Gas leaks boost R.I. greenhouse gas output 45%

PROVIDENCE — A study to be released Thursday estimates that planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions in Rhode Island were 45% higher than the number used in a key state plan to address climate change.

The new estimate of 15.7 million metric tons for the 2017 calendar year is in large part due to a new way of calculating natural gas leaks.

Despite the higher number, Brown University’s Climate and Development Lab and the Stockholm Environment Institute conclude in their 66-page study that Rhode Island could drastically reduce its emissions within just one to two decades — at a quicker pace than the state is currently targeting.

Doing so, the study’s authors say, would cost as much as $1.6 billion a year under the most conservative plan that they came up with and range as high as $4 billion under their most aggressive option. But they point out that their assessment does not take into account the costs of not taking action in terms of the environmental impacts caused by climate change.

The researchers will present their findings to the state’s Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council at a public meeting Thursday.

Timmons Roberts, co-lead of the study and professor at the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, said the state’s three-year-old plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions had to be reworked because scientists’ understanding of the impacts of climate change have advanced so much since it was written.

“Climate change is happening faster than expected,” Roberts said in an interview. “Whether we win or lose the fight will be determined in the next 20 years.”

Janet Coit, chair of the state climate change council, said the study highlights the need to move forward on emissions reductions — work, she said, that is taking place under Gov. Gina Raimondo. 

"The information in this report adds to our knowledge base and reinforces that we have much hard work ahead," Coit, who is also director of the Department of Environmental Management, said in an email. "Partnership and innovation are essential as we tackle the challenges associated with reducing all sources of greenhouse gases, including methane."

The study took the state’s 2016 Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Plan as a starting point. It updated the numbers using a computer model that incorporated new science on leaks throughout the pipe networks that bring in natural gas from well fields and distribute it for heating and electric generation. The major component of natural gas is methane, a greenhouse gas that is far more potent than carbon dioxide.

The 2016 plan used a leakage rate of 0.66% of all natural gas supplied to Rhode Island. The new study used a rate of 2.7%, basing it off a number in a 2015 study for Boston, which, like Providence, has a large percentage of old pipes made of outdated materials. That change accounted for much of the increase in annual emissions from 10.8 million metric tons in the 2016 plan to 15.7 million metric tons in the new study.

Roberts said he undertook the study after talking with staff in Raimondo’s office who indicated an interest in deeper emissions-reduction goals than those in the 2016 plan — if they could be demonstrated to be feasible. The plan used targets written into the Resilient Rhode Island Act, a nonbinding policy passed by the General Assembly in 2014 that aims to reduce state emissions 80% from a 1990 baseline by 2050.

The act was based on science from 1999 and earlier, according to the study. Climate science has advanced rapidly since then. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in a report a year ago that the world has only until 2030 to significantly cut greenhouse gas emissions and stop catastrophic impacts of climate change that include drought, floods and extreme heat

The new study for Rhode Island charts three possible courses for the state to slash its carbon emissions by 70%-80%, setting potential target dates of 2030, 2040 and 2050 to achieve the goal. The key steps in all three plans are a transition away from fossil fuels and aggressive investments in cleaner technology such as heat pumps for heating and cooling, electric vehicles for transportation and offshore wind farms for electricity.

The economic impacts of decarbonization would be tempered because Rhode Island imports all of the gas, oil and coal that it uses, at an annual cost of more than $3 billion, according to the study. A new energy system built on local renewable sources would keep some of that money in state. Another benefit, they say, would come in the health sector, with lower risks for asthma and other conditions exacerbated by air pollution associated with burning fossil fuels.

By some measures, Rhode Island is making progress in moving away from fossil fuels. Raimondo targeted an increase to 1,000 megawatts by 2020 in the amount of renewable energy used by the state. That number now stands at 393 megawatts and the state has a contract with offshore wind developer Orsted for another 400 megawatts.

But the study, particularly with regard to the new calculations on natural gas leaks, argues that the state needs to do more.

“It showed that the state needs to quickly rethink its energy strategy,” Jason Veysey, lead author of the study and senior scientist with the Stockholm Environment Institute, said in a statement. “The good news is that the modeling also showed that with the right programs and policies, the state can be a leader and quickly make a transition off of fossil fuels.”

— akuffner@providencejournal.com / (401) 277-7457