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

Sarah M. Jordaan (), Garvin A. Heath, Jordan Macknick, Brian W. Bush, Ehsan Mohammadi, Dan Ben-Horin, Victoria Urrea and Danielle Marceau
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Sarah M. Jordaan: Johns Hopkins University
Garvin A. Heath: Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis
Jordan Macknick: Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis
Brian W. Bush: Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis
Ehsan Mohammadi: University of Calgary
Dan Ben-Horin: Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis
Victoria Urrea: Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis
Danielle Marceau: University of Calgary

Nature Energy, 2017, vol. 2, issue 10, 804-812

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

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1038/s41560-017-0004-0

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