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Natural gas production in the United States has increased 46 percent since 2006, but there has been no significant increase of total US methane emissions and only a modest increase from oil and gas activity, according to a new NOAA study.
The finding is important because it's based on highly accurate measurements of methane collected over 10 years at 20 long-term sampling sites around the country in NOAA's Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, said lead author Xin Lan, a CIRES scientist working at NOAA.
"We analyzed a decade's worth of data and while we do find some increase in methane downwind of oil and gas activity, we do not find a statistically significant trend in the US for total methane emissions," said Lan. The study was published in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters.
[...] Methane is a component of natural gas, but it can also be generated by biological sources, such as decaying wetland vegetation, as a byproduct of ruminant digestion, or even by termites. Ethane is a hydrocarbon emitted during oil and natural gas production and is sometimes used as a tracer for oil and gas activity. By measuring ethane, which is not generated by biologic processes, scientists had hoped to produce an accurate estimate of petroleum-derived methane emissions.
A bit of good news.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday May 17 2019, @01:41PM (1 child)
In other news, sales at Taco Bell and Chipotle have been declining.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 17 2019, @02:17PM
Taco Bell isn't nearly as bad as McD's and Chipotle. When I'm scheduled for a colonoscopy I eat at McD's instead of taking the drain cleaner the doctor prescribes... Cleans me out just fine. Chipotle on the other hand causes severe backflow, then an uncontrolled explosive blowout.