Climate impact comparison of electric and gas-powered end-user appliances

Abstract

Natural gas is considered a bridging technology in the energy transition because it produces fewer carbon emissions than coal, for example. However, when leaks exist, methane is released into the atmosphere, leading to a dramatic increase in the carbon footprint of natural gas, as methane is a much stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Therefore, we conducted a detailed study of methane emissions from gas-powered end-use appliances and then compared their climate impacts with those of electricity-powered appliances. We used the Munich Oktoberfest as a case study and then extended the study to 25 major natural gas consuming countries. This showed that electricity has been the more climate-friendly energy source at Oktoberfest since 2005, due to the extensive use of renewable electricity at the festival and the presence of methane emissions, particularly caused by incomplete combustion of natural gas appliances. Further, our global study shows that using electric appliances for cooking and heating would be more climate-friendly not only at Oktoberfest but also in several countries around the world, depending on the energy mix used and the leakage rate of natural gas. With this study, we demonstrate one way in which countries with a high renewable share in power generation, in particular, can reduce a significant amount of carbon emissions in the future.

Quantification of methane emissions in Hamburg using a network of FTIR spectrometers and an inverse modeling approach

“…A comparison between an earlier study in Hamburg by Maazallahi et al (2020) and this study showed that the CH 4 emissions derived via street-level mobile measurements could potentially underestimate total emissions, not capturing fossil gas related CH 4 emissions from end use in homes (e.g. gas stoves, boilers for heating; Lebel et al (2022), Dietrich et al (2022)). Also large area sources like for instance the Alster lake or the Elbe, could contribute to the differences in emission estimates.…”

“…One potential source which is usually not measurable on the street-level, and could thus explain the lower emissions measured by Maazallahi et al (2020), is end use inside homes (cook stoves, heating, etc.) (Lebel et al (2022), Dietrich et al (2022)). Accumulated emissions from end use, while not affecting street-level concentrations, could be observable in total-column measurements and thus contribute to the higher emission estimates of this study.…”

“…A popular method to explore the types of sources is measuring the isotopic composition of plumes. Menoud et al (2020), Lu et al (2021 and Dietrich et al (2022) demonstrate how the isotopic signature may reveal the source type. For CH 4 , the isotope ratios between 13 C and 12 C, and between 1 H and 2 H are particularly meaningful ( 2 H is also denoted with D for Deuterium).…”

Climate Impact Comparison of Electric and Gas‐Powered End‐User Appliances

“…The measurement data and scripts used for the Oktoberfest study is preserved at https://doi. org/10.14459/2022mp1663551, available via CC BY 4.0 license and developed openly at https://github.com/ ankitshekhar99/Oktoberfest2019Study/tree/main (Dietrich et al, 2022). and Xinxu Zhao for helping us with the measurements.…”