions, this might be harder than we think. Critics of
natural gas have typically focused on issues of pollution rather than infrastructure. First, there has been widespread opposition
to 'fracking' shale gas reserves, a process that may contaminate drinking water, trigger minor
earthquakes, and produce many other environmental consequences. Second, there are debates over whether natural
gas really has a beneficial impact on climate. It may produce less greenhouse gas, but leaks of methane might more than offset
these gains. These are important issues, but it is also worth examining the impact that expanding natural gas infrastructure will have on
renewable energy systems. Building a natural gas bridge will require a significant expansion of infrastructure:
drilling wells for production, pipelines for distribution, and a range of devices for consumption including
power plants, home furnaces, and industrial ovens. Investing in these systems will increase the supply of
natural gas and lower its costs through economies of scale. As a result, consumers will find it cheaper and
easier to use natural gas. This is a straightforward account of what infrastructure does -- it facilitates certain types of behaviors.
What is less appreciated is the fact that infrastructure cuts two ways. These systems will not simply provide an advantage for natural gas;
they will make it progressively harder and more expensive to transition to renewables. We can examine this
point by thinking about relative prices and sunk costs. Relative prices often matter more than absolute prices for
energy transitions. For consumers, it is not simply the price of an energy source that matters; it is how much
more or less that energy source costs than other options. Right now, natural gas is already cheaper than
solar and wind for electricity production in most analyses. With significant investments in natural gas
infrastructure, this price gap is only likely to grow. Therefore, even though the absolute price of renewable
energy will not change, wind and solar will become less attractive to consumers because they will cost
relatively more. What's more, these inequalities are likely to become more extreme over time due to sunk
costs. Most of the systems designed to burn natural gas, like furnaces and electrical generating equipment, are expensive and designed to last
for decades. Once large sums have been paid to purchase such systems, short-term price changes matter
far less to consumers. Even if natural gas triples in price, prior investments in these systems will still act
as a disincentive for switching to renewables. The sunk costs in infrastructure, therefore, further suggest
that once we get on the bridge, it will be hard to get off. We need not be resigned to this fate. The key is to think not
simply about building a bridge, but also about building off-ramps. Careful policy measures can enable a more compelling coexistence of natural
gas and renewables. For example, one option would be to place a tax on natural gas (as well as coal and oil) that begins in ten years and
increases by a set amount every five years. The proceeds for this tax could be dedicated to renewable energy development, either in the form
of research grants or production incentives. This would ensure that renewable energy sources will continue to receive investment and that they
become comparatively more attractive over time, rather than less. Another approach would be to insist that any investment in natural gas
infrastructure be matched by a corresponding investment in solar or wind. Any policy decision on natural gas must also include regulations to
address fracking concerns and methane leakages. Natural gas could be an ally of the pragmatic environmentalist. But we
must be careful
that infrastructural investments do not hinder a renewable energy future. Without off-ramps, a bridge is simply a
dead end.
Renewables Tradeoff
Renewables Tradeoff---1NC
Gas doesn’t just replace coal, it undermines renewables too---locks in warming
Joe Romm 12, Fellow at American Progress and editor of Climate Progress, 8/16/12, “Exporting Liquefied Natural Gas
(LNG) Is Still Bad For The Climate — And A Very Poor Long-Term Investment,”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/16/699601/exporting-liquefied-natural-gas-lng-bad-for-climate-poor-long-terminvestment/
The extra emissions
from LNG all but eliminate whatever small, short-term benefit there might be of
in any case will last many decades, long after a
sustainable electric grid will not benefit one jot from replacing coal with gas. Asserting any net benefit
requires assuming the new gas replaces only coal — and isn’t used for, say, natural gas vehicles, which, as noted, are worse
for the climate or that it doesn’t replace new renewables. If even a modest fraction of the imported LNG displaces
renewables, it renders the entire expenditure for LNG counterproductive from day one.
building billion-dollar export terminals and other LNG infrastructure, which
Renewables Tradeoff---2NC
Cheap gas stunts development of renewables- solve warming better
Plumer 12 Brad, Washington Post, "Can natural gas help tackle global warming? A primer." Aug 20
www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/20/can-natural-gas-really-help-tackle-global-warming-heres-everything-you-need-toknow/?print=1
7) At the moment,
cheap natural gas appears to be hindering the development of even lower-carbon energy
sources. In addition to pushing aside dirty coal, the flood of cheap shale gas in the United States has also
undermined the advance of lower-carbon sources such as wind, solar, and nuclear power. And some analysts
fear that could prove counterproductive in the long run. One study from MIT suggested that cheap
natural gas could actually lead to higher greenhouse-gas emissions in the United States by 2050 if it
stunts the growth of renewable energy. "Shale gas is a great advantage to the U.S. in the short term, for the next few decades,"
MIT study author Henry Jacoby said in January. "But it is so attractive that it threatens other energy sources we
ultimately will need." 8) Overall, natural gas can help tackle climate change if it's part of a larger, more comprehensive climate policy.
As Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations has pointed out, having a climate policy that explicitly reduces
emissions (say, a carbon cap or tax) is likely to have a far bigger influence on the future course of climate
change than how much cheap natural gas is available. To see why, check out the graph from the U.S. Energy Information
Administration below: The top two lines predict the trajectory of U.S. power-sector emissions through 2035 if
there's no climate policy at all. Whether or not there's lots and lots of natural gas doesn't make much
difference. Emissions keep growing. The bottom two lines, meanwhile, assume that the United States puts a hard cap on carbon emissions.
Emissions go down whether or not there's abundant natural gas. (Although cheap gas would make the transition much easier.) " The lesson
is simple," Levi notes. "It’s the policy, not the gas resource, that matters most." So what more could be done on
the policy front? As Jesse Ausebel explains here, there are ways to curb the emissions from natural gas even further. Natural gas plants might
one day employ carbon-capture technology (CCS) to store their carbon underground, a technology that's still being developed. And natural gas
could, in theory, help support a renewable energy system that eventually zeroes out emissions.
Yet it's still not clear that either of
these developments will automatically occur, unless there are changes in energy policy that actually
push these steps forward.
Natural gas take away momentum for renewables
Harvey 11 (Fiona, Environmental correspondent for the Guardian, “Natural gas is no climate change
'panacea', warns IEA,” 6/6, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/06/natural-gas-climatechange-no-panacea)
Natural gas is not the "panacea" to solve climate change that fossil fuel industry lobbyists have been
claiming, according to new research from the International Energy Agency (IEA). Gas is likely to make up about one-quarter
of the world's energy supply by 2035, according to the study, but that would lead the world to a 3.5C
temperature rise. At such a level, global warming could run out of control, deserts would take over in southern Africa, Australia and the
western US, and sea level rises could engulf small island states. Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the IEA, told a press
conference in London: "While natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel, it is still a fossil fuel. Its increased use could
muscle out low-carbon fuels such as renewables and nuclear, particularly in the wake of Fukushima. An
expansion of gas use alone is no panacea for climate change." Governments are likely to come under
pressure to reduce support for low-carbon energy and opt for gas instead, as oil and gas companies
have been urging, in a move that could imperil the fight against climate change, the IEA warned. Fatih
Birol, chief economist of the IEA and one of the world's foremost authorities on energy and climate, said:
"If gas prices come down, that would put a lot of pressure on governments to review their existing
renewable energy support policies ... We may see many renewable energy projects put on the shelf." He
said some renewable technologies, such as onshore wind, would continue to prosper but the worst affected projects were likely to be offshore
wind and solar energy. Birol said the
world must continue to invest in renewables, energy efficiency and carbon
capture and storage, in order to stave off climate change. If the world fails to invest in renewables, a new
generation of gas-fired power stations would have a lifetime of at least 25 years, effectively "locking in"
billion of tonnes of carbon emissions a year. The Guardian recently revealed the extent of lobbying by the gas
industry, which senses a unique opportunity to rebrand itself as green. Previously inaccessible sources of gas, known
as "unconventional" gas, are predicted to create a "golden age of gas" with lower prices and plentiful supply. When burned for
power, gas produces half the carbon of coal. However, a recent study from Cornell University suggested that this might not be the full story,
as using shale gas - one of the chief forms of "unconventional" gas, derived from fracturing dense rocks - could create more
emissions than coal because of difficulties in its exploitation. The IEA's estimates put the associated emissions much
lower. Along with a supply glut - the IEA estimates there are at least 250 years of recoverable resources at today's demand levels - gas is
benefitting from market turmoil surrounding some of the alternatives. "Gas is a fortunate fuel because all its competitors have some
problems," said Birol. Coal suffers high emissions, renewables can be expensive, and there are safety fears over nuclear after the Fukushima
disaster in Japan. But Birol pointed to evidence that
exploiting unconventional gas could bring severe environmental
damage. In the US, there are many reports of contamination in the water supply near shale gas sites, and
dangerous leaks of natural gas. In the UK, two small earthquakes have taken place near sites where a
company is using "fracking" - the process of releasing gas from dense shale rocks by blasting it with water and chemicals. Fracking
operations have been halted while investigations take place to establish whether there is a link. Birol said that the concerns around fracking
should lead companies to adopt more stringent safety and environmental measures. "If gas companies want to see a golden age of gas, then
they need to stick to golden standards," he said.
Natural gas won’t answer energy demands - plan trades off with renewable
development
Kelly ’13 (Sharon, is a blog writer at the Post Carbon Institute, “Faster Drilling, Diminishing Returns in
Shale Plays Nationwide?”, PCI, Apr 30, 2013 http://www.postcarbon.org/article/1627120-faster-drillingdiminishing-returns-in-shale, Accessed: 7/6, SD)
So far, President Obama
has ignored these doubts. His administration has continued to call for an “all of the
above” approach to energy. In essence, this means continuing to promote oil and gas instead of shifting
to renewables. President Obama has also repeatedly cited the claim that American unconventional
reserves can provide a century's worth of natural gas.¶ ¶ But increasingly, the current administration is an
outlier in making these sorts of hyped projections. Washington insiders are paying closer attention to
the emerging data about how these wells perform. In the past year, many of them have become unconvinced by the industry
portrayal of shale gas as cheap, abundant and beneficial.¶ ¶ Jeffery D. Sachs, Professor of Health Policy and Management at
Columbia University and a renowned economist and author, is the most recent pundit to join these ranks. In a March 31
editorial in the New York Times, he wrote, “We are in the midst of a short-term boom of shale oil and natural
gas.”¶ ¶ “Yet this expansion in energy production, driven in large part by two new techniques — horizontal
drilling and hydraulic fracturing — won’t begin to address our long-term energy needs,” he added.¶ ¶ “Like
any overhyped gold rush, today’s boom will soon be tomorrow’s bust,” Mr. Sach pointed out, adding
“fractured gas fields have a remarkably rapid decline rate.”¶ ¶ Mr. Sachs used his editorial to call for the
Obama administration to tackle the hard challenges involved in shifting from dependence on fossil fuels
to renewable energy.¶ ¶ “A clearly laid out federal program to support large-scale solar and wind energy,
electric vehicles and other smart technologies — and backed partly by public money — would unlock
hundreds of billions of dollars of private investments,” Mr. Sachs wrote. “It would secure America’s energy
future and protect the environment, too.”
Transition to natural gas don’t solve warming and offset renewables- transition is key
now
Myhrvold and Caldeira 12 (N P Myhrvold, PhD in theoretical and mathematical physics from
Princeton, formerly Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft, founder of Intellectual Ventures, and K
Caldeira, Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution, Stanford, “Greenhouse gases, climate
change and the transition from coal to low-carbon electricity,” 2/16, http://iopscience.iop.org/17489326/7/1/014019/pdf/1748-9326_7_1_014019.pdf)
Here, we have examined energy system transitions on the scale of the existing electricity sector, which generates ∼1 TWe primarily from
approximately 3 TW thermal energy from fossil fuels [3]. It has been estimated, however, that 10–30 TW of carbon-neutral thermal energy
must be provisioned by mid-century to meet global demand on a trajectory that stabilizes the climate with continued economic growth [1].
It
appears that there is no quick fix; energy system transitions are intrinsically slow [13]. During a
transition, energy is used both to create new infrastructure and to satisfy other energy demands,
resulting in additional emissions. These emissions have a long legacy due to the long lifetime of CO2 in
the atmosphere and the thermal inertia of the oceans. Despite the lengthy time lags involved, delaying rollouts of
low-carbon-emission energy technologies risks even greater environmental harm in the second half of this
century and beyond. This underscores the urgency in developing realistic plans for the rapid deployment of
the lowest-GHG-emission electricity generation technologies. Technologies that offer only modest
reductions in emissions, such as natural gas and—if the highest estimates from the life-cycle analyses (SOM table S1 available
at stacks.iop.org/ ERL/7/014019/mmedia) are correct—carbon capture storage, cannot yield substantial temperature
reductions this century. Achieving substantial reductions in temperatures relative to the coal-based
system will take the better part of a century, and will depend on rapid and massive deployment of
some mix of conservation, wind, solar, and nuclear, and possibly carbon capture and storage.
Renewables Tradeoff---Offshore
Brazil and India prove off-shore efforts kill the renewables industry-drilling efforts
override smaller renewable projects
Englander 8-former director of Agile Energy and senior energy analyst at GTM research,
master’s in Environmental Management from Harvard (Daniel, 2008, “Does Offshore
Drilling Constrain the Renewables Supply Chain?” Cleantech Investing,
http://www.greentechmedia.com/green-light/post/does-offshore-drilling-constrainthe-renewables-supply-chain-452 date accessed 7/2/14) HC
The possibility of Congress granting oil companies rights to develop offshore reserves in previously protected areas is one of the hottest topics
going these days. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates there may be as much as 18 billion barrels lying under protected areas
and 80 billion barrels total offshore, though the EIA isn't exactly known for its accuracy. While there's virtually no potential for oil drilled
offshore in the U.S. to have both a direct or immediate impact on domestic prices - the government can't tell oil companies where to sell, how
much, or at what price - both presidential candidates support it. John McCain was against it before he was for it, and even Obama is saying Yes
We Can to some limited proposals. And then there are these jokers, whose press conferences have replaced the Daily Show as my daily fix of
political humor. For the energy majors, increased access to offshore sites represents a far greater prize than any good PR associated with low
gas prices. Proved and probable reserves are a widely accepted way of determining an oil company's value and expanding access for these
companies will benefit their share prices and revenue forecasts. This is good for companies like BP who are finding it harder to do business in
places like Russia and Nigeria these days and risk losing booked reserves in those areas. It's likely, however, that much of the newly granted
reserves won't be developed or produced - American companies currently produce from about 15 percent of their offshore sites. While this
controversy rages in the U.S., an
offshore oil boom in Brazil and India may create some problems for the
development of the offshore renewables industry in Europe and North America. Supply chain conflicts
may prove a significant limiting factor for growth in that sector and may have ramifications for the
evolution of the energy sector generally. The wind industry, ocean power industry, and offshore oil and
gas industry draw their installation, monitoring, and maintenance vessels from the same companies and
same limited inventory. Anchor handling vessels, jack-up barges, and seismographic monitoring are in
particularly high demand these days. According to Baker Hughers, in the last few months Brazil has deployed 29 additional offshore rights,
while India has deployed two and ordered another 28, drawing much of the world's installation vessels to those projects. Competition for
inventory among these industries isn't strong however, with the well-capitalized oil projects winning out
nearly every time and low return renewables project often getting shuttered as a result. The high risk
and low returns of installing wind turbines and ocean power devices offshore oftentimes do not justify
the cost of hiring these vessels at market rates. The surge in offshore drilling has been a boon for the
relatively small offshore oil services industry. In a market where vessel charters go for a minimum of $60,000 per day, an onset
of new entrants is not unexpected. India's Varun Shipping recently raised $300 million to expand into the business with a focus on deep-water
and ultra-deep water operations. But the
rush to serve the expanding offshore oil industry may put a crimp on
construction of offshore wind farms and the development of the nascent ocean power industry. Larger
service opportunities in the offshore oil industry will draw installation vessels to oil faster than they'll go
to wind and ocean power, while wind and ocean power installers may not be willing to pay the high
rates the installation vessels command. Lower installation costs and higher margins may keep wind
turbines on dry land for longer than most expected, while the shortage of installations vessels may make
it difficult to keep the ocean power industry afloat. Already, one major marine turbine installation was delayed by several
months because the jack-up barge intended for the installation was called away to service an oil rig. European offshore wind installers were
expecting to soak up surplus capacity from depleted North Sea natural gas fields, but those vessels are now in service in India and Brazil.
Short supply and high prices add to the already outsize installation costs for offshore wind, which have
caused a number of major developers to put some big projects on hold. This has sent investment return
opportunities tumbling, making offshore renewables projects even less attractive than before. Shell stepped
out of the 1 GW London Array, citing equipment shortages and spiraling construction costs. Both Vestas and General Electric have slowed
production of their offshore units because of shrinking sales. Vestas, for example, hasn't sold an offshore turbine since late 2006. There are
currently $120 billion of offshore wind projects in Europe that are stalled because of high construction costs and installation vessel shortages.
As long as costs remain high and vessel availability remains uncertain, it is unlikely most offshore renewables projects will get built. This will
certainly impact the EU's goal of meeting 20 percent of its electricity demand from renewables by 2020. However, lessons from Europe should
give American renewables developers and drilling opponents another kind of ammunition in their fight to expand renewables capacity and limit
the future development of fossil fuels.
Methane Leaks
Gas Bad---Methane Leaks
Expanding gas reliance locks in catastrophic warming- methane
Joe Romm 12, Fellow at American Progress and editor of Climate Progress, “Natural Gas Is A Bridge To
Nowhere Absent A Carbon Price AND Strong Standards To Reduce Methane Leakage,” 4/9/12,
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/09/460384/natural-gas-is-a-bridge-to-nowhere-absent-acarbon-price-and-strong-standards-to-reduce-methane-leakage/
A new journal article finds that methane leakage greatly undercuts or eliminates entirely the climate benefit of a
switch to natural gas. The authors of “Greater Focus Needed on Methane Leakage from Natural Gas Infrastructure“ conclude that “it
appears that current leakage rates are higher than previously thought” and “Reductions in CH4 Leakage Are
Needed to Maximize the Climate Benefits of Natural Gas.” Natural gas is mostly methane – a very potent
greenhouse gas, though with a much shorter lifetime in the atmosphere than CO2, which is emitted by burning
fossil fuels like natural gas. Recent studies suggest a very high global warming potential (GWP) for CH4 vs CO2, particularly over a 20-year time
frame. The new Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study introduces the idea of “technology warming potentials” (TWPs) to
reveal “reveal time-dependent tradeoffs inherent in a choice between alternative technologies.” In this new approach the potent
warming effect of methane emissions undercuts the value of fuel switching in the next few decades,
exactly the timeframe we need to reverse the warming trend if we are to have any chance at triggering amplifying
feedbacks and preventing multiple catastrophes. For instance, the new study finds that a big switch from coal to
gas would only reduce TWP by about 25% over the first three decades — far different than the typical statement that
you get a 50% drop in CO2 emissions from the switch. Note that the conclusion above is based on “EPA’s latest estimate of the amount of CH4
released because of leaks and venting in the natural gas network between production wells and the local distribution network” of 2.4%. Many
experts believe the leakage rate is higher than 2.4%, particularly for the fastest growing new source of
gas — hydraulic fracturing. Also, recent air sampling by NOAA over Colorado found 4% methane leakage, more than double industry claims.
The study notes: We emphasize that our calculations assume an average leakage rate for the entire U.S. natural gas supply (as well for coal
mining). Much work needs to be done to determine actual emis- sions with certainty and to accurately characterize the site-to-site variability in
emissions. However, given limited current evidence, it is likely that
leakage at individual natural gas well sites is high
enough, when combined with leakage from downstream operations, to make the total leakage exceed
the 3.2% threshold beyond which gas becomes worse for the climate than coal for at least some period
of time. In short until we have far more actual data showing low leakage rates — or regulations to ensure
low leakage rates — it is hard to claim that switching from coal to gas plants has a substantial warming
benefit in the near-term (that is especially true for reasons I’ll touch on below). It’s even harder to claim that simply shoving
massive amounts of natural gas into the energy supply system is a good idea at all, given that some of it
would inevitably replace new renewables — and if even a small fraction of new gas plants replace
renewables, that eliminates any warming benefit that switching from coal to gas might have.
Natural gas doesn’t reduce emissions or act as a bridge fuel- methane leaks avert any
benefit
Romm 12 (Joseph, editor of Climate Progress and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress,
“Natural gas: A bridge to nowhere”, 1/24, http://grist.org/natural-gas/natural-gas-a-bridge-tonowhere/)
A new journal article finds that methane leakage greatly undercuts or eliminates entirely the climate benefit of a
switch to natural gas. The authors of “Greater Focus Needed on Methane Leakage from Natural Gas Infrastructure“ conclude that “it
appears that current leakage rates are higher than previously thought” and “Reductions in CH4 Leakage Are Needed
to Maximize the Climate Benefits of Natural Gas.” Natural gas is mostly methane – a very potent greenhouse gas,
though with a much shorter lifetime in the atmosphere than CO2, which is emitted by burning fossil
fuels like natural gas. Recent studies suggest a very high global warming potential (GWP) for CH4 vs CO2, particularly over a 20-year
time frame. The new Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study introduces the idea of “technology warming potentials” (TWPs) to
reveal “reveal time-dependent tradeoffs inherent in a choice between alternative technologies.” In this new approach the
potent
warming effect of methane emissions undercuts the value of fuel switching in the next few decades,
exactly the timeframe we need to reverse the warming trend if we are to have any chance at triggering
amplifying feedbacks and preventing multiple catastrophes. For instance, the new study finds that a big switch from
coal to gas would only reduce TWP by about 25% over the first three decades — far different than the
typical statement that you get a 50% drop in CO2 emissions from the switch. Note that the conclusion above is based on
“EPA’s latest estimate of the amount of CH4 released because of leaks and venting in the natural gas network between production wells and
the local distribution network” of 2.4%. Many experts believe the leakage rate is higher than 2.4%, particularly for the fastest growing new
source of gas — hydraulic fracturing. Also, recent air sampling by NOAA over Colorado found 4% methane leakage, more than double industry
claims. The study notes: We emphasize that our calculations assume an average leakage rate for the entire U.S. natural gas supply (as well for
coal mining). Much work needs to be done to determine actual emis- sions with certainty and to accurately characterize the site-to-site
variability in emissions. However, given limited current evidence,
it is likely that leakage at individual natural gas well sites
is high enough, when combined with leakage from downstream operations, to make the total leakage
exceed the 3.2% threshold beyond which gas becomes worse for the climate than coal for at least some
period of time. In short until we have far more actual data showing low leakage rates — or regulations to ensure low leakage rates — it
is hard to claim that switching from coal to gas plants has a substantial warming benefit in the near-term
(that is especially true for reasons I’ll touch on below). It’s even harder to claim that simply shoving massive amounts of natural gas into the
energy supply system is a good idea at all, given that some
of it would inevitably replace new renewables — and if even a
small fraction of new gas plants replace renewables, that eliminates any warming benefit that switching
from coal to gas might have. I had previously argued that you need a rising carbon price to ensure that any new natural gas plants
replace coal and not renewables (see here). Indeed, I first made that argument three years ago — see “Why unconventional natural gas makes
the 2020 Waxman-Markey target so damn easy and cheap to meet.” But now it’s increasingly clear that a carbon price alone doesn’t address
the full problem. You are going to need enforceable national standards to bring the leakage rate way down. Such standards could in fact be a
very quick way to reduce the rate of global warming. Indeed, the other shocker in this study is how bad natural gas vehicles (NGVs) are for the
climate. In particular, many are trying to pass legislation for switching heavy duty diesel vehicles to natural gas. The study concludes that such a
switch sharply increases Technology Warming Potential for many decades, and no one alive today would ever see a climate benefit from that
switch. This new research, coauthored by two EDF scientists as well as other leading scientists, appears to have led EDF to strongly oppose
NGVs. As the National Journal reported last month: “The president has proposed we switch trucks to natural gas, and I’m here to tell you today
that every truck we switch to natural gas damages the atmosphere,” Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said at the IHS
Cambridge Energy Research Associates annual conference here. Krupp said the little data available about how much methane — a greenhouse
gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide — escapes during the production of shale natural gas compels him to refuse to support a shift
toward more natural-gas vehicles. “We’re against what the president called for in the State of the Union until they [the natural-gas industry]
can demonstrate they can get the leak rate down below 1 percent,” Krupp added. The Environmental Defense Fund’s opposition to the
proposal is notable; it is one of the only environmental groups willing to work with industry on the concerns surrounding shale natural gas,
which has been discovered in vast amounts all over the country in the past few years. The problem for NGVs, as study coauthor and EDF chief
scientist Steven Hamburg explained to me, is that the
extra steps involved in using natural gas as a transport fuel —
including fueling and onboard storage, increases the system leakage rate significantly. And these leaks are
probably much harder to address. So the possibility that, say, the entire leakage rate for the heavy-duty vehicle infrastructure, from fracking to
fueling, could ever be brought down to below 1% is pretty darn small. The
concept of natural gas as a “bridge fuel” was
pushed by the American Gas Association as far back as 1981. It’s the longest bridge in history! Heck, the
Golden Gate Bridge only took 4 years to build! But the window where gas can be a major bridge fuel to a world with a livable climate appears to
be almost completely closed, now. Had
we acted back in the 1980s or even 1990s as climate scientists and world leaders had
been urging, then, yes, an expansion of gas use might have made sense. The fact that natural gas is now a bridge fuel to
nowhere was first shown by the International Energy Agency in its big June report on gas — see IEA’s “Golden Age of Gas Scenario” Leads to
More Than 6°F Warming and Out-of-Control Climate Change. The IEA’s well-named GAG scenario assumes that not only does oil production
peak in 2020 — but so does coal! Remember, warming
beyond 6°F (3.5°C) is “incompatible with organized global
community, is likely to be beyond ‘adaptation’, is devastating to the majority of ecosystems & has a high probability of not being stable
(i.e. 4°C [7F] would be an interim temperature on the way to a much higher equilibrium level),” according to Professor Kevin Anderson,
director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change in Britain (see here). We would be self-destructively irrational to risk even 5°F warming.
If
your goal is a livable climate, we need to transition off of all fossil fuels ASAP.
Methane leaks negate any reduction in carbon emissions-methane is net worse than
CO2
Karion 2013-Anna, PhD in mechanical engineering from California Institute of Technology, fellow at
the Cooperative Institute for Research in the NOAA Global Monitoring Division, former hydromechanics
directorate at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (8/27/13, “Methane Emissions From Airborne
Measurements Over a Western United States Natural Gas Field” Geophysical Research Letters,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.turing.library.northwestern.edu/doi/10.1002/grl.50811/pdf, Wiley Online
date accessed 7/7/14) HC
As concern grows over the climate impact of increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the actual and
associated political costs of imported fuels, the U.S. is looking to exploit natural gas as a domestic energy
source. Natural gas is an efficient energy source because its combustion produces more energy per carbon dioxide (C02)molecules formed than coal or oil
(177% and 140%, respectively) [US. Department of Energy- Energy Information Administration, 1999]. Despite this efficiency, leakage of
natural gas to the atmosphere from the point of extraction to the point of consumption reduces its
climate benefits because the major component of natural gas is CH4, a greenhouse gas that is 25 times
more potent than CO2 over a 100 year time horizon [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007]. Although assessing the exact
climate impact of natural gas has many complexities, a recent study has suggested if more than 3.2% of natural gas leaks to
the atmosphere on its way from the point of extraction to a gas-fired power plant, the electricity
produced will have a larger immediate climate impact than that from a coal-fired plant [Alvarez el al. 2012] A
recent increase in U.S. natural gas production is the lack of accurate and reliable estimates of associated emissions. In particular, the methodology used to account
for fugitive CH4 emissions during production is in question.
This is demonstrated by large year-to-year revisions in natural
gas- related CH4 emissions reported for 2008 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which
caused the estimated national average production-sector leak rate for this year to increase from
approximately 0.16% of production in the 2010 report to 1.42% in the 2011 and 2012 reports [US.
Environmental Protection Agency, 2010, 2011, 2012]. This rate was revised back down to 0.88% in the 2013 report 'EPA, 2013]. These changes were driven largely
by changes in EPA's assumptions for calculating emissions from liquid unloading (removing the accumulation of fluids in gas wells), unconventional completions with
hydraulic fracturing, and refracturing of natural gas wells. In particular, the main driver for the 2013 reduction in production emissions was a report prepared by the
oil and gas industry, which contended that CH4 emissions from liquid unloading were more than an order of magnitude lower than EPA's 2011 report estimate and
that emissions from refracturing wells in tight sands or shale for- mations were less than half of EPA's 2011 report estimate [Shires and Lev-On, 2012]. The
substantial changes in the CH4 inventory between 2010 and 2013 have led the EPA's Office of Inspector
General to release a report calling for the improvement of the agency's air emissions data for the
natural gas production sector [US. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General, 2013].
Natural gas leakages account for 2.4% of gross production-increased CH4 accelerates
warming
Alvarez 2012-Ramon, PhD in physical chemistry from UC-Berkeley, senior scientist at
the Environmental Defense Fund (2/13/12, “Greater focus needed on methane
leakage from natural gas infrastructure”, The National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America,
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/04/02/1202407109.full.pdf date accessed
7/7/14) HC
A shift to natural gas and away from other fossil fuels is increasingly plausible because advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing
technologies have greatly expanded the country's extractable natural gas resources particularly by accessing gas stored in shale deep
underground (7). Contrary to previous estimates of CH4 losses from the "upstream" portions of the natural gas fuel cycle (8. 9).
a recent
paper by Howarth et al. calculated upstream leakage rates for shale gas to be so large as to imply higher
lifecycle GHG emissions from natural gas than from coal (1). (SI Text, discusses differences between our paper and
Howarth et al.) Howarth et al. estimated CH4 emissions as a percentage of CH4 produced over the lifecycle of a
well to be 3.6- 7.9% for shale gas and 1.7-6.0% for conventional gas. The EPA's latest estimate of the
amount of CH4 released because of leaks and venting in the natural gas network between production
wells and the local distribution network is about 570 billion cubic feet for 2009. which corresponds to
2.4% of gross U.S. natural gas production (1.9-3.1% at a 95% confidence level) (6).' EPA's reported uncertainty
appears small considering that its current value is double the prior estimate, which was itself twice as
high as the previously accepted amount (9). Comparing the climate implications of CH4 and CO. emissions is complicated
because of the much shorter atmospheric lifetime of CH* relative to CO>. On a molar basis, CH4 produces 37 times more
radiative forcing than CO2 However, because CH4 is oxidized to CO. with an effective lifetime of 12 yr, the integrated, or cumulative,
radiative forcings from equi-molar releases of CO; and CH* eventually converge toward the same value. Determining whether a unit emission of
CH4 is worse for the climate than a unit of C02 depends on the time frame considered.
Because accelerated rates of warming
mean ecosystems and humans have less time to adapt, increased CH4; emissions due to substitution of
natural gas for coal and oil may produce undesirable climate outcomes in the near-term.
http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/howarth/energy_and_environment.php
Natural gas emits more methane into the atmosphere than conventional oil-14-19%
more GHGs
Howarth, Santoro and Ingraffea 2011-Robert, PhD from MIT, Director of Agriculture,
Energy, and Environment Program at Cornell University, chair at International SCOPE
Biofuels Program, founding editor of the Biogeochemistry journal, Renee, Program
Director, Energy & Environment Nexus at Physicians, Scientists, & Engineers for
Healthy Energy, research aide at SCOPE International Biofuels Project, Anthony, PhD in
civil engineering from University of Colorado, engineering professor at Cornell
(4/12/11, “Methane and the Greenhouse Gas Footprint of Shale Natural Gas
Formations”, Climactic Change Letters,
http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/5/art%253A10.1007%252Fs10584-011-00615.pdf?auth66=1404952840_d59ef1545365670d5042e06882611e68&ext=.pdf date
accessed 7/7/14) HC
Summing all estimated losses, we calculate that during the life cycle of an average shale-gas well, 3.6 to
7.9% of the total production of the well is emitted to the atmosphere as methane (Table 2). This is at least
30% more and perhaps more than twice as great as the life-cycle methane emissions we estimate for
conventional gas, 1.7% to 6%. Methane is a far more potent GHG than is CO2, but methane also has a
tenfold shorter residence time in the atmosphere, so its effect on global warming attenuates more
rapidly (IPCC 2007). Consequently, to compare the global warming potential of methane and CO2 requires a specific time horizon. We follow
Lelieveld et al. (2005) and present analyses for both 20-year and 100-year time horizons. Though the 100-year horizon is commonly used, we
agree with Nisbet et al. (2000) that the
20-year horizon is critical, given the need to reduce global warming in
coming decades (IPCC 2007). We use recently modeled values for the global warming potential of methane compared to CO2: 105 and 33
on a mass-to-mass basis for 20 and 100 years, respectively, with an uncertainty of plus or minus 23% (Shindell et al. 2009). These are
somewhat higher than those presented in the 4th assessment report of the IPCC (2007), but better
account for the interaction of methane with aerosols. Note that carbon-trading markets use a lower
global-warming potential yet of only 21 on the 100-year horizon, but this is based on the 2nd IPCC
(1995) assessment, which is clearly out of date on this topic. See Electronic Supplemental Materialsfor the methodology
for calculating the effect of methane on GHG in terms of CO2 equivalents. Methane dominates the GHG footprint for shale
gas on the 20-year time horizon, contributing 1.4- to 3-times more than does direct CO2 emission (Fig. 1a).
At this time scale, the GHG footprint for shale gas is 22% to 43% greater than that for conventional gas.
When viewed at a time 100 years after the emissions, methane emissions still contribute significantly to
the GHG footprints, but the effect is diminished by the relatively short residence time of methane in the atmosphere. On this time
frame, the GHG footprint for shale gas is 14% to 19% greater than that for conventional gas (Fig. 1b).
Even with small methane leakages, temperatures would only decrease by 0.1 degrees
until 2100
Atmos News 11(University Corporation for Atmospheric Research press release, “SWITCHING FROM COAL TO NATURAL GAS WOULD
DO LITTLE FOR GLOBAL CLIMATE, STUDY INDICATES,” 9/8, http://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/5292/switching-coal-natural-gas-woulddo-little-global-climate-study-indicates)
A SMALL IMPACT ON TEMPERATURES The burning of coal releases more carbon dioxide than other fossil fuels, as well as comparatively high
levels of other pollutants, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particles such as ash. Since natural gas emits lower levels of these
pollutants, some energy experts have proposed greater reliance on that fuel source as a way to slow down global warming and reduce the
impacts of energy use on the environment. But the effects of natural gas on climate change have been difficult to calculate. Recent studies have
come to conflicting conclusions about whether a shift to natural gas would significantly slow the rate of climate change, in part because of
uncertainty about the extent of methane leaks.
Wigley’s new study attempts to take a more comprehensive look at
the issue by incorporating the cooling effects of sulfur particles associated with coal burning and by
analyzing the complex climatic influences of methane, which affects other atmospheric gases such as ozone and water
vapor. By running a series of computer simulations, Wigley found that a 50 percent reduction in coal and a
corresponding increase in natural gas use would lead to a slight increase in worldwide warming for the
next 40 years of about 0.1 degree Fahrenheit (less than 0.1 degree Celsius). The reliance on natural gas could then gradually
reduce the rate of global warming, but temperatures would drop by only a small amount compared to the 5.4
degrees F (3 degrees C) of warming projected by 2100 under current energy trends. If the rate of
methane leaks from natural gas could be held to around 2 percent, for example, the study indicates that
warming would be reduced by less than 0.2 degrees F (about 0.1 degree C) by 2100. The reduction in warming would
be more pronounced in a hypothetical scenario of zero leaks, which would result in a reduction of warming by 2100 of about 0.2-0.3 degrees F
(0.1-0.2 degrees C). But
in a high leakage rate scenario of 10 percent, global warming would not be reduced
until 2140. “Whatever the methane leakage rate, you can’t get away from the additional warming that will occur initially because, by not
burning coal, you’re not having the cooling effect of sulfates and other particles,” Wigley says. “This particle
effect is a double-edged sword because reducing them is a good thing in terms of lessening air pollution and acid rain. But the paradox is when
we clean up these particles, it slows down efforts to reduce global warming.” In each of the leakage scenarios, the relative cooling impact of
natural gas would continue beyond 2100, continuing to offset global warming by several tenths of a degree. The study also found that methane
leaks would need to be held to 2 percent or less in order for natural gas to have less of a climatic impact than coal due to the life cycle of
methane. Both coal mining operations and the use of natural gas release varying amounts of methane, but the escaping gas’s influence on
climate also depends on emissions of other gases, such as carbon monoxide and nitrous oxides, that affect the amount of time methane
remains in the atmosphere.
Turn- Natural gas bridge is ‘no quick-fix’ and increase emissions during construction
IOP 12 (Institute of Physics, “Low-carbon technologies ‘no quick-fix’, say researchers,” 2/16,
http://www.iop.org/news/12/feb/page_53901.html)
A drastic switch to low carbon-emitting technologies, such as wind and hydroelectric power, may not yield a
reduction in global warming until the latter part of this century, research published today suggests. Low-carbon
technologies ‘no quick-fix’, say researchers Furthermore, it states that technologies that offer only modest reductions in
greenhouse gases, such as the use of natural gas and perhaps carbon capture and storage, cannot substantially
reduce climate risk in the next 100 years. The study, published today, Thursday 16 February, in IOP Publishing’s journal
Environmental Research Letters, claims that the rapid deployment of low-greenhouse-gas-emitting technologies (LGEs)
will initially increase emissions as they will require a large amount of energy to construct and install. These
cumulative emissions will remain in the atmosphere for extended periods due to the long lifetime of CO2,
meaning that global mean surface temperatures will increase to a level greater than if we continued to use
conventional coal-fired plants. Delaying the rollout of the technologies is not an option however; the risks of
environmental harm will be much greater in the second half of the century and beyond if we continue to rely on coal-based technologies. The
researchers, from Intellectual Ventures and the Carnegie Institution, Stanford, arrived at their conclusions through a set of simple mathematical
models that calculated the effect of switching energy technologies on the concentration of greenhouse gases, radiative forcing ( the balance
between absorbed and radiated energy from the sun) and global mean temperature. Coal-based power plants were used as the basis for
comparison because they generate the most greenhouse gases per unit of electricity produced – replacing plants of this kind will have the
greatest benefits on the climate. These power plants were compared to wind power, nuclear power, hydroelectric power, carbon capture and
storage, and natural gas. Solar photovoltaics (harnessing the sun for electricity) and solar thermal (harnessing the sun for heat) were also
compared.
“Achieving substantial reductions in temperatures relative to the coal-based system will take
the better part of a century, and will depend on rapid and massive deployment of some mix of
conservation, wind, solar, and nuclear, and possibly carbon capture and storage,” the researchers write.
Even with no methane leakage, you can’t even start affecting the climate before 2050
James Gerken 11, Deputy Green Editor at The Huffington Post, 9/16/11, “Natural Gas Switch Would
Not Greatly Slow Climate Change, Report Finds,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/16/naturalgas-and-climate-change_n_955751.html
Burning natural gas may emit significantly less carbon dioxide than coal, but a fifty percent switch from
coal to natural gas would not stem the tide of climate change, according to the results of a new study
Using computer simulations, Tom Wigley, a senior research associate at the National Center for
Atmospheric Research, found that a "partial shift from coal to natural gas would slightly accelerate
climate change" for at least the next several decades, reports Science Daily. After that, there would be
only a minimal slow down in the rise of global average temperatures. The report, "Coal to gas: The
influence of methane leakage," appears in the journal Climatic Change Letters. Wigley's predictions are
dependent upon the amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, that is leaked as a result of natural
gas production. If there was no leakage after a shift to gas, climate change would be accelerated
through 2050. But if there were significant leaks, it could be as late as 2140 before any difference was
seen, according to the Los Angeles Times. Wigley explains that natural gas does produce less heattrapping carbon dioxide when burned than coal. But coal emits other particles that also block sunlight
and cool the planet. He tells Science Daily: "Whatever the methane leakage rate, you can't get away
from the additional warming that will occur initially because, by not burning coal, you're not having the
cooling effect of sulfates and other particles. This particle effect is a double-edged sword because
reducing them is a good thing in terms of lessening air pollution and acid rain. But the paradox is when
we clean up these particles, it slows down efforts to reduce global warming." Limiting methane leakage
from natural gas production could also be a daunting task. The New York Times covered a report in April
that suggested as much as 7.9 percent of the methane that is currently escaping into the atmosphere is
"puffing out from shale gas wells, intentionally vented or flared, or seeping from loose pipe fittings along
gas distribution lines." Even after the warming caused by the reduction of sulfates and other earthcooling particles is overcome, the decrease in rising global temperatures would not be significant.
Science Daily reports that even at only two percent methane leakage, a fifty percent shift to natural gas
would only slow rising temperatures by 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. With current energy trends,
global temperatures are predicted to rise 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. The U.S.
Geological Survey reported in August that the Marcellus Shale region has around 84 trillion cubic feet of
recoverable natural gas. This is far less than the 410 trillion cubic feet statistic released earlier this year
by the federal Energy Information Administration. Click here for ProPublica's list of America's 10 largest
gas drillers.
Sulfates Turn
Gas Bad---Sulfates
Natural gas switch accelerates warming- reduces cooling aerosols
Christopher Mims 11, writer for Grist, 9/9/11, “Switching from coal to natural gas would accelerate
climate change, say scientists,” http://grist.org/list/2011-09-09-switching-from-coal-to-natural-gaswould-accelerate-climate-chan/
Here is a terrifying, crazy-making truth: Getting off coal will accelerate climate change, at least in the short term.
This isn't an argument for maintaining our coal addiction — because if we stick with coal, we are, frankly, dead as a
species, plus more immediately dead or at least very wheezy as individuals. (And there's no chance we’ll run out of coal before completely
screwing everything up — there’s enough
coal in the U.S. and Russia alone to put us past any reasonable
chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change.) But according to a new analysis from the National
Center for Atmospheric Research, through 2050 a switch from coal to natural gas would actually
accelerate climate change. Even though natural gas leads to fewer greenhouse gas emissions than coal,
the "problem" is that natural gas is cleaner in another sense, too: Burning it leads to fewer aerosols in
the air. These aerosols are the ultra-fine particles of pollution that cause direct negative health impacts,
but also make the atmosphere slightly more reflective. When the planet bounces more sunlight back into
space, that helps keep Earth cool. So what this study is really saying is that through 2050, the loss of the cooling effect
from coal-produced atmospheric aerosols will outweigh the reduction in heat-trapping greenhouse
gasses that would come with a switch to natural gas. In the long term, we're better off with natural gas than with
coal, but the truth is it hardly makes a difference this century. The real answer is getting off fossil fuels
completely. And how likely is that? It's realities like these that are one of the reasons why many serious scientists won't shut up about
geoengineering. Christopher Mims's dystopian non-fiction is sought after by an ever-growing roster of publications.
Methane leaks and reduction in sulfates mean not solve warming
James Gerken 11, Deputy Green Editor at The Huffington Post, 9/16/11, “Natural Gas Switch Would Not Greatly Slow Climate Change,
Report Finds,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/16/natural-gas-and-climate-change_n_955751.html
Burning natural gas may emit significantly less carbon dioxide than coal, but a
fifty percent switch from coal to natural gas
would not stem the tide of climate change, according to the results of a new study Using computer simulations,
Tom Wigley, a senior research associate at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, found that a
"partial shift from coal to natural gas would slightly accelerate climate change" for at least the next
several decades, reports Science Daily. After that, there would be only a minimal slow down in the rise of
global average temperatures. The report, "Coal to gas: The influence of methane leakage," appears in the journal Climatic Change
Letters. Wigley's predictions are dependent upon the amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, that is leaked as a result of natural gas
production. If
there was no leakage after a shift to gas, climate change would be accelerated through 2050.
But if there were significant leaks, it could be as late as 2140 before any difference was seen, according to
the Los Angeles Times. Wigley explains that natural gas does produce less heat-trapping carbon dioxide when burned than coal. But coal emits
other particles that also block sunlight and cool the planet. He tells Science Daily: "Whatever
the methane leakage rate, you
can't get away from the additional warming that will occur initially because, by not burning coal, you're not
having the cooling effect of sulfates and other particles. This particle effect is a double-edged sword because reducing
them is a good thing in terms of lessening air pollution and acid rain. But the paradox is when we clean up these particles, it
slows down efforts to reduce global warming." Limiting methane leakage from natural gas production
could also be a daunting task. The New York Times covered a report in April that suggested as much as 7.9 percent of the
methane that is currently escaping into the atmosphere is "puffing out from shale gas wells,
intentionally vented or flared, or seeping from loose pipe fittings along gas distribution lines." Even after
the warming caused by the reduction
of sulfates and other earth-cooling particl es is overcome, the decrease in
rising global temperatures would not be significant. Science Daily reports that even at only two percent methane leakage, a
fifty percent shift to natural gas would only slow rising temperatures by 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.
With current energy trends, global temperatures are predicted to rise 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the
century. The U.S. Geological Survey reported in August that the Marcellus Shale region has around 84 trillion cubic feet of recoverable
natural gas. This is far less than the 410 trillion cubic feet statistic released earlier this year by the federal Energy Information Administration.
Click here for ProPublica's list of America's 10 largest gas drillers.
Gas is net worse because of reduced sulfates from coal, even if the methane leak rate
is zero
RCE 11, citing Tom Wigley, National Center for Atmospheric Research, 9/12/11, “Substituting Gas for
Coal Won’t Help Global Warming,”
http://www.realclearenergy.org/printpage/?url=http://www.realclearenergy.org/charticles/2011/09/12
/substituting_gas_for_coal_wont_help_global_warming_106274.html
In a development that could take some of the steam out of the enthusiasm for natural gas, senior researcher Tom Wigley of the
National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder is publishing a paper arguing that converting 50 percent of
our power production from coal to natural gas could actually increase global temperatures, at least over the
next several decades. The problem is leakage. Methane is itself a greenhouse gas., blocking the escape of infrared
heat rays at 22 times the rate of carbon dioxide. The only advantage is that it remains in the atmosphere only 9.6 years while
CO2 lingers for more than a century. Thus, there is a tradeoff. Because methane contains more hydrogen per carbon, it produces only about
half the carbon dioxide as coal. That has been touted as its main advantage. But if
gas escapes anywhere along the line - in
drilling, transporting or combustion - this advantage will be offset. Carefully calculating the numbers, Wigley found
that if leakage occurs at a rate of 10 percent (the brown line), substituting natural gas would actually increase
global temperatures well into the 21st century. If leakage can be reduced to 5 percent (the red line), some benefit begins to
kick in around 2060. But even reducing loss to zero (the bottom line) increases temperatures until 2050. How can this
be? The great irony is that, while coal produces more carbon dioxide per unit of energy, it also throws up lots of
sulfates, dust and ash, which block sunlight, thereby reducing global temperatures. As a result, even with zero
leakage, substituting gas will create an initial negative impact. In any case, Wigley calculates, the largest longrange temperature reduction that can be anticipated from substituting gas for coal is 0.4 degree Celsius.
This is well below the 5 degree C increase anticipated in the worst scenarios for global warming.
Chemical Industry Adv/Add-On
Status Quo Solves
US chemical industry bouncing back
Zacks Equity Research 6-20 (“Manufacturing Rebound Lifts U.S. Chemical in May”, June 20, 2014,
http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/137637/Manufacturing-Rebound-Lifts-US-Chemical-in-May,
Accessed: 7/10, SD)
U.S. chemical production recorded its fifth straight monthly gain in May with higher output from all regions barring
the West Coast, according to the latest monthly report from the American Chemistry Council (ACC). A rebound in manufacturing
production – after being hit by a long and cold winter – contributed to the rise.¶ The Washington, DC-based chemical industry trade group
noted that the U.S. Chemical Production Regional Index (CPRI) nudged up 0.4% in May, following a 0.6%
increase a month ago.¶ Created by Moore Economics to track chemical production in seven regions nationwide, the U.S. CPRI is
comparable to Federal Reserve’s industrial production index for chemicals. The CPRI is measured using a
three-month moving average.¶ The May reading showed continued gain in chemical output in the Gulf
Coast where key building block materials are produced. Production from this region rose 1% on a monthly comparison
basis in the reported month after a revised 0.7% rise a month ago. Production edged up 0.2% across Midwest, Southeast and Northeast while
Mid-Atlantic saw a 0.1% gain. Ohio Valley logged a 0.8% gain. However, output slipped 0.2% in West Coast.¶
Output from the U.S.
manufacturing sector, the largest consumer of chemical products, went up 0.5% in May on a threemonth moving average basis. The sector is a major driver for the chemical industry which touches
around 96% of manufactured goods.¶ Manufacturing output bounced back to a healthy gain in the reported
month after slumping unexpectedly in April, thanks to strong consumer and business demand, especially for cars, industrial machinery and
equipment. The rebound – manifested by a healthy pickup in factory activities – augurs well for U.S. economic recovery in the second quarter
Within the manufacturing sector, gains were
seen in several chemistry end-user markets including aerospace, construction supplies, appliances, motor vehicles, machinery,
after a 1% contraction in the first due to a frigid winter that curbed activities.¶
fabricated metal products, computers, semiconductors, plastic products, rubber products, paper and furniture. ¶
¶
As witnessed in April,
chemical production was once again mixed across the segments in the reported month. Gains across chloralkali and other inorganic chemicals, plastic resins, synthetic rubber, synthetic dyes and pigments, industrial gases, consumer products and
organic chemicals were partly ebbed by declines in pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, pesticides, synthetic fibers, coatings and adhesives.¶ ¶ Overall
chemical production was up 2.1% year over year in May with gains recorded across all seven regions. Year to date, output is up 1.4% compared
with the year-ago period.