IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natene/v2y2017i10d10.1038_s41560-017-0004-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Sarah M. Jordaan

    (Johns Hopkins University
    University of Calgary)

  • Garvin A. Heath

    (Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis
    Strategic Energy Analysis Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

  • Jordan Macknick

    (Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis
    Strategic Energy Analysis Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

  • Brian W. Bush

    (Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis
    Strategic Energy Analysis Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

  • Ehsan Mohammadi

    (University of Calgary)

  • Dan Ben-Horin

    (Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis
    Strategic Energy Analysis Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

  • Victoria Urrea

    (Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis
    Strategic Energy Analysis Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

  • Danielle Marceau

    (University of Calgary)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah M. Jordaan & Garvin A. Heath & Jordan Macknick & Brian W. Bush & Ehsan Mohammadi & Dan Ben-Horin & Victoria Urrea & Danielle Marceau, 2017. "Understanding the life cycle surface land requirements of natural gas-fired electricity," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 2(10), pages 804-812, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natene:v:2:y:2017:i:10:d:10.1038_s41560-017-0004-0
    DOI: 10.1038/s41560-017-0004-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-017-0004-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41560-017-0004-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bryan K. Mignone & Leon Clarke & James A. Edmonds & Angelo Gurgel & Howard J. Herzog & Jeremiah X. Johnson & Dharik S. Mallapragada & Haewon McJeon & Jennifer Morris & Patrick R. O’Rourke & Sergey Pal, 2024. "Drivers and implications of alternative routes to fuels decarbonization in net-zero energy systems," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-14, December.
    2. Sarah M. Jordaan & Junghun Lee & Maureen R. McClung & Matthew D. Moran, 2021. "Quantifying the ecosystem services values of electricity generation in the US Chihuahuan Desert: A life cycle perspective," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(4), pages 1089-1101, August.
    3. Kan, Siyi & Chen, Bin & Meng, Jing & Chen, Guoqian, 2020. "An extended overview of natural gas use embodied in world economy and supply chains: Policy implications from a time series analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    4. Dylan Harrison-Atlas & Galen Maclaurin & Eric Lantz, 2021. "Spatially-Explicit Prediction of Capacity Density Advances Geographic Characterization of Wind Power Technical Potential," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-28, June.
    5. Palmer-Wilson, Kevin & Donald, James & Robertson, Bryson & Lyseng, Benjamin & Keller, Victor & Fowler, McKenzie & Wade, Cameron & Scholtysik, Sven & Wild, Peter & Rowe, Andrew, 2019. "Impact of land requirements on electricity system decarbonisation pathways," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 193-205.
    6. Tavakkoli, Sakineh & Macknick, Jordan & Heath, Garvin A. & Jordaan, Sarah M., 2021. "Spatiotemporal energy infrastructure datasets for the United States: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    7. Mariem Maaoui & Rachid Boukchina & Noureddine Hajjaji, 2021. "Environmental life cycle assessment of Mediterranean tomato: case study of a Tunisian soilless geothermal multi-tunnel greenhouse," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 1242-1263, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natene:v:2:y:2017:i:10:d:10.1038_s41560-017-0004-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.