Shale’s $2 Billion Natural Gas Leak Shows Bigger Climate Hit

The shale boom that flooded the U.S. with cheap natural gas, displacing coal and nuclear power generation, isn’t as green as you think.

An estimated 2.3 percent of the gas pumped from American fields is lost to leakage from well sites, processing plants, and compressor stations, according to an Environmental Defense Fund report published in the journal Science June 21. That’s higher than the Environmental Protection Agency’s 1.4 percent estimate.

The result was based on ground measurements and aircraft observations in areas accounting for about 30 percent of American gas production, according to the group. Those results were extrapolated ...