"EDF Sparks Mistrust, and Admiration, With its Methane Research"

"Environmental Defense Fund fills a void in tackling critical climate issue, but to some, its collaboration with fossil fuel industry taints findings."

"The Environmental Defense Fund is one of the nation's most venerable environmental organizations, and many consider it one of the most effective. But its industry-collaborative approach to the study of methane leaks in natural gas drilling has drawn scrutiny from other environmental groups, who worry EDF has strayed into a gray area where science and the fossil fuel industry

Those concerns stem from an ambitious project EDF embarked on in 2011, as an oil and gas boom swept the U.S. While environmentalists have increasingly called for an outright ban on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, amid concerns that it pollutes the air and water, stifles growth of renewable energy, and might accelerate rather than slow climate change, EDF decided to probe the industry's climate impacts. And it did so by collaborating with natural gas companies, which agreed to partially fund the research and give EDF access to gas sites for taking crucial measurements.

EDF set out to study how much methane, the main component of natural gas, leaks into the atmosphere at every stage of gas production, development, transportation and consumption. Methane is dozens of times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and earlier research suggested that as natural gas displaces coal, methane leaks would erase the climate benefits of reduced coal-burning."

Lisa Song and Katherine Bagley report for InsideClimate News April 8, 2015.

SEE ALSO:

"EDF Recruits Sprawling Network to Fund Methane Leaks Research" (InsideClimate News)