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Natural Gas Carbon Footprint

Free Natural Gas Carbon Footprint calculator with clear step-by-step results.

About Natural Gas Carbon Footprint

Converts whichever unit your bill uses into kilowatt-hours, applies the combustion factor, then adds an upstream uplift for extraction, processing, transport and methane leakage. That upstream share is commonly 15-25% of the combustion figure and is routinely omitted from household calculations.

Formulas

Energy content

kWh = amount x conversion factor (1 m3 = 10.55 kWh, 1 therm = 29.31 kWh)

Total emissions

kgCO2e = kWh x combustion factor x (1 + upstream uplift)

Worked example

With the default values below, Natural Gas Carbon Footprint returns Total footprint including upstream of 2,780.14. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Gas usedminimum 0
1,200
Unit of measurementone of Cubic metres, kWh, Therms, Hundred cubic feet (ccf)
Cubic metres
Combustion emission factoraccepts 0–1 kgCO2e/kWh
0.183 kgCO2e/kWh
Upstream and methane leakage upliftaccepts 0–100 %
20 %

Results

Total footprint including upstream
2,780.14 kgCO2e
Energy content
12,660.0 kWh
Emissions from burning the gas
2,316.78 kgCO2e
Upstream extraction and leakage
463.36 kgCO2e

Step by step

  1. 1Values used
  2. 2Energy content
  3. 3Total emissions
  4. 4Total footprint including upstream= 2,780.14 kgCO2e
  5. 5Energy content= 12,660.0 kWh
  6. 6Emissions from burning the gas= 2,316.78 kgCO2e
  7. 7Upstream extraction and leakage= 463.36 kgCO2e

Assumptions and limits

  • The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
  • In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
  • Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does methane leakage matter so much?

Unburned methane has roughly 80 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide over twenty years, so even a leakage rate of 2-3% across the supply chain materially changes the total.

Which unit does my bill use?

Cubic metres in most of Europe, therms or ccf in the United States, and kWh on many modern smart-meter bills. The conversion above uses standard calorific values.

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