TY - JOUR
T1 - Reducing methane emissions from abandoned oil and gas wells
T2 - Strategies and costs
AU - Kang, Mary
AU - Mauzerall, Denise Leonore
AU - Ma, Daniel Z.
AU - Celia, Michael Anthony
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI) at Princeton University for the Science Technology and Environmental Policy fellowship awarded to Mary Kang, the Energy and Climate Grand Challenges award to Michael Celia, and the PEI summer internship program funding for Daniel Ma, and the McGill Sustainability Systems Initiative and McGill University for grants to Mary Kang. The authors also thank Save Our Streams PA and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection for helpful discussions, comments, and data. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Grant NA140AR4310131 provided support for this research.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2019/9
Y1 - 2019/9
N2 - Well plugging, the main strategy for reducing methane emissions from millions of unplugged abandoned oil and gas (AOG) wells in the U.S. and abroad, is expensive and many wells remain unplugged. In addition, plugging does not necessarily reduce methane emissions and some categories of plugged wells are high emitters. We analyze strategies and costs of five options for reducing methane emissions from high-emitting AOG wells - those which are unplugged and plugged/vented gas wells. The five options are: plugging without gas venting, plugging with gas venting and flaring, plugging with gas venting and usage, gas flaring only, and gas capture/usage only. Average plugging costs ($37,000 per well) can be justified by the social cost of methane, which considers air quality, climate, and human/ecosystem impacts. Savings as measured by natural gas prices and alternative energy credits can offset low plugging costs (<$15,400 per well) but are not large enough to offset average plugging costs. Nonetheless, reducing methane emissions from AOG wells is a cost-effective strategy for addressing climate change that has comparable costs to some current greenhouse gas mitigation options and can produce co-benefits such as groundwater protection. Therefore, we recommend including the mitigation of AOG wells in climate and energy policies in the U.S., Canada, and other oil-and-gas-producing regions.
AB - Well plugging, the main strategy for reducing methane emissions from millions of unplugged abandoned oil and gas (AOG) wells in the U.S. and abroad, is expensive and many wells remain unplugged. In addition, plugging does not necessarily reduce methane emissions and some categories of plugged wells are high emitters. We analyze strategies and costs of five options for reducing methane emissions from high-emitting AOG wells - those which are unplugged and plugged/vented gas wells. The five options are: plugging without gas venting, plugging with gas venting and flaring, plugging with gas venting and usage, gas flaring only, and gas capture/usage only. Average plugging costs ($37,000 per well) can be justified by the social cost of methane, which considers air quality, climate, and human/ecosystem impacts. Savings as measured by natural gas prices and alternative energy credits can offset low plugging costs (<$15,400 per well) but are not large enough to offset average plugging costs. Nonetheless, reducing methane emissions from AOG wells is a cost-effective strategy for addressing climate change that has comparable costs to some current greenhouse gas mitigation options and can produce co-benefits such as groundwater protection. Therefore, we recommend including the mitigation of AOG wells in climate and energy policies in the U.S., Canada, and other oil-and-gas-producing regions.
KW - Abandoned wells
KW - Costs
KW - Greenhouse gas emissions
KW - Mitigation
KW - Oil and gas
KW - methane emissions
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U2 - 10.1016/j.enpol.2019.05.045
DO - 10.1016/j.enpol.2019.05.045
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85067046597
SN - 0301-4215
VL - 132
SP - 594
EP - 601
JO - Energy Policy
JF - Energy Policy
ER -