As The World Warmed, PA Produced Record Amount Of Natural Gas In 2021

PENNSYLVANIA — Despite the rise of cheap, cleaner energies and the impacts of climate change-driven severe weather being felt locally and across the globe, Pennsylvania produced a record amount of natural gas from its wells in 2021, according to statistics released annually by the state.

A total of 7.6 trillion cubic feet of gas was produced in Pennsylvania in 2021, up from just over 7 trillion in 2020. Nationally, the Keystone State trails only Texas in natural gas production.

Drilling for oil and gas, the related processes needed to sustain an infrastructure that transports it, and the consumption of it each make vast contributions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, accelerating climate change even as scientists have sounded the alarm on a darkening future.

While some advocates tout natural gas as a "transitional" energy source between traditional fossil fuels and clean energy, the most recent analyses from the United Nation's COP27 summit in Egypt make it clear that it is an unsustainable path forward.

"All under-construction, approved, and proposed (natural gas) projects between 2021-2050 will use up 10 percent of the remaining carbon budget, dramatically overshooting the emissions reductions needed to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius," according to the Climate Action Tracker, an international independent scientific analysis.

The continued boon of natural gas comes in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, wreaking havoc on global energy security. The oil and gas industry say that increased production is the way to save the economy, and keep both home energy prices and gas prices low. But environmentalists point to the science that says at least a 30 percent reduction in natural gas use globally needs to happen by 2030 to meet minimum goals that will mitigate future climate disaster.

"Gas companies continue to peddle the lie that we need to export more gas while they jack up prices ahead of the winter heating season," Sierra Club Senior Director of Energy Campaigns Kelly Sheehan said, adding that "true energy security will be achieved through the clean energy transition...not only that, consumers facing record-high energy bills, vulnerable environmental justice communities, and our climate cannot afford increased gas production.”

Companies continue to profit, too, while the average citizen both domestically and abroad suffers. The US Energy Department projects natural gas bills across the nation will jump by 28 percent this winter over last winter, heating oil bills will go up 27 percent, electricity will be 10 percent higher, and propane will cost 5 percent more. The price of natural gas spiked to record highs in Pennsylvania over the past year.

Pennsylvania leadership, particularly Democrats, has paid plenty of lip service to emissions reductions and reducing reliance on oil. The state says its goal is to reduce emissions by 26 percent by 2025 and 80 percent by 2050. But Pennsylvania's parternships with major natural gas producers has drawn plenty of scrutiny and ire from environmentalists, particularly the billions of dollars in tax credits given to companies who promised to build manufacturing facilities in the state. It amounts to "slapdash industrial policy at its worst that will perpetuate Pennsylvania’s addiction to fossil fuels,"Patrick McDonnell, the former DEP Secretary under Gov. Tom Wolf, told NPR.

A big reason Pennsylvania produces so much natural gas is because of fracking, a process banned in other states, including neighboring New York.

In 2015, Gov. Wolf did ban fracking in Pennsylvania state parks and forests. He proposed an increased tax on natural gas mining to pay for his public schools initiative. But he opposed then NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo's ban, and later, controversially, he worked with state Republicans on a bill that will allow treated minewater discharged from coal mines to be used for fracking, without making gas companies responsible for the entire watershed, but only the water they extracted. Environmentalists, such as representatives from the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, derided the bill because they said it would allow gas giants to pilfer from streams that already have an interrupted flow due to coal mines. These watersheds, they argued, will never again have a healthy flow if the fracking industry is allowed access.

In a statement accompanying the publication of the 2021 report, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection touted an increase in the number of compliance inspections and reaffirmed their committment to holding offenders accountable.

“In 2021, DEP remained committed to enforcing violations of the oil and gas industry,” DEP Acting Secretary Ramez Ziadeh said. “Gov. Wolf and DEP continued their priority of maintaining environmental protection for Pennsylvania’s residents and visitors.”

The state said they completed 34,145 compliance inspections at wells in 2021. How the state regulates major oil and gas companies has long been a point of controversy, particularly the relationship between the Pennsylvania Utility Commission and Sunoco, a company since convicted of multiple criminal charges for its activities in the state. State lawmakers have said that PUC ignored blatant safety warnings leading up to a series of pipeline accidents in the past decade.

Powerful weather made even stronger by the effects of climate change has spurred everything from floods and tornadoes to deluges amid droughts, followed by deluges, across Pennsylvania. Historic drought hit parts of the state in 2022, and millions of dollars in damage in Pennslyvania alone have been incurred by bizarre storms in recent years.