Tag: methane
: A fix for flatulent cows? Danone inks methane emissions pact that could shift dairy market
The Grim Origins of an Ominous Methane Surge
New UN system will track methane emissions from space
The United Nations will launch a new high-tech space system to track the largest methane polluters, announced at global climate conference COP27 on Nov. 11. The UN-monitored platform, called the Methane Alert and Response System (MARS), will provide “neutral and reliable” reporting statistics for the climate change causing gas. It’s set to launch in 2023.
Using satellite data, the system will monitor major emission events and publish figures on methane leaks. Governments, companies, and operators emitting the most methane will then be contacted by the international body to reduce their emissions, after which the data will be made available to the public. It’s the “first publicly available global system capable of transparently connecting methane detection to notification processes,” the United Nations explained.
While it’s a great step towards enhanced climate monitoring, there are no enforcement mechanisms to actually make emitters cease polluting beyond reporting. Actors will be encouraged to participate in UN mitigation processes. The system also received initial funding from the European Commission, the U.S. government, Global Methane Hub, and, notably, the Bezos Earth Fund.
Methane is the second biggest contributor to human-caused global warming, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), and one of the most concerning greenhouse gasses, trapping heat on the planet’s surface 28 times more than carbon dioxide does. It’s also steadily increasing in quantity each year, with 2021 setting the record amount of increase in parts per billion since 1983.
Even with such large quantities, discovering the cause of methane pollution isn’t as simple as it may seem. As explained by Mashable science reporter Mark Kaufman, “Methane can come from some disparate, indirect, awfully hard-to-monitor sources… Some elusive methane sources include ‘fugitive gases’ (like leaking methane from oil drilling sites) and methane from remote biological sources (like bacteria decomposing plants in wetlands). Atmospheric scientists can actually identify when methane comes from biological sources, as opposed to fossil fuels. But, scientists can’t easily distinguish between the types of biological sources.”
Scientists used a plethora of techniques to monitor the amount of methane entering the atmosphere. “To track and estimate these emissions, scientists collect emission data from world nations, observe emissions from space, take readings from aircraft, towers, and cars, and more,” Kaufman writes.
The United Nations MARS initiative combines these systems into a single tracking platform, using data from NASA and the European, German, and Italian space agencies. In the future, the system will also include data from private satellite operators, the Associated Press reported.
With the consolidation of several systems to detect methane and the United Nations backing, the MARS program is an optimistic monitoring effort in the upward battle against climate pollution.
U.S. to tighten methane emissions with new rules on oil and gas industry
The Equipment Designed to Cut Methane Emissions is Failing
And yet…
Aerial surveys have documented huge amounts of methane wafting from oil and gas fields in the United States and beyond. It’s a problem the Biden administration has sought to attack in its recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act. One of the law’s provisions threatens fines of up to $1,500 per ton of methane released, to be imposed against the worst polluters. Perhaps most crucially, the law provides $1.55 billion in funding for companies to upgrade equipment to more effectively contain emissions — equipment that could, in theory, help the operators avoid fines.
Yet some of the best equipment for reducing emissions is already installed on oil and gas infrastructure…. And critics say such equipment is failing to capture much of the methane and casting doubt on whether the Biden plan would go far to correct the problem…. “Energy companies have made pledges, but I’ve got to tell you, I haven’t seen anything from a practical standpoint that makes me believe there’s any reality to reductions on the ground,” said Tim Doty, an environmental scientist and former air quality inspector for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. “Maybe they’re making progress, but are they making enough progress to slow down climate change? I don’t think so….”
Sometimes, methane escapes because the equipment designed to contain it hasn’t been properly calibrated or maintained. Emissions aren’t immediately stopped once new equipment is installed. Companies must still invest in properly designing the system and continuously monitoring and maintaining the equipment. This requires money and staff, which experts say many companies neglect…. And hydrocarbons like methane, because they are corrosive, inevitably degrade the tanks, pipes and equipment that are supposed to contain them. “All this stuff is going to be prone to leak — that’s just the way it is,” said Coyne Gibson, who spent about two decades as an engineer inspecting oil and gas equipment. “That’s mechanics. And there’s there’s not really any way to avoid it….”
The staffing it would take to continuously survey the nation’s 3 million miles of natural gas pipelines would likely be prohibitively expensive.
“Emissions keep going up. We’re moving in the wrong direction…” Antoine Halff, chief analyst at energy analytics company Kayrros, tells the Associated Press. But he adds that “the potential, the conditions, to change course seem to be here.”
The article points out that America’s Environmental Protection Agency “is writing rules on methane reduction that will further detail what would be required of companies starting in 2024.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Space Station Astronauts Spot the World’s Largest Methane Polluters
“But EMIT has demonstrated another crucial capability: detecting the presence of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.”
In the data EMIT has collected since being installed on the International Space Station in July, the science team has identified more than 50 “super-emitters” in Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Southwestern United States. Super-emitters are facilities, equipment, and other infrastructure, typically in the fossil-fuel, waste, or agriculture sectors, that emit methane at high rates. “Reining in methane emissions is key to limiting global warming. This exciting new development will not only help researchers better pinpoint where methane leaks are coming from, but also provide insight on how they can be addressed — quickly,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
“The International Space Station and NASA’s more than two dozen satellites and instruments in space have long been invaluable in determining changes to the Earth’s climate. EMIT is proving to be a critical tool in our toolbox to measure this potent greenhouse gas — and stop it at the source….”
“These results are exceptional, and they demonstrate the value of pairing global-scale perspective with the resolution required to identify methane point sources, down to the facility scale,” said David Thompson, EMIT’s instrument scientist and a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission. “It’s a unique capability that will raise the bar on efforts to attribute methane sources and mitigate emissions from human activities.”
Relative to carbon dioxide, methane makes up a fraction of human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions, but it’s estimated to be 80 times more effective, ton for ton, at trapping heat in the atmosphere in the 20 years after release. Moreover, where carbon dioxide lingers for centuries, methane persists for about a decade, meaning that if emissions are reduced, the atmosphere will respond in a similar timeframe, leading to slower near-term warming…. “Some of the plumes EMIT detected are among the largest ever seen — unlike anything that has ever been observed from space,” said Andrew Thorpe, a research technologist at JPL leading the EMIT methane effort. “What we’ve found in a just a short time already exceeds our expectations.”
For example, the instrument detected a plume about 2 miles (3.3 kilometers) long southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico, in the Permian Basin. One of the largest oilfields in the world, the Permian spans parts of southeastern New Mexico and western Texas. In Turkmenistan, EMIT identified 12 plumes from oil and gas infrastructure east of the Caspian Sea port city of Hazar. Blowing to the west, some plumes stretch more than 20 miles (32 kilometers)…. With wide, repeated coverage from its vantage point on the space station, EMIT will potentially find hundreds of super-emitters — some of them previously spotted through air-, space-, or ground-based measurement, and others that were unknown.
“As it continues to survey the planet, EMIT will observe places in which no one thought to look for greenhouse-gas emitters before, and it will find plumes that no one expects,” said Robert Green, EMIT’s principal investigator at JPL.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.