Life cycle environmental impacts of UK shale gas

Stamford, Laurence; Azapagic, Adisa

doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.08.063

Cited by 118 publications

(133 citation statements)

References 14 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

128

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…412-1102 g CO 2 -eq./kWh in our original paper). These values also sit well within the range reported in the literature (416-2878 g CO 2 -eq./kWh), as discussed in our paper [1] (see pages 507-508).…”

Section: On Eursupporting

confidence: 78%

“…In 2014, we published in Applied Energy the results of our research which estimated, for the first time, the full life cycle environmental impacts of shale gas extraction and use in the context of a potential future UK shale gas industry [1]. In response, Westaway et al [2] have argued that our paper exaggerates the environmental impacts of shale gas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Response to the Comment by Westaway et al. ( Applied Energy 148 (2015) 489–495) on the paper “Life cycle environmental impacts of UK shale gas” by Stamford and Azapagic ( Applied Energy 134 (2014) 506–518)

Stamford

Azapagic

2015

Applied Energy

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Highlights The claim that we exaggerated the impacts of shale gas in the UK is unsupported  Our assumptions and results are well in line with the literature  The Comment exaggerates the legal situation with respect to shale gas AbstractIn the recent Comment on our paper 'Life cycle environmental impacts of UK shale gas' (Applied Energy 134 (2014) March 2015) allege that we exaggerated the potential impacts of shale gas extraction in the UK. They first take an issue with our inclusion of worst case scenarios despite our clear declaration in several places in the paper that this is indicative of what could happen within the confines of a very ill-defined and highly variable future reality. Secondly, Westaway et al. claim that key assumptions in the modelling reflect illegal practices that would not occur, when in fact this is an exaggeration of the legal situation and these practices are still viable. This rebuttal addresses some of the claims made by Westaway et al. while welcoming further open and impartial discourse in this area.

show abstract

Section: On Eursupporting

confidence: 78%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Response to the Comment by Westaway et al. ( Applied Energy 148 (2015) 489–495) on the paper “Life cycle environmental impacts of UK shale gas” by Stamford and Azapagic ( Applied Energy 134 (2014) 506–518)

Stamford

Azapagic

2015

Applied Energy

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, such technologies are still at infancy. Further, methane losses during the development of shale gas could contribute to increase climate concerns (Stamford and Azapagic, 2014). These losses are dependent on the local conditions such as the depth of exploration, permeability and wellbore integrity.…”

Section: Environmental Impact Regulations and Community Acceptancementioning

confidence: 99%

Economic impact analysis of natural gas development and the policy implications

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the US, the shale gas revolution ensured that the development costs of unconventional natural gas plummeted to the levels of $2-$3/Mcf. This success has motivated the development of shale gas in other regions, including Australia and Europe. This study, focussing primarily on aspects of economic impact analysis, estimates the development costs of shale gas extraction in both Australia and Europe, based on both direct and fiscal costs, and also suggests policy initiatives.The increasing liquefied natural gas (LNG) developments in Australia are already straining domestic gas supplies. Hence, the development of more natural gas resources has been given a high priority. However, a majority of the Australian shale resources is non-marine in origin and significantly different to the marine-type shales in the US. In addition, the challenges of high development costs and the lack of infrastructure, service capacity and effective government policy are inhibiting shale gas development. Increasing the attractiveness of low risk investment by new, local, developers is critical for Australian shale gas success, which will simultaneously increase domestic gas security. In the European context, unconventional 2 gas development will be challenged by direct, rather than fiscal costs. High direct costs will translate into average overall gas development costs over $13/Mcf, which is well over the existing market price.Keywords: Unconventional gas, Development costs, Shale gas, LNG IntroductionThe global energy sector is confronted with soaring energy needs of a growing population, improving standards of living and expanding economies of the world. Global energy consumption is projected to rise by 41% over the next two decades, while fossil fuels will still remain as the dominant form of energy, supplying around 80% of world energy consumption in 2040 (BP, 2014). Under this prolonged dependence on fossil fuels in conjunction with intensifying global concerns of increasing carbon emissions and climate warming, natural gas is becoming an important resource in catering to global energy needs.The International Energy Agency (IEA) (2014) asserts that world's remaining recoverable gas resources are sufficient for over 230 years at the current production rates. Moreover, natural gas is the fuel of choice for power generation as gas-fired power plants have the lower capital costs with less than half of the CO2 emissions of coal-fired power plants (Dormer, 2013; EIA, 2014a;Tay, 2014).In addition, the emergence of unconventional oil and gas has added a whole new dimension to the fossil fuel industry. The term "unconventional" refers to the requirement of some form of reservoir stimulation, which makes the recovery process more complex. The stimulation process is referred to as hydraulic fracturing, which leads to an increase in the permeability of the underground geological formations, such as shale, that are holding the oil and gas, easing the hydrocarbons out of entrapment and towards the well bore and, subsequently, the wellhea...

show abstract

“…The study of Korre et al (2012) did not consider environmental impacts other than the global warming potential nor a sensitivity analysis on key modelling assumptions of the LNG life cycle as the main focus of their paper was on alternative CCS technologies in fossil fuel power generation. Furthermore, Stamford et al (Stamford and Azapagic 2014) presented the first and only study so far covering impact categories other than the GWP for the LNG supply. They analysed the LNG import to the UK from Qatar and Algeria; however, as the study does not state the modelling principles, technologies analysed nor the system boundaries used, its significance is somewhat difficult to analyse.…”

Section: Environmental Impacts Of Using Lngmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A number of scientific studies have analysed the carbon footprint of LNG production and use in specific geographical contexts and against alternative energy supplies, including for example coal (Jaramillo et al 2007), compressed natural gas (López et al 2009) or also heavy fuel (Arteconi et al 2010) and shale gas (Stamford and Azapagic 2014).…”

Section: Environmental Impacts Of Using Lngmentioning

confidence: 99%

Liquefied natural gas for the UK: a life cycle assessment

Tagliaferri

Clift

Lettieri

et al. 2017

Int J Life Cycle Assess

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is expected to become an important component of the UK's energy supply because the national hydrocarbon reserves on the continental shelf have started diminishing. However, use of any carbon-based fuel runs counter to mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Hence, a broad environmental assessment to analyse the import of LNG to the UK is required. Methods A cradle to gate life cycle assessment has been carried out of a specific but representative case: LNG imported to the UK from Qatar. The analysis covers the supply chain, from gas extraction through to distribution to the end-user, assuming state-of-the-art facilities and ships. A sensitivity analysis was also conducted on key parameters including the energy requirements of the liquefaction and vaporisation processes, fuel for propulsion, shipping distance, tanker volume and composition of raw gas. Results and discussion All environmental indicators of the CML methodology were analysed. The processes of liquefaction, LNG transport and evaporation determine more than 50% of the cradle to gate global warming potential (GWP). When 1% of the total gas delivered is vented as methane emissions leakage throughout the supply chain, the GWP increases by 15% compared to the GWP of the base scenario. The variation of the GWP increases to 78% compared to the base scenario when 5% of the delivered gas is considered to be lost as vented emissions. For all the scenarios analysed, more than 75% of the total acidification potential (AP) is due to the sweetening of the natural gas before liquefaction. Direct emissions from transport always determine between 25 and 49% of the total eutrophication potential (EP) whereas the operation and maintenance of the sending ports strongly influences the fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity potential (FAETP). Conclusions The study highlights long-distance transport of LNG and natural gas processing, including sweetening, liquefaction and vaporisation, as the key operations that strongly affect the life cycle impacts. Those cannot be considered negligible when the environmental burdens of the LNG supply chain are considered. Furthermore, the effect of possible fugitive methane emissions along the supply chain are critical for the impact of operations such as extraction, liquefaction, storage before transport, transport itself and evaporation.

show abstract

Life cycle environmental impacts of UK shale gas

Cited by 118 publications

References 14 publications

Response to the Comment by Westaway et al. ( Applied Energy 148 (2015) 489–495) on the paper “Life cycle environmental impacts of UK shale gas” by Stamford and Azapagic ( Applied Energy 134 (2014) 506–518)

Response to the Comment by Westaway et al. ( Applied Energy 148 (2015) 489–495) on the paper “Life cycle environmental impacts of UK shale gas” by Stamford and Azapagic ( Applied Energy 134 (2014) 506–518)

Economic impact analysis of natural gas development and the policy implications

Liquefied natural gas for the UK: a life cycle assessment

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About