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Climate Change: Satellites Map Huge Methane Plumes From Oil and Gas

posted by janrinok on Monday February 07 2022, @03:18PM   
from the maybe-it-was-just-cow-farts dept.

upstart writes:

Climate change: Satellites map huge methane plumes from oil and gas:

Huge plumes of the warming gas methane have been mapped globally for the first time from oil and gas fields using satellites.

Plugging these leaks would be an important step in buying extra time to curb climate change. The new research found plumes covering vast areas, sometimes stretching to 200 miles - the leaks are thought to be mostly unintended.

Last year, about 100 countries promised to cut methane emissions by 2030.

"We knew about individual gas blow-outs before, but this work shows the true methane footprint of oil and gas operations around the planet," explains Riley Duren, an author of the paper and CEO of Carbon Mapper which tracks methane emissions.

Methane usually leaks from oil and gas facilities during maintenance operations, while fixing a valve or pipeline, for example, or from compressor stations - facilities that maintain the flow and pressure of natural gas.

It is also produced by landfill, agriculture and in coal production. This research focused on detecting oil and gas leaks that can be plugged if companies invest in prevention.

Scientists believe that cutting methane emissions is an "easy win" in tackling climate change, because it's a very potent gas usually released by humans in leaks that can be stopped relatively easily.

An IPCC study last year suggested that 30-50% of the current rise in temperatures is down to methane.

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Original Submission

• Re:This measurement should be a good thing all aro (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 08 2022, @05:02AM

  by khallow (3766) on Tuesday February 08 2022, @05:02AM (#1219632) Journal

  We "solved" the pollution problem 50 years ago, but you don't honestly believe we could solve it now, do you?

  You admit we have the will and ability to solve the problem - because we did. This is similar to covid or terrorism. Would we treat terrorism so cavalierly, if we were experiencing a 9/11-level attack every month? Would we treat covid so seriously, if cases and deaths were much lower?
  
  Society's level of response to a problem will depend on the seriousness of the problem.

  have been trying really hard to completely undo it all

  With a similar level of failure to the attempts at gun control. There's no serious reversal of regulation even in the many cases where it needs to be pulled back. For a glaring example, the Sackett family [reason.com] has been prohibited by the EPA from building a home on a stretch of Idaho suburb:

  After a decade and a half of litigation and federal regulatory changes, the U.S. Supreme Court may soon decide whether Michael and Chantell Sackett can build a home for themselves on a vacant lot they own in a suburban subdivision next to Priest Lake in Northern Idaho.
  
  Their lot has sat untouched since 2007. That was when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told the Sacketts that their property contained wetlands regulated by the Clean Water Act. The couple, said the agency, must get a federal permit before continuing with construction or pay daily fines of up to $75,000.
  
  Those demands prompted the Sacketts to sue in 2008. They argue that their landlocked property—which is separated from Priest Lake by a road and a completed row of houses—is not subject to the Clean Water Act. Therefore, they shouldn't need to go through the long, expensive federal permitting process just to build a home.

  They already made it to the Supreme Court once (in 2012) where it was ruled that they indeed could sue the EPA, rather than pay ridiculous fines first in order to sue - that shouldn't have taken five minutes.
  
  My take on that is that the EPA has aggressively exceeded its mandate on the Clean Water Act. And after 15 years, this trial has finally made its way to the Supreme Court - where they just might agree.
  
  This is the difference between serious environmental problems and serious regulation-caused problems. Nobody is rolling back environmental regulations to nothing. But when people can be tossed into a legal netherworld through no fault of their own, it's time to roll back that abusive power.
  
  One of the things that gets missed about solving problems through regulation is that no only is there always resistance, but that this resistance increases as the regulatory-caused side effects get worse. And once there's huge, systemic problems with one area of regulation, resistance will spread to any similar area, especially as in climate change, when the pretext is poorly justified. So there's all this whining about how mean humans are, but no acknowledgement of either the shaky foundation of climate change (as a near future threat) or the abuses of modern environmental regulation in the developed world.

  Parent