Do you smell anything? Me neither.
Earlier this year, the news cycle was dominated for a significant period of time by a natural gas leak in the town of Porter Ranch, CA. We discussed the issue a few times, including:
[relink url=”https://amuedge.com/study-ca-methane-leak-was-second-largest-ever-in-u-s/” url2=”https://amuedge.com/the-dangers-of-hidden-infrastructure/”]
But did you know that methane leaks are [link url=”http://www.theguardian.com/vital-signs/2016/mar/02/methane-leaks-aliso-canyon-ghg-epa-edf-environmen-climate-change-gas” title=”much more of a problem than you ever imagined“]?
I certainly didn’t. And the reason that this is important is that methane is [link url=”https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gwps.html” title=”as much as 26 times more potent“] than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.
There are natural sources of methane emissions, of course. The most common is that which is comes from the arctic as [link url=”http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/01/06/arctic-methane-emissions-greater-than-previous-estimates/” title=”global warming releases stores of methane hydrate“]. This post is not about global warming, which we’ve set on an irreversible track. No, this post is about the methane leaks that we CAN prevent.
Methane leaks that we CAN prevent
New research indicates that the US has been [link url=”http://www.livescience.com/43364-us-methane-natural-gas-leaks-underestimated.html” title=”vastly underestimating methane emissions“] from our own oil and gas production for, well, forever.
There’s an app for that
More precisely, perhaps, is that there’s a website for that. The [link url=”https://www.edf.org/” title=”Environmental Defense Fund“] has set up a [link url=”https://www.edf.org/climate/methanemaps/city-snapshots” title=”library of methane leak information“] for larger cities that’s free for you to use. If you’re not from a larger city, then they’d love to hear from you.
Take a look through what they offer. It’s stunning the extent to which we’re discharging methane into the atmosphere through sheer waste and inefficiency. And if your municipality or production oil field hasn’t been included, or even evaluated? Then you know what you need to do. I mean, do you want your family and your served public to be breathing methane routinely?
Think about it.
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