This Nature Energy article presents a method for robust estimation of the life cycle land use of electricity generated from natural gas
October 20, 2017
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This article in Nature Energy presents research funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (Strategic Priorities and Impact Analysis Team) under a contract with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Co-funding was provided by the Electric Power Research Institute.
Understanding the life cycle surface land requirements of natural gas-fired electricity
Sarah M. Jordaan1,2*, Garvin A. Heath3,4, Jordan Macknick3,4, Brian W. Bush3,4, Ehsan Mohammadi2, Dan Ben-Horin3,4, Victoria Urrea3,4, and Danielle Marceau2
The surface land use of fossil fuel acquisition and utilization has not been well characterized, inhibiting consistent comparisons of different electricity generation technologies. Here we present a method for robust estimation of the life cycle land use of electricity generated from natural gas through a case study that includes inventories of infrastructure, satellite imagery and well-level production. Approximately 500 sites in the Barnett Shale of Texas were sampled across five life cycle stages (production, gathering, processing, transmission and power generation). Total land use (0.62 m2 MWh−1, 95% confidence intervals ± 0.01 m2 MWh−1) was dominated by midstream infrastructure, particularly pipelines (74%). Our results were sensitive to power plant heat rate (85–190% of the base case), facility lifetime (89–169%), number of wells per site (16–100%), well lifetime (92–154%) and pipeline right of way (58–142%). When replicated for other gas-producing regions and different fuels, our approach offers a route to enable empirically grounded comparisons of the land footprint of energy choices.
1 School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 1619 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036, USA. 2 University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive N.W., Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada. 3 Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis, Golden, CO 80401, USA. 4 Strategic Energy Analysis Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA. Danielle Marceau is deceased. *e-mail: sarahjordaan@jhu.edu