Industry Partnerships & Their Role In Reducing Natural Gas Supply Chain Greenhouse Gas Emissions – Phase 2

Blue hydrogen must be done properly

“…The NCS methane data are taken from Table 1 while the Appalachian gas methane intensity data are based on. 18 In general, the GHG intensity of supplied hydrogen for the two "European" cases (Hydrogen Case 1 and 2), range from 0.6 to 1.3 kg CO 2 e/kg H 2 , representing an 82% to 91% reduction in the GHG footprint of supplied energy in comparison to direct supply and end use of natural gas. When using the higher upstream and midstream emission data in Case 1 with 20-year GWP and higher upstream grid intensity, the resulting hydrogen GHG footprint increases slightly, but with the higher natural gas reference level, the percent reduction with hydrogen production and supply is still 79%-83% compared to direct natural gas use.…”

“…The total intensity of natural gas supply to a gas reformer in Appalachia is thus assumed to be 6.7 g CO 2 e/ MJ, which is applied in the later GHG analysis for blue hydrogen. In the modeling approach in [18], 61% of gas leaving a gathering and boosting stations goes through a processing plant and travels 600 miles through 10 transmission stations. Locating a reformer facility within the Appalachian region would limit natural gas transmission needs, and greatly reduce the GHG intensity of the supply gas.…”

“…Grid electricity use is less important than above since larger equipment such as gas compressors is mostly driven by turbines or engines. Summarizing the above upstream data, and extracting relevant data from [18], the estimated GHG intensity of all the stages of gas production, processing, and transmission are as shown in Table 2 (the distribution segment is not relevant since gas supply to a reformer will be from the transmission system). The difference in heating value basis does not influence the results significantly since the HHV is only around 10% higher than LHV for natural gas.…”

“…For the EU gas chain, GIE and MARCOGAS 31 compiled 2016 data from the European Environmental Agency that indicated that 59% of the total methane emissions from natural gas operations (production, processing, transmission/storage, and distribution) were from the distribution segment. In the United States, the downstream (gas distribution) segment seems to represent a smaller share of the total methane emissions, with an average contribution of 0.15% for the Appalachia natural gas supply chain, based on ONE Future data in [18]. This represents less than 30% of the total supply chain methane emissions.…”

“…17 For the further stages of gas processing and transmission, including compression, storage, and pipeline transport, updated GHG emission data from individual facilities and pipeline segments would have to be compiled for an accurate analysis. Such detailed data are not available, and the best current source is data from NETL 18 for GHG emissions including midstream and transmission segments based on NETL's detailed natural gas life cycle model and US EPA data for 2017. Grid electricity use is less important than above since larger equipment such as gas compressors is mostly driven by turbines or engines.…”