Environmental Circumstances in Natural Gas Production

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Natural gas has greater energy density and lower impact to the atmosphere compared to legacy fossil fuels like coal or liquid petroleum. The adoption of natural gas has helped to displace them as its cost has dropped due to the shale gas revolution that began in the Barnett Shale deposits near Ft. Worth, TX. Regarding its place in the energy system, natural gas appears to be a stepping-stone to ideal systems with even less impact. Environmental impacts occur in the extraction of the raw product, the processing required before it can be delivered to pipeline operators, and the emissions from its end-use.

Natural gas is extracted by hydraulically fracturing certain rock formations underground, which releases the gas and allows it to migrate to the low-pressure area at the wellhead, where it’s captured. For a variety of reasons including safety and mixture consistency, it’s sometimes necessary to combust the natural gas and turn it into CO2, a process known as flaring. This contributes to climate change, but adaptations are being made to reduce volumes and capture all the products of natural gas extraction.

First, securing offtake agreements with buyers is critical to ensuring extracted gas can proceed to market. Vapor recovery units are used to capture gas released from the mixture, which is under lower pressure conditions in the storage tanks. Natural gas can also be used for on-site power generation, instead of diesel, creating an off-ramp for excess or stranded gas, further minimizing flaring. Natural gas can be processed and piped to local users, or in certain cases, converted to LNG. Vertical integration can also reduce environmental harm by ensuring a uniform standard across a greater part of the product journey. Lastly, should an operator need to flare, they can optimize the system to achieve complete combustion.

As a steppingstone to net-zero, natural gas plays a critical role as a firm source of utility power generation and space heating. Ensuring the continual improvement of the environmental impact of its lifecycle is essential to protecting the environment as society awaits successful pairing of renewables and firming technology.