http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/06/28/high-level-epa-adviser-accused-scientific-fraud-methane-leak-research
High-Level EPA Adviser Accused of Scientific Fraud in Methane Leak Research
By Sharon Kelly • Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - 11:02
It's one of the highest-stakes debates in the battle over climate change
policy action: how much methane is spewing from oil and gas sites
nationwide, and what do we do as a result? If enough of the odorless,
colorless methane gas leaks or is vented into the air, scientists say,
then burning natural gas — marketed as a green fuel that can help wean
the U.S. off of high-carbon fuels — will actually be worse for the
climate than coal, long seen as the fuel that contributes the most to
global warming.
Recently, over 100 community and environmental groups sent a letter
urging the Environmental Protection Agency's internal watchdog to
investigate claims that a top methane researcher had committed
scientific fraud and charging that he had made false and misleading
statements to the press in response to those claims.
Earlier this month, NC WARN, an environmental group, presented the EPA
Inspector General with evidence it said showed that key research on
methane leaks was tainted, and that one of the EPA's top scientific
advisors fraudulently concealed evidence that a commonly-used tool for
collecting data from oil and gas wells gives artificially low methane
measurements.
The 68-page complaint dated June 8 laid out evidence that David Allen, a
professor of engineering at the University of Texas who served as the
chairman of the EPA's Science Advisory Board from 2012 to 2015,
disregarded red flags that his methane measuring equipment malfunctioned
when collecting data from fracked well sites, a problem that caused his
University of Texas study to lowball leak rates.
“We used the terms scientific fraud and cover-up because we believe
there’s possible criminal violations involved,” said NC WARN executive
director Jim Warren. “The consequence is that for the past 3 years the
industry has been arguing, based largely on the 2013 study, that
emissions are low enough that we shouldn’t regulate them.”
Dr. Allen's research is a part of a high-profile but controversial
research series sponsored by the Environmental Defense Fund that
received one third of its funding from the oil and gas industry.
In response to the NC WARN complaint, Dr. Allen issued a statement
saying that his team's data was unaffected, saying that “we had 2-3
additional, independent measurement systems” other than the error-prone
tool. But the new letter to the Inspector General labeled that response
misleading, saying that in fact, there “was virtually no back-up”
testing and that Dr. Allen's response continued “the pattern of covering
up the underreporting of methane emissions”.
The sharp rise of the U.S. gas drilling industry over the past decade or
so means that it's crucial for policy-makers and the public to know
exactly how much methane — the key ingredient in natural gas, which is
also a powerful greenhouse gas that can warm the climate 100 times as
much as an equal amount of carbon dioxide — leaks or is deliberately
vented into the atmosphere by the oil industry.
In March, federal energy experts predicted that 2016 will be the first
year that the U.S. burns more gas than coal to generate electricity —
and if enough of that methane leaks, the switch from coal to gas may
spell disaster rather than relief for the climate, scientists warn.
The problem with Dr. Allen's research wasn't simply that the team used a
faulty tool — the Bacharach Hi-Flow methane sampler is widely used by
researchers and the industry — but that Dr. Allen rejected warnings from
Touche Howard, the man who invented the technology used in the tool,
that the readings were artificially low, without any sound scientific
justification for waving off warnings, the complaint says.
“The problems Mr. Howard identified have not been openly addressed or
corrected, resulting in the failure of the EPA to accurately report
methane emissions for more than two years, much less require
reductions,” NC Warn, a North Carolina-based environmental group, wrote
in its complaint to the EPA's internal watchdog. “Meanwhile, the faulty
data and measuring equipment are still being used extensively throughout
the natural gas industry worldwide.”
While Dr. Allen's research is not the only time that the flawed tool was
used to collect data, his two studies have been used by the oil and gas
industry and its supporters to support claims that leaks and venting are
too low to require federal regulation. “The Allen studies are
high-profile studies that have been widely cited (197 times as of April
2016) and presented before White House and Congressional staff,” the
complaint to the EPA said, “and, as such, have given policy makers and
the public an incorrect view of methane emissions from production sites.”
The data Allen collected seemed to show far lower levels of methane than
most other studies from the past several years.
“From the start, the paper by Allen and colleagues in 2013 seemed to
have unusually low estimates for methane emissions from shale gas,
certainly in comparison to most of the other recent literature,” said
Cornell University’s Dr. Robert Howarth, who in 2011 authored a
now-famous paper showing that natural gas might be worse for the climate
than coal, just as the shale rush was beginning to take off. “Howard
makes a convincing case that instrument failure explains at least part
of the problem with the work of Allen and colleagues, and quite possibly
with other studies upon which the US EPA has relied.”
As DeSmog reported last August, “The study's key contribution to the
science on methane leaks was that researchers were allowed to access to
oil and gas wells, including 27 wells where fracking was underway, and
test individual pieces of equipment. 'This is actual data, and it’s the
first time we’ve had the opportunity to get actual data from
unconventional natural gas development,' Mark Brownstein, an
Environmental Defense Fund associate vice president, told FuelFix when
the UT study was published.”
But the Bacharach Hi-Flow methane sampler, a backpack-size portable
device that is the only tool on the market designed to collect
instantaneous readings of methane levels, suffers from a flaw that can
compromise the data it collects. The sampler contains two meters, a
sensitive one that sniffs out low levels of methane, and a more powerful
one used to report higher concentrations of the gas. Mr. Howard
discovered that the meter can sometimes fail to switch from low to high
— meaning that big leaks would look as much as 100 times smaller than
they actually were.
That means that Allen's conclusions could have seriously underestimated
how bad the leaks were. “Over 98% of the [methane] inventory calculated
from their own data and 41% of their compiled national inventory may be
affected by this measurement failure,” the Howard paper concluded.
While the problems were reported in the peer-reviewed press, Dr. Allen
failed to adjust his findings, the complaint alleges. “Rather than act
on this information by disclosing it to other research participants, Dr.
Allen misused his authority, and gave false or misleading information to
the EDF Production Group between October 2013 and January 2014,
minimizing Mr. Howard’s concerns,” NC WARN said in its complaint.
“I've gone to Dr. Allen repeatedly and asked him to address these
issues, and since they haven't been addressed, unfortunately, at this
point, I think that is the only solution,” Howard told InsideClimate News.
After NC WARN's complaint was made public, Dr. Allen said that he stood
by the data he had collected. “Our study team strongly asserts that the
instrument we used and the measurements we made were not impacted by the
claimed failure,” Allen said in a statement. Dr. Allen previously
published a peer-reviewed note responding to Mr. Howard's research, but
Mr. Howard said that the note had failed to adequately address concerns.
But in a June 24 letter, NC Warn's Jim Warren said that Dr. Allen had
withdrawn his rebuttal and that the independent measuring systems that
Dr. Allen had described “actually confirmed the occurrence of BHFS
sensor failure”.
For its part, the Environmental Defense Fund, downplayed the importance
of Allen's research to its overall conclusions on methane leak rates,
but said that it planned to continue incorporating Allen's data in its
final analysis.
“As always, EDF welcomes – and indeed, we encourage – honest and open
review of any science we’re involved with, including these two papers,”
EDF said in its statement. “But the overall impact of the questions
raised on national methane emissions rates is limited. It’s important
not to overestimate their individual significance in vast catalog of
studies published in the two-and-a-half years since Dr. Allen’s first
study was released.”
Overall, scientific fraud is more common than one might think. “Every
day, on average, a scientific paper is retracted because of misconduct,”
The New York Times reported last year. “Two percent of scientists admit
to tinkering with their data in some kind of improper way. That number
might appear small, but remember: Researchers publish some 2 million
articles a year, often with taxpayer funding.”
But the stakes in methane leak research are extraordinarily high, given
both the extreme consequences of climate change and the financial might
of the oil and gas industry, which argues that regulation could drive
companies out of business.
NC WARN's allegations drew the attention of D.C.'s oldest and most
widely-circulated newspaper, The Washington Post.
“It’s time to listen to Howard and revisit the study that found a lower
level of methane emissions, given what’s known about the quirks in the
device that monitored them,” the Post said in its coverage of the complaint.
Earlier this year, the EPA announced new rules designed to reduce
methane leaks — but those rules will only apply to new and modified oil
and gas operations, not to the nation's extensive oil and gas facilities
already in place. So the new rules won't apply to aging and decaying
pipeline networks or older gas wells, for example. Instead, the EPA is
collecting more data about those leaks, a process that won't end before
the Obama administration leaves office.
And given the accelerating pace of climate change, environmentalists are
chaffing at the slow pace of regulation.
“The EPA's failure to order feasible reductions of methane leaks and
venting has robbed humanity of crucial years to slow the climate
crisis,” said Mr. Warren. “The cover-up by Allen's team has allowed the
industry to dig in for years of delay in cutting emissions at the worst
possible time.”
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