Understanding the life cycle surface land requirements of natural gas-fired electricity

Jordaan, Sarah M.; Heath, Garvin A.; Macknick, Jordan; Bush, Brian W.; Mohammadi, Ehsan; Ben-Horin, Dan; Urrea, Victoria; Marceau, Danielle

doi:10.1038/s41560-017-0004-0

Understanding the life cycle surface land requirements of natural gas-fired electricity

Journal Article · Mon Oct 02 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Nature Energy

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-017-0004-0· OSTI ID:1398873

^[1]; Heath, Garvin A. ^[2]; Macknick, Jordan ^[2]; ^[2]; ^[3]; Ben-Horin, Dan ^[2]; Urrea, Victoria ^[2]; Marceau, Danielle ^[3]

Johns Hopkins Univ., Washington, DC (United States). School of Advanced International Studies; Univ. of Calgary, AB (Canada)
Joint Inst. for Strategic Energy Analysis, Golden, CO (United States); National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States). Strategic Energy Analysis Center
Univ. of Calgary, AB (Canada)

The surface land use of fossil fuel acquisition and utilization has not been well characterized, inhibiting consistent comparisons of different electricity generation technologies. 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%). These 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.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis

Grant/Contract Number:: AC36-08GO28308

OSTI ID:: 1398873

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA--6A20-66274

Journal Information:: Nature Energy, Journal Name: Nature Energy Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 2; ISSN 2058-7546

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Comparison of Recent Oil and Gas, Wind Energy, and Other Anthropogenic Landscape Alteration Factors in Texas Through 2014 Pierre, Jon Paul; Wolaver, Brad D.; Labay, Benjamin J. Environmental Management, Vol. 61, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-018-1000-2	journal	March 2018
Environmental life cycle assessment of Mediterranean tomato: case study of a Tunisian soilless geothermal multi-tunnel greenhouse Maaoui, Mariem; Boukchina, Rachid; Hajjaji, Noureddine Environment, Development and Sustainability https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-00618-z	journal	January 2020
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