"Shale gas benefits called into question"

[Brendan OConnor]

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8b2ab142-2129-11e2-9720-00144feabdc0.html October 29, 2012 12:01 am Shale gas benefits called into question By Pilita Clark, Environment Correspondent The US shale gas boom is not curbing global greenhouse gas emissions as much as some of its proponents claim, according to a study by British climate change researchers. The reason is that although the so-called shale revolution has led to the US burning less coal, a far dirtier fossil fuel than natural gas, more American coal is being exported, so the overall benefits of switching fuels is not so great. The report is the latest in a stream of studies examining the environmental impact of natural gas extracted by fracturing – or “fracking” – shale rock in the US in the past four to five years. This has led wholesale US gas prices to plunge, making gas a more attractive fuel for power stations and raising hopes that this would in turn lower emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. The International Energy Agency reported in May that the shale revolution had helped produce a big drop in US carbon emissions. Those emissions fell 450m tonnes during the past five years, the IEA said, the largest drop among all the countries surveyed. The British report, by researchers at the University of Manchester, who are part of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, agrees the US is burning less coal, and finds US carbon emissions from domestic energy sources have fallen by 8.6 per cent since peaking in 2005. This is equal to a 1.4 per cent drop per year. But the report says there has been a “substantial increase” in the amount of coal the US is exporting to the UK, Europe and Asia. According to its calculations, more than half of the emissions avoided in the US may have been exported as coal. “Research papers and newspaper column inches have focused on the relative emissions from coal and gas,” said John Broderick, the lead author. “However, it is the total quantity of CO2 from the energy system that matters to the climate. Despite lower-carbon rhetoric, shale gas is still a carbon intensive energy source.” Professor Kevin Anderson, a co-author, said the report, Has US Shale Gas Reduced CO2 Emissions?, suggested the role for gas in countries trying to shift to low-carbon energy sources was “extremely limited”. The report says that without a cap on global carbon emissions, the exploitation of shale gas reserves is likely to increase total emissions. “For this not to be the case, consumption of displaced fuels must be reduced globally and remain suppressed indefinitely; in effect displaced coal must stay in the ground. The availability of shale gas does not guarantee this,” it says. Likewise, new renewable generating capacity may cause displacement without guaranteeing that coal is not burned, but it does not directly release carbon dioxide emissions through generation