NICK POPE
CONTRIBUTOR
The Biden administration is gearing up to finalize a host of emissions rules and regulations in the coming months, E&E News reported Wednesday.
The rules and regulations are all focused on methane, a greenhouse gas that is more potent, but dissipates more quickly, than carbon dioxide, and align with the administration’s commitment to attacking climate change with a “whole-of-government” response. The Biden administration is aiming to finalize the slew of methane regulations in the coming months ahead of the 2024 election, which would make the rules more difficult for a potential Republican administration to scrap should President Joe Biden lose, according to E&E News.
The White House is reviewing an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) final rule that would cut methane emissions from oil and gas production, refining, transport and storage, according to E&E News. The rule could be finalized on Dec. 2, when the U.S. hosts a methane summit with China and the United Arab Emirates at the upcoming United Nations climate conference. (RELATED: ‘Outrageous’: EPA Agents Are Flying Helicopters Over Texas Oil Fields To Crack Down On Methane Emissions From Drilling)
‘America Is Back’: Biden Unveils Sweeping Oil, Gas Regulations That Would Cut Methane Emissions By 41 Million Tons https://t.co/UqyZx7r1im
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) November 2, 2021
The Biden administration and China committed to working together to control methane emissions last week, though the Chinese climate envoy has balked at calls to ditch fossil fuels and the country permitted an average of two new coal plants each week in 2022, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
The EPA is also looking to finalize regulations for power plant and vehicle emissions in the coming months, according to E&E News. A separate EPA methane tax regulation from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden’s signature climate bill, is currently under White House review and due to become finalized early in 2024. The rule will be based on updated and more aggressive reporting standards.
Meanwhile, the administration is working with the European Union and other countries to craft new international standards to give low-methane natural gas privileged access to the European market, according to E&E News. While work on these standards is underway, it is unclear when they will become final.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) is working on a rule for pipelines for methane leak detection and repairs, according to E&E News. The agency had signaled that it would unveil the final rule in July, but it has not come out yet. The American Gas Association slammed the proposal as an example of “overreach” that sets “highly unrealistic” compliance timelines when the agency unveiled it in August.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is also crafting a methane rule focused on leaks from oil and gas production on federal lands, according to E&E News. The final rule was supposed to be unveiled in September, but the White House has not yet reviewed it.
The Treasury Department is also working on tax credit eligibility guidelines for “green hydrogen” projects, according to E&E News. The guidelines for the sizable tax credits, made available for the IRA, will set the threshold for acceptable levels of upstream methane leaks from gas used to produce the hydrogen.
The White House, the EPA, the DOT, the Treasury Department and the BLM did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
Good article that sums up the situation quite well.
Someone needs to give Joe the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, but tell him the Book of Armaments, Chapter Two, sayeth that, after he pulleth the pin, he must count to ten, not two, not three, not four, before he lobbest the Holy Hand Grenade at his foe greenhouse gases.
Regards,
Bob
PS: Thank you, Monty Python.
Monty Python-Holy Hand Grenade – YouTube
Five is right out!
But Dementia Joe would probably blurt out ‘one, six, pineapple’ and toss it.
“Meanwhile, the administration is working with the European Union and other countries to craft new international standards to give low-methane natural gas privileged access to the European market, according to E&E News.”
Why would anyone prefer an inferior fuel?
What in the heck is “low-methane natural gas”? Methane is CH4 and natural gas is CH4. Low methane would be C0H0. How would that work?
Presumably they are thinking of putting some hydrogen in the mix?
Yeah, hydrogen up to 20% is all the rage.
Yes that is what they have been talking about in the UK also but it only reduces emissions from the grid by around 7% so many question whether it is worth it. A scheme to introduce hydrogen to a part of Ellesmere Port on the Wirral was recently cancelled, though 2 other trials are being carried out in the North East.
Natural gas can contain small amounts of several other gases including ethane, CO, nitrogen and various hydrocarbons up to C6 or C7. Composition varies depending on source but suppliers charge by heat content and thus monitor and composition and add gases such as nitrogen to reduce heating value or ethane or H2 to increase heating value to keep it in the desired range. But all NG is primarily methane.
Pizza, no cheese.
Extra cheeseless please.
I heard an energy lawyer I met the other day use the phrase “brown gas” referring to methane. After asking some questions it was still unclear what she meant. Nothing shows up when I google it except things related to natural gas and people with Brown as their name. I am guessing it just means methane from normal methods as opposed to “green” natural gas. They can really confuse matters with all this. But, one thing we can count on, is that anything they approve of, especially if it is “green” is probably more expensive and will hurt the people that can afford it the least. Most dems/greens claim how much they love the little people but all their policies work to hurt them.
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/brown-gas/
It sounds like leftists are pushing to become “certifiers” to determine if some natural gas was produced in a responsible manner. That way, they get a cut.
Maybe she meant farting. Presumably that could be brown gas.
It’s like carbon-free sugar perhaps.
I thought that natural gas is methane and nothing else. What else might be in it- such that there could be a low methane version?
Some European gasfields have 40% CO2 already in the gas. If this gas is what is getting special privileges, it won’t help except in reducing the energy required to purify it….
So it turns out this is the silly naming of natural gas certified to have been produced with low leakage. “Certified Low-Methane Natural Gas” is not a reference at all to what molecules are in the fuel.
https://www.bloomenergy.com/applications/certified-gas/
Their fuel cells must not be generating enough electricity/profit, so they want a parasitic cut also.
Even by the low standards of climatards, regulating methane like this is neither effective nor economically sensible. Methane is a bit player.
In any case, losing too much methane is not good business practice for suppliers. The invisible hand of Adam Smith already discourages them from doing so.
We all know it is simply a deliberate extra burden placed on a hydrocarbon energy source for nakedly political reasons and to maintain EPA employment and influence.
“…a deliberate extra burden…”
Exactly!
“Even by the low standards of climatards, regulating methane like this is neither effective nor economically sensible. Methane is a bit player.”
Yes, methane is not an issue when it comes to human-caused climate change. Methane has an insignificant effect on the Earth’s atmosphere.
Next thing you know, Biden will be outlawing cows.
The climate alarmists are trying to make it an issue because of what you say in your last paragraph.
Biden can create all these regulations, but if the People of the United States are real lucky, a Republican will be in the White House in about a year and will cancel all these stupid, unwarranted climate change initiatives.
Either that, or it’s time for the revolution.
Americans say meth- ane while Brits say me- thane.
Me thinks it sounds funny to say me- thane. 🙂
Not sure how Canadians say it.
Meanwhile, a Tony Heller video: John Kerry : Feeding The World By Shutting Down Farming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdgQVDH0OZs
and another good Tom Nelson video: Latimer Alder: Climate Data for Dummies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYOm0ZEmJ8o&t=637s
Me still thinks we’re losing this battle.
Kerry still has the million dollar haircuts- such a waste on a geezer pushing 80. I greatly dislike vanity in men. Fancy clothes, fancy hair, fancy private jets, fancy EVs.
But he likes rich women.
So you think they probably don’t live in a “tiny house” like the one in this photo, to help save the planet?
Hey! A double staircase! Fancy!
Kerry could learn a thing or two about what plants like and need to survive and thrive.
Considering where he keeps it, I’m pretty sure he has a brown thumb…
Do Brits also say Me-thyl?
My recollection is they are about the same in British vs American English. I could be wrong, but definitely, the British pronunciation of methane is sexier and the American pronunciation is bitchier.
There’s even a video! 🙂
Joseph Zorzin, I had a Canadian Chemistry Professor on my PhD committee.
As far as I can recall most of his pronunciations were of the American (US) type.
The great thing about Organic chemistry in particular is that you can find yourself learning names of compounds (or pharma products) from text only and come up with pronunciations that are not aligned with anybody else at all.
There is usually no right or wrong.
Of course, that didn’t stop Bristol Meyers Squib repeatedly telling Chemists that they ‘required’ Chemists to now refer to a certain anti-cancer drug as “Paclitaxel”, despite Chemists having called it “Taxol” for many previous decades after it was isolated from the Western Pacific Yew tree.
That’s interesting. Hauser Research in Boulder developed the process to extract Taxol from yew trees. They entered into a long-term contract with BMS and got screwed at every turn. I met the founders of Hauser a time or two but knew several people who lost their jobs when BMS pulled the plug on Hauser.
On a happier note, what’s your take on amine? In the South, e.g. Texas, they say ay-mean, at least the plant operators do. My organic chem professors taught be to say ah-mean.
I’ve always gone with A-mean. But I’ve often heard a-min on both sides of the Atlantic.
Back on Taxol, the first complete synthesis in the laboratory was, I think, by Nicolaou.
A masterful piece of work by one of the big brains in Chemistry who can afford a modest-sized army of Post-Docs, it was, of course, largely useless from an economic point of view.
(That’s one of the failures of synthetic chemistry, from someone who earned a living in the field).
The amount of Taxol available from the Yew tree was also too small to be of value. (Like Yew trees grow quickly.)
However, I think that they are able to extract sufficient amounts of a precursor from little baby Yew trees. The tree has already done enough of the hard work to make it viable.
That was my knowledge from ~20 years ago, but I would be pleasantly surprised if much has changed. Once Bristol Meyers Squib are getting their dollars then there is little reason to fund more research.
I’m doing a fair amount of organic chemistry to make novel cannabinoid derivatives. I will eventually need to find a lab to help me go after targets, probably in silico. It’s not really my area of expertise but I somewhat blindly stumbled into some neat chemistry and separation technology.
I’m always interested to hear, though eventually Anthony may decide we’ve gone too far off-topic.
But I returned here again to add that that the Inorganic Chemists are still in love with their ammines.
But who cares about Inorganic Chemists, unless they are a Professor on your PhD committee and don’t mind a beer in the pub?
I’ve also done some experimentation with cannabinoids. 🙂 🙂
A-meen?
That’s right up there with I-ran.
The name is ih-rahn. Correctly spelled Irán. Like Ih-rahk (Iráq).
Maybe the idea started with the name Irene.
I like the story about taxol. I was under the impression chemical term were systematic and not malleable. Now we have lots of pispromunciations.
The text is systematic, the pronunciation is not.
In many cases (most cases, actually) it is simpler to use existing non-systematic names when you can be confident that your audience both understands what you mean and doesn’t care that you are taking the short cut.
Full chemical names are often ugly and unwieldy, even if precise.
A bit like German. I’d better stop now.
Canadians say “meth-ane ay”.
OK, how about Aussies?
What the elites think and believe…
“”Research from the University of Bath’s School of Management found that cognitive skills including memory, verbal fluency, fluid reasoning and numerical reasoning, were correlated with how people decided to vote [in the Brexit referendum]
The research used a nationally representative sample of 6,366 individuals from 3,183 couples collected as part of a large survey called Understanding Society.
They found that, of the people with the lowest cognitive ability, only 40% voted Remain, whereas 73% of those with the highest cognitive ability voted Remain.
“This study adds to existing academic evidence showing that low cognitive ability makes people more susceptible to misinformation and disinformation,” lead author Dr Chris Dawson said.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-voters-stupid-study-voters-b2452491.html
7 years on they’re still trying that old trope.
“existing academic evidence”
Oh, they must have models! And academic evidence!
Yes I agree and it is actually a 50 year trope. It is part of the entire “ I’m an intellectual Ivy League educated and so thoughtful progressive leftist.” And the rest of us are sneakered at as undereducated right wingers clinking to our guns ( in the US where we still have them) and religion and of course our silly denial of CAGW.
‘I’m an intellectual Ivy League educated and so thoughtful progressive leftist.’
Some ideas are so stupid that only an Ivy League Nitwit can believe them.
““This study adds to existing academic evidence showing that low cognitive ability makes people more susceptible to misinformation and disinformation,” lead author Dr Chris Dawson said.”
Well, duh!
Yes, dumb people are easily misled.
But smart people are easily misled, too, as all of us can see from the human-caused climate change example. And you could include voting “Remain” as an example of “smart” people being misled and casting dumb votes. Voting for Joe Biden is another good example.
Lots of people are easily misled. It just depends on the amount of disinformation and misinformation they are exposed to.
But it’s not all bleak. People can wake up from their misconceptions, especially when those misconceptions hit them in the pocket book, and take away their personal freedoms.
There are Signs that people around the Western World are waking up to reality, and are voting the bums (radical leftists) out.
In what way is methane “more potent” than carbon dioxide? Per molecule in a totally dry earth atmosphere it is, but Earth’s atmosphere is not totally dry and cannot be so long as the our oceans, lakes and green plants exist. These oceans, lakes and plants constantly evaporate water creating humid air which rises, forms clouds, leading to rain returning liquid water from whence it came. It is this humid air that is the starting point for calculating the effect of other atmospheric gasses such as methane on Earth’s temperature. Happer and Wjingaarten, both being eminent atmosphere scientists, have recently done so and found that adding more methane to the atmosphere cannot have a detectable effect on Earth’s temperature. Yet the false myth you site lives on.
“which would make the rules more difficult for a potential Republican administration to scrap should President Joe Biden lose,”
Sounds like the next president will have to eliminate several alphabet agencies like the EPA and FDA to make things easier to unravel.
FJB.
We’ll need a lot more Republicans in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate in order to do agency eliminations.
There is a possiblity that we will get enough Republicans elected this time.
Trump looks real strong. Even the minorities are moving his direction. Let’s hope that carries over to the House and Senate. That people are not just voting for a personality, but for a change in direction for the country.
And don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Trump is just a personality, I think he is one of the best leaders we have ever had, and I expect he will turn this country around to the proper direction if he gets elected.
But he will need a lot of help from legislators and the People. As we have witnessed, there is a formidable Washington DC Amoral Swamp that does not want to be reformed or changed, and they will do just about anything, legal or illegal, to maintain their grip on power. Look what they are trying to do to Trump now. If they can get away with their attacks on Trump, then none of us are safe from them.
We are coming to a fork in the road. Which one will the People take?
We’ll need a lot more Republicans in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate in order to do agency eliminations.
Replublicans with some <insert body part> who will actually stand up and do something, not the sniveling cowards we’ve been getting for years. Unfortunately, the party seems to prefer the latter.
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Not true, Pope left out the important equal mass statement.
Here it is from the IPCC’s first assessment report:
IPCC FAR Chapter 2 page 58 (pdf pg18)
The Global Warming Potential (GWP) of the emissions of a greenhouse
gas, as employed in this report, is the time integrated commitment to
climate forcing from the instantaneous release of 1 kg ot a trace gas
expressed relative to that from 1 kg of carbon dioxide…
The GWP number for methane in the AR5 is 86
What that means is given that CH4 is in the atmosphere at ~2 ppm and CO2 is in the air at ~400 ppm, a 100% increase of Methane will trap more heat than a 1% increase in Carbon dioxide. So if CO2 increases from 400 ppm to 402 ppm how much will that increase global temperature? Answer – Not very much. multiply that by 86 and it’s still not very much.
But wait, there’s more. CO2 is 2.75 times heavier than CH4 so an equal increase in the mass of CO2 in the atmosphere would be only an increase from 400 ppm to 400.72 ppm if CH4 doubles.
That’s a relatively convoluted concept for Bachelor of Arts people to wrap their minds around, and why Nick Pope apparently accepts it to actually mean Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 86 times more powerful than Carbon Dioxide.
By the way, and so far, a short [Ctrl F] (Cows Cattle Ruminant) search turns up 0/0 in the Nick Pope article. It’s doubtful that the beef and dairy industry has been forgotten by the Democrats, so it’s a good bet that farmers and ranchers will be targeted in the final barrage of methane regulations.
IPCC playing number games by using the difference in molar mass to exaggerate the “warming” power of CH4 compared to CO2.
Concentrations of gases in the atmosphere are measured by volume, using the fact that most of them behave essentially as ideal gases in normal ranges of temperature and pressure. That’s why we always see CO2 concentrations as “ppmv”.
So if 1 kg of CH4 has the “heat trapping” effect of 86 kg of CO2, then 1 ppmv of CH4 has the “heat trapping” effect of 32 ppmv of CO2 (rounded to an integer). The calculation is a simple one and surely I don’t have to spell it out, molar masses are 16 and 44 respectively.
To use an American slang term “simple arithmetic has eighty-sixed 86 and it’s really only 32”.
Which doesn’t mean that either the 86x or the 32x multiplier applies in a real atmosphere with anywhere up to 40,000 ppmv of H2O.
The noise about methane and nitrogen fertilizers is just a way of ramping up the alarmist rhetoric by roping in a couple of very minor gases. And of course it empowers governments to start forcibly regulating the use of a cheap, abundant and very clean fuel as well as a fertilizer that is essential to feeding the world. The real underlying agenda is apparent.
It seems that nobody ever asks the important question:
Ok, so if it’s given that CH4 is 86 times more powerful
than CO2 and going forward it’s business as usual,
how much will just methane contribute to global warming
by 2100 or in 100 years or if it doubles in concentration?
That or something like it is NEVER asked by the media and climate science NEVER says.
Something that you didn’t make clear is that the multiplier changes with the interval of time. The 80ish numbers thrown around are for a 20-year period. The multiplier is much smaller (~32) for a 100-year interval.
Which raises an interesting point. It is commonly stated (NASA) that methane has a life-time of about a decade. I suspect they really mean “half-life,” but I haven’t found an explicit statement of that. It is only implied by the fact that the GWP decreases with increasing time. Considering that the concerns about warming are for around 2100 CE, one should probably use the 100-year equal-weight GWP, which is about 32 (or preferably the mole-fraction, which is about 12), not a number in the high 80s. However, bigger numbers are scarier than small numbers and that better serves the agenda.
“Something that you didn’t make clear is that the multiplier changes with the interval of time.”
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You mean like since 1990? Here’s how the IPCC reported the GWP number since then:
FAR 1990 GWP 63
SAR 1995 GWP 56
TAR 2001 GWP 62
AR4 2007 GWP 72
AR5 2013 GWP 86
AR6 2021 GWP 82.5
That’s not what you meant, but it’s always interesting to see how the IPCC runs up the numbers over the years.
One thing you have to give them is that they are predictable. 🙂
Ha haHa haHa haHa!
2100 CE? You are forgetting that we are well into the last 12 years of Earth with a biosphere.
I haven’t seen anything in the literature for changes with yearly increments. The most common I have seen are 20 years and 100 years.
Modtran shows reducing CH4 by 10% is only .16 watts/sq.M
You know what? Ordinary everyday people don’t automatically translate
so many watts per square meter into global temperature. Is that equivalent
to 0.16 K, °F, °C or something else? How ’bout 0.05 K? W/m² when the discussion is about global temperature is almost as bad as undefined
acronyms.
Good point, Steve. .16 watts translates to about .03 C.
“The rules and regulations are all focused on methane, a greenhouse gas that is more potent, but” exists in an insignificant amount.
And is increasing annually even more insignificantly!
News Tip:
Net Zero Leads to Increased Weather Extremes
https://phys.org/news/2023-11-carbon-neutrality-extreme-weather-events.amp
At least they have lines in the sand for impossible milestones.
The Devil’s work is never done….watch for N2O rules next…can’t discriminate and ignore dentist’s fav gas. Joke Biden needs his own country…that would be China – deport him now.
This is probably a good time to remind readers of my analysis of the methane claims.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/03/06/the-misguided-crusade-to-reduce-anthropogenic-methane-emissions/
Methane is an irrelevant greenhouse gas, but that won’t stop them from (trying) to regulate it.
But but the V.P. uses a gas stove https://www.infowars.com/posts/kamala-harris-sparks-backlash-with-thanksgiving-gas-stove-photo/
I’m afraid the current VP and former VP are not on the same page.
They, the USA government, are going to put people in jail over this. In DC. After the first few go to jail, the rest of the natural gas producers will shut their businesses down. That is the goal of this.
The Jan. 6 proceedings were all about bringing down the weight of law on the heads to individuals accused of acting against the constitution of the US and threatening the viability of the nation through insurrection. What did they actually do – trespass and damage some furnishings. And yet, the Biden administration is bragging about, and being lauded by the progressive socialist left for undertaking a nation-wide program of economic and social sabotage which, on many occasions, has been found by the Supreme Court to be contrary to that same constitution they claim was violated by a public protest about perceived election fraud. Hypocrisy is the new virtue and the new job description of government is treason against he American people.
The Mouse That Roared.