Methane & Natural Gas
In the 2014 legislative session, we worked with legislative leadership to pass Public Act 14-152, An Act Concerning Lost and Unaccounted for Gas. This law requires the Public Utility Regulatory Authority to report on each gas company’s lost and unaccounted for gas and their causes, recommendations for reducing leaks, and current monitoring programs. The law also requires PURA to set a cap on the amount of money the companies can recover from their customers for lost gas.
Gas is lost, intentionally or unintentionally, in almost every stage of the natural gas system. Leaky pipes are a major culprit. With Connecticut looking to expand its natural gas use, we must address the weaknesses in our existing infrastructure now and design our growing system to prevent future losses and impacts.
A Leak to Fix
Natural gas is composed almost entirely of methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas. Methane's warming potential is 56 times stronger than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period and 21 times stronger over a 100-year period. Even the smallest methane leaks have lasting climate impacts.
Methane and natural gas leaks are most common in old cast iron and bare steel pipes. At the end of 2012, Connecticut's three gas distrubution companies collectively had 1450 miles of cast iron pipes and 180 miles of bare steel. However, distribution companies have no incentive to fix pipeline leaks because they can recover the cost for lost gas from their customers.
Based on average leakage rates for cast iron and bare steel pipes, an estimated 500 million cubic feet of natural gas was lost in 2012. At the average price of $7.30 per thousand cubic feet, these unnecessary leaks cost Connecticut’s gas customers nearly $4 million.
A Flawed Expansion
As part of Connecticut’s Comprehensive Energy Strategy, the natural gas distribution companies were required to create a plan to harmonize natural gas expansion with methane leak reduction from existing infrastructure. However, in their final plans, they claimed the only way to solve this problem was to accelerate the replacement of aging infrastructure in their future rate cases. While replacement programs are effective, they by no means remove all leaks. Because they can leak for free, it's clear Connecticut's gas companies lack the incentive and commitment to fix their methane problem.
A Better Way Forward
Moving forward, we must also look to change our leak classification system and repair timeline. Under current federal and state law, a leak is classified as hazardous based on its proxmity to people and property, not necessarily on the amount leaking. Currently, only hazardous leaks must be reparied immediately. There is no timetable at all for non-hazardous leaks.
Our legal director Roger Reynolds (second from left) joined Governor Dannel Malloy at the signing of the Methane Law.
CFE will hold natural gas distribution companies accountable for their commitments to accelerate spending on the replacement of bare steel and cast iron pipes and will continue to work will leadership in Hartford to design incentives and programs to improve our expanding natural gas system.
Rusty Pipe by Marc Falardeau