Regional Ozone Impacts of Increased Natural Gas Use in the Texas Power Sector and Development in the Eagle Ford Shale

Abstract

The combined emissions and air quality impacts of electricity generation in the Texas grid and natural gas production in the Eagle Ford shale were estimated at various natural gas price points for the power sector. The increased use of natural gas in the power sector, in place of coal-fired power generation, drove reductions in average daily maximum 8 h ozone concentration of 0.6–1.3 ppb in northeastern Texas for a high ozone episode used in air quality planning. The associated increase in Eagle Ford upstream oil and gas production nitrogen oxide (NO_<i>x</i>) emissions caused an estimated local increase, in south Texas, of 0.3–0.7 ppb in the same ozone metric. In addition, the potential ozone impacts of Eagle Ford emissions on nearby urban areas were estimated. On the basis of evidence from this work and a previous study on the Barnett shale, the combined ozone impact of increased natural gas development and use in the power sector is likely to vary regionally and must be analyzed on a case by case basis