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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Offshore energy-producing platforms in U.S. waters of the Gulf of Mexico are emitting twice as much methane, a greenhouse gas, than previously thought, according to a new study from the University of Michigan.
Researchers conducted a first-of-its-kind pilot-study sampling air over offshore oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Their findings suggest the federal government's calculations are too low.
U-M's research found that, for the full U.S. Gulf of Mexico, oil and gas facilities emit approximately one-half a teragram of methane each year, comparable with large emitting oil and gas basins like the Four Corners region in the southwest U.S. The effective loss rate of produced gas is roughly 2.9%, similar to large onshore basins primarily focused on oil, and significantly higher than current inventory estimates.
Offshore harvesting accounts for roughly one-third of the oil and gas produced worldwide, and these facilities both vent and leak methane. Until now, only a handful of measurements of offshore platforms have been made, and no aircraft studies of methane emissions in normal operation had been conducted. Each year the EPA issues its U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory, but its numbers for offshore emissions are not produced via direct sampling.
The study, published in Environmental Science and Technology, identified three reasons for the discrepancy between EPA estimates and their findings:
- Errors in platform counts: Offshore facilities in state waters, of which there are in excess of 1,300, were missing from the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory.
- Persistent emissions from shallow-water facilities, particularly those primarily focused on natural gas, are higher than inventoried.
- Large, older facilities situated in shallow waters tended to produce episodic, disproportionally high spikes of methane emissions. These facilities, which have more than seven platforms apiece, contribute to nearly 40% of emissions, yet consist of less than 1% of total platforms. If this emission process were identified, it could provide an optimal mitigation opportunity, the researchers said.
-- submitted from IRC
Journal Reference
Tara I. Yacovitch, Conner Daube, Scott C. Herndon. Methane Emissions from Offshore Oil and Gas Platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, Environ. Sci. Technol. (DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.9b07148)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2020, @04:07PM (5 children)
You won't like this, but what you described is a clear failure of capitalism. Instead of capturing that energy potential the owners decided they would rather burn off the troubleshom byproducts instead of investing in better infrastructure. Why? Because it would cost a lot to improve the refinery and the captured gasses wouldn't be worth nearly enough.
So how to solve this greed based problem? You guessed it! Government regulation to include the externalized costs of running the refinery. Environmental pollution, health problems, etc. Then you would see some pretty rapid upgrades to capture and clean the waste products. Yes that would probably end up with higher costs to consumers, but again those costs would otherwise be paid by environental destruction and human health.
You described a problem, I showed you the answer. Now is it possible for you to admit that government regulations are necessary in a lot of industries? Or will you retreat to your ideologically partisan talking points?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday April 14 2020, @04:09PM (1 child)
Somewhat ironically, they're flaring that gas to eliminate the very methane under discussion.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2020, @05:10PM
Yes, but Runaway was talking about the amount of energy lost to such flaring. I decided it was a teachable moment, and besides the methane isn't simply eliminated but converted into air pollution without even the reward of producing electricity or heat.
We desperately need conservatives to bridge the propaganda gap preventing them from understanding why environmental regulation is so very important. Runaway came close, but GOP propaganda will prevent him from realizing that regulations are the only way to fix our systemic problems. Relying on the profit motive has massive failures since humans are good at finding shortcuts like dumping waste.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday April 14 2020, @05:35PM (2 children)
Ideological partisanship? Maybe you're confusing me with Fusty or someone?
I have acknowledged many times that sometimes regulation is necessary. In fact, I mentioned that Houston has cleaned up it's act tremendously in recent decades. And, I hope that I didn't sound disapproving of the clean up. In fact, I think the tone of my previous post indicates disapproval of venting all that "waste" gas to the atmosphere. Can we give the ideology schtick a break?
For the record, the doctrine of "Profit at all costs" that some seem to espouse can only hurt society. On the other hand, "ecology at all costs" doesn't make a lot of sense either. If we must not harm a blade of grass, then we all need to suicide now, and stop any more impact that mankind might have on Mother Nature. Let us all just turn into fertilizer, and let nature take it's course, alright?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2020, @07:20PM (1 child)
Fustakritch is less partisan than you, just FYI.
And no, we can not drop the issue of ideological partisanship.
Any time Trump is criticized you come back with the super clever "TDS!" and proceed to ignore his corruption. He installed wolves to guard the henhouses. If you can't get that straight then there is no point in discussing how our views align since you support the antithesis of what I'm talking about.
Well, you say you don't support Trump, you say you voted 3rd party, but the lack of outrage over what he has done shows that you will continue to vote in or at best tolerate such evil shit. Don't come back with "but Obama" whataboutism, in case you haven't been paying attention there are no "saint obama" supporters on SN.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 15 2020, @12:19AM
Runaway is the same kind of sociopath Trump is, although in my estimation he's an induced case rather than a native-born one: all that matters is t3h feelz. His feelz. And everything and everyone else is subordinate to, subject to, and disposable in the pursuit of said feelz.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...