Interstate Gas Pipelines and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Bridging the Gap in FERC Certificate Proceedings

Abstract

Every discussion regarding new interstate natural gas pipeline development now stumbles over the question of whether to attribute carbon dioxide emission levels from activities at either end of a pipeline (i.e., the production or burning of natural gas) to the existence of the pipeline connection between those two functions. From the 1920s until the late 1990s or early 2000s, the question of whether to build new facilities either to provide natural gas to previously unserved markets or to increase supply capacity to existing locations, focused on either the sufficiency of supply (in the 1960s and early 1970s) or demand (related to price) through almost 2010. The benefits of natural gas, primarily for heating, cooking, electric production, or other manufacturing purposes, were almost presumed. As the public increasingly perceived climate change triggered by human CO2 emissions as a problem, natural gas was viewed approvingly as a “bridge fuel” from coal, oil, and other fossil fuels to noncombustion renewable technologies because the CO2 emissions associated with the use of natural gas were almost half of those from other fossil fuel sources.