Life Cycle Analysis of Natural Gas Extraction and Power Generation

This report is an update to the NETL 2014 life cycle analysis report of environmental profile for natural gas production and delivery in the United States. This report expands the scope of the environmental profile to include a broad range of impacts and updates the greenhouse gas (GHG) profile to reflect year 2012 production statistics and emission factors based on the current state of science as in 2015. The national methane emission rate is 1.6 percent and ranges between 1.2 and 2.2 percent. This national emission rate is a production weighted composite of 31 different combinations of extraction technologies and regions. The report also evaluates the life cycle environmental profile for producing electricity from natural gas. On 100- and 20-year time frames, the life cycle GHG emissions for baseload electricity from the existing fleet of natural gas fired power plants are 514 and 613 kg CO2e/MWh, respectively.