Aspects of Australia’s fugitive and overseas emissions from fossil fuel exports

© 2018 Dr. Dimitri LafleurAustralia is a large global energy supplier. It is the world's largest coal exporter and the second largest Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) exporter, leveraging the technological improvements to extract unconventional gas. A lack of understanding fossil fuel extraction emissions and the absence of regulation to effectively monitor these emissions impacts the accuracy of the emission inventory of the extracting country. It is also sometimes suggested that net fossil fuel exporters induce higher overseas greenhouse gas emissions by their production and export activities. In Australia these cross-boundary effects of both the induced domestic emissions due to new gas exports and the potential contributions to overseas emissions from burned fossil fuels are clearly important to inform any policy discussions. Firstly, Australia allows for the extraction of coal and gas that is exported and subsequently burned by importing nations, causing emissions in those nations. Australia's historical and current emissions from fossil fuel production are unknown. Also, there is no database available that allows allocation of current world emissions and historical emissions by fossil fuel producing country, as so far historical estimates have either looked at territorial or consumption based emissions. This despite the fact that discussions on historical responsibility for climate change gain new traction with every major climate-related disaster and the question of who might pay one day. Secondly, there is a need to better understand the fugitive emissions from unconventional natural gas extraction. Over one third of Australian gas production comes from coal seam gas extraction and the vast majority is exported, but estimates of the fugitive emissions from unconventional gas infrastructure are predominantly relying on possibly outdated emission factors. This is despite the empirical evidence from the United States that fugitive emissions from unconventional gas are much higher in various sedimentary basins. Furthermore, the reported fugitive emissions from gas production in the Australian emission inventory are much lower than those of other gas producing nations. There is little data on the fugitive emissions from Australian unconventional gas developments. The lack of emission data fuels the possibility that emissions are larger than anticipated given the amount of infrastructure, the atypical extraction process of coal seam gas and the local geology. Data on, and understanding the scale of, migratory emissions is lacking completely. Migratory emissions refer to methane emissions that leak through faults and stratigraphy from a subsurface source into the atmosphere. While natural gas is considered a solution for a move away from higher emission coal, underreporting of these emissions would make gas look like a lower emission fossil fuel than it really is. This could affect the optimal domestic emission reductions strategies elsewhere. Thus, this thesis investigates the scientific foundation of these effects and provides a quantitative basis for discussion. This thesis' focus is to contribute to the quantification of fugitive and overseas emissions. The thesis thereby hopes to make a contribution to the national and international debate of Australia's challenges and opportunities. In the first part, I introduce an extraction-based emissions accounting approach that complements the classical territorial accounting approach applied under the Kyoto Protocol or UNFCCC. This thesis finds that Australia's historical extraction-based emissions are 94% higher compared to its territorial emissions. At present it is the world's sixth largest emitter if the overseas emissions of burning Australia's fossil fuel exports are taken into account. Fossil fuel exporters have substantially higher emissions under this accounting approach compared to their territorial emissions: Russia (+44%), Saudi Arabia (+408%), Iran (+127%), Venezuela (+288%) and Norway (+456%) contribute a much larger portion of historical global emissions. Some suggest that such an extraction-based methodology can inform the multi-faceted discourse about future support for mitigation, adaptation, and loss & damage measures under the Paris Agreement. The quantification of the extraction based emissions could contribute to that debate. As this analysis is global, it is also shown that various African countries have an extraction-based emission footprint that is five to more than ten times as high as their territorial emission footprint. In the second part, this thesis aims to inform another aspect affecting net fossil fuel exporters in the times of the Paris Agreement and a global quest to pursue lower or zero emission alternatives. If gas is increasingly used as transition fuel to provide a bridge from higher emission coal towards a renewable future, then the implication for net fossil fuel exporters are potentially high with increased domestic emissions related to the production and transport of unconventional natural gas. This aspect is considered in this thesis with Australia as a case study. There is a need for a better fugitive emission quantification from coal seam gas extraction. The poor quantification is compounded by the absence of any baseline measurements prior to establishing the unconventional gas industry. Equipment that can provide data at sufficient resolution is readily deployable and there are methods to determine whether methane is coming from fossil fuel extraction or not. The coal seam gas extraction process introduces the possibility that methane finds migratory pathways, other than the coal seam gas wells, to seep upwards and being emitted into the atmosphere. This thesis shows that methane is migrating through the soil at locations where faults are present and is emitted into the atmosphere. Away from these faults, the soil takes up methane and under lab conditions all soil samples take up methane. The world is gearing up for a net zero emissions future. Australia is set for a fundamental shift in the economy, since Australia has the highest domestic greenhouse gas emissions per capita of the developed world. Its much larger share of historical global emissions based on extracted fossil fuel and the additional emissions from the emerging unconventional gas exports could pose further challenges for Australia in the transition from a golden fossil fuel era towards a potential golden renewable era