Nature - Methane Leaks From O&G Operations Nearly 3X EPA Estimates

The oil and gas industry may be emitting about three-times the amount of climate-warming methane than government estimates show, according to a new study in Nature. Methane is the main component of natural gas, and it is also produced when extracting crude oil. Methane is among the greenhouse gasses heating the planet, and it is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

The study's researchers used airplanes to gather 986,238 measurements of methane emissions from six domestic oil and gas production areas. The data include about half the country's onshore oil production and 29% of natural gas production. Then researchers combined that aerial data with information from sites on the ground, including wells, compressor stations, gas processing plants and pipelines.

The researchers, from Stanford University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and other organizations, estimate an average of 2.95% of gas the industry produces leaks into the air as methane. The authors say that's nearly three times EPA estimates of 1.01%.

Specific measurements varied from a low of less than 1%, or about what the Environmental Protection Agency estimates, at a site in Pennsylvania to a high of nearly 10% in New Mexico. Researchers found the higher percentages of methane released generally had something in common. "These are places where production is mostly focusing on oil," says Evan Sherwin, a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who conducted the research as a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University. But oil and gas often come out of the ground together, and if there wasn't a way to transport the less-valuable gas to where it could be sold, leaks were higher.

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https://www.npr.org/2024/03/13/1237962030/climate-emissions-methane