Gas production releases much more methane than estimated – 03/15/2024 – Environment

Major oil and gas producers in the United States may be emitting three times more planet-warming methane than official estimates, according to new research published Wednesday. This is the latest in a series of studies that suggest emissions from the fossil fuel sector may be being underestimated.

In some parts of New Mexico, more than 9% of the natural gas produced was escaping into the atmosphere, researchers said in the study, published in the journal Nature.

Methane is the main component of natural gas and, when released unburned into the atmosphere, acts as an extremely powerful greenhouse gas. It can heat the planet more than 80 times more than the same amount of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.

The release of methane — often through leaks at drilling sites or gas processing plants, along gas pipelines or other energy facilities — is bad news for global warming, which is already causing rising sea levels. sea, more intense storms, more intense droughts and a greater loss of biodiversity around the world.

For the study, researchers from Stanford University, the consultancy Kairos Aerospace and other laboratories analyzed around one million measurements collected from aerial surveys in six oil and gas producing regions.

Using these measurements, along with computer modeling, they found that oil and gas operations in these regions released about 6.2 million tons of methane per year.

This is equivalent to around 3% of the total gas produced by these regions per year, equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions from the energy used by 20 million homes. In monetary terms, there are around US$1 billion in gas.

One of the takeaways from this and previous studies was “how concentrated the emissions are in a very small fraction of locations,” said Evan D. Sherwin, who led the research at Stanford and now works at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

“That’s the good part. If we can figure out what’s going on in these few places, we’ll be halfway to solving the methane problem in oil and gas,” he said.

Scientists are increasingly focused on getting more accurate measurements of human-caused methane emissions, much of which comes from the oil and gas industry. MethaneSAT, a satellite launched this month by the Environmental Defense Fund, is designed to track methane on a global scale. It is one of several satellites that can detect and measure methane from space.

The new study found that methane emission rates varied widely across regions, from 0.75% in Pennsylvania to more than 9% in parts of New Mexico.

One reason for New Mexico’s high rates: Operators there tend to drill for oil, not gas, and simply release much of the gas that rises into the atmosphere.

Ritesh Gautam, a scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund who was not involved in the study, says the work provides important new data. He also says that more comprehensive measurements, including data from MethaneSAT, could soon complement this research.

“To get a complete picture, this data needs to be combined with direct measurement of total methane emissions,” he says.

In a separate analysis also released on Wednesday, the International Energy Agency said power sector methane emissions remained near records in 2023. But it also struck a hopeful tone, saying new measures announced in recent months would soon follow. can put these emissions into decline.

For now, global methane emissions remain “too high” to meet international climate goals, the agency said.

To limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial times, a key goal of the Paris Agreement, methane emissions from fossil fuels need to fall by 75% this decade, the energy agency said.

The agency’s analysis found that the production and use of fossil fuels generated about 132 million tons of methane emissions last year, a small increase from the previous year.

Emissions have remained at similar levels since 2019, when they reached a record high. The United States, the largest global oil and gas producer, was also the largest emitter from oil and gas operations, followed by Russia.

Around 200 governments agreed at last year’s global climate talks in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to “substantially reduce” methane emissions by 2030. Major oil and gas companies have also joined the Global Methane Commitment to curb their emissions.

The Biden administration is also moving forward with rules that require oil and gas producers to detect and fix methane leaks.

All promises made by countries and companies, implemented fully and on time, would reduce methane emissions from fossil fuels by 50% by 2030, the new analysis from the International Energy Agency found. However, he noted that most promises were not yet backed by concrete plans.

“I am encouraged by the momentum we have seen in recent months, which our analysis shows could make a huge and immediate difference in the global fight against climate change,” Fatih Birol, the agency’s executive director, said in a statement. “Now, we must focus on turning commitments into action as we continue to aim higher.”