“Certified Gas” Is The Latest Greenwashing Scam From The Methane Industry

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

However now there may be. At COP 27 in Scotland, the UN introduced a brand new high-tech, satellite-based global methane detection initiative — Methane Alert and Response System (MARS) — which is able to leverage satellite tv for pc information to alert governments, corporations, and operators about large methane sources to allow quicker mitigation. The information from these satellites reveals for the primary time enormous plumes of methane from oil and fuel operations all over the world, many in former Soviet Union nations or in Russia itself, however many in Europe, the US, and China as nicely. Methane has a nasty behavior of escaping into the environment, however since it’s odorless and colorless, its launch typically goes undetected.

Methane Monitoring

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

The report says, “Fossil fuel companies are under public pressure to address the climate crisis and reduce pollution. In response, almost 40% of US gas is now “certified” by third occasion corporations, permitting fossil gasoline producers to say lowered methane emissions from their operations. The issue? The claims are false. Fuel certification threatens local weather targets by selling false information and enabling fuel corporations to develop operations underneath the guise of lowered emissions. The report finds:

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

Advertising and marketing Methane As A “Clean Fuel”

In accordance with Inside Climate News, an increasing number of methane producers wish to establish their merchandise as clear fuels by acquiring “gas certification” from third occasion corporations that monitor wells and different fuel infrastructure for methane emissions. Nonetheless, fuel certification is an unregulated trade and the monitoring techniques that corporations make use of routinely miss the methane they had been designed to detect.

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

Fuel certifications have wide-ranging implications that go far past the bragging rights of particular person fuel producers, ICN says. Methane, the first element of pure fuel, has a decrease local weather affect than coal or oil when burned, however it’s also a potent greenhouse fuel if it leaks or vents into the environment. Challenge Canary and two different corporations — Equitable Origin and FRIENDS — present certifications for practically 40% of all fuel produced in america in line with the report, and utility corporations that use it have begun charging ratepayers a premium for it.

Principle Vs Actuality

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

The June report was based mostly on 81 surveys by Earthworks of 38 totally different oil and fuel manufacturing websites the place fuel certification corporations had deployed steady monitoring gear. Utilizing a sort of thermal digicam often known as optical fuel imaging (OGI), Earthworks detected 23 air pollution occasions. They then filed public document requests with the state of Colorado to see if the identical air pollution occasions had been detected by the fuel certification corporations. Apart from one such occasion, the reply was no, the report stated. Twelve of the 23 emission occasions documented by Earthworks occurred at websites with Challenge Canary displays, but just one was detected by Challenge Canary. The environmental teams additionally famous that Challenge Canary’s displays had been down, or inoperable, 26% of the time over an 11-month interval.

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

Issues Concerning the OCI/Earthworks Report

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

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

Senators Get Concerned

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

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

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

The Takeaway

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

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