Leaking Methane Needs an Urgent Fix

Citizens and scientists are joining forces to tackle methane leaks, a major contributor to global warming.

A methane flare. Image: Carl Young, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Houston, we have a problem. 

Or rather fossil fuels have a problem — especially, it seems, in Texas. Not only do they release climate changing carbon dioxide (alongside many other pollutants) when burned, they also release of a lot methane, a much more powerful greenhouse gas in the short term. 

Whether it’s escaping throughout the coal supply chain, being released as a waste product in oil fields, or leaking along the natural gas supply chain (including beyond the boiler thanks to incomplete combustion), if you have a fossil based system you have fugitive methane emissions. And the extent of the problem has thus far been widely and wildly under-reported. 

Source: Nasa.gov

No surprise then that concentrations of methane are on an inexorably rising path. To be fair, this isn’t all down to fossil fuels — there are also natural and manmade sources emitted from other sectors, most notably agriculture and waste — but fossil sources are considered to be the most tractable. The low hanging fruit, so to speak.

The response to the methane threat has been somewhat slow to get going, but in recent years there have been a few indications that the world is getting its act together. Perhaps most significantly, given the US is now the world’s largest exporter of fossil fuels, President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act introduced a new methane policy that kicked in this year. It introduces fines for methane emissions above a given threshold for different activities, fines that will increase from now until 2026, when they cap out at $1,500/ton. That’s a significant deterrent. There are, however, two million-dollar questions: are all the emitters who need to be covered by the regs; and how will we know if those emitters are complying?

My recent guests on Cleaning Up, Sebastien Biraud and Sharon Wilson, are examples of a group of people known as ‘methane hunters’. They use a variety of methods to accurately detect and quantify methane sources to answer those million dollar questions.

Sebastien plies his trade at the Lawrence Berkeley Labs in California and has spent many years developing robust gas detection methodologies — using both mobile and static detection technologies. He helps look after the Ameriflux network — permanent greenhouse gas detection sites located throughout North America — and his studies have revealed methane emissions at oil fields and in agricultural production areas across the continent. Sharon is an environmental campaigner who founded Oilfield Witness, an NGO that tirelessly tracks and publicises methane emissions from the fossil industry, on the ground, using thermal imaging cameras. 

While they take different approaches, both Sebastien and Sharon are united on the need for more scrutiny and investigation when it comes to working out the sources of methane and what to do about them. The EPA is charged with implementing the US’s new methane rules and we have to hope they will make the required investments to properly enforce them. While they will be assisted by an increasing number of satellites that are able to detect large or super-emitting sources of methane, it would be unwise to rely on eyes in space entirely, since satellites have limitations. Sharon, for example, believes the oil industry has become wise to the fact that cloudy days — obscuring satellites’ views — are good for getting rid of unwanted methane.

The clampdown on methane that’s beginning in the US is also being somewhat mirrored by actions in the European Union. In November last year, the EU passed regulations requiring the oil, gas and coal sectors to measure, report and verify their methane emissions and to put in place mitigation measures. Importantly, they also introduce requirements to disclose methane emissions from imports of fossil fuels into the EU. If this all sounds a bit soft, that’s because it is: A regulatory standard limiting methane from fossil fuels won’t come into force until 2030, after sufficient data is gathered. But at least it’s a start.

Ultimately, a global solution is needed and there are increasing calls for the UN to begin negotiating a treaty specifically aimed at reducing methane emissions. Chief among them is Durwood Zelke, the President of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development and the brains behind new global rules to limit other powerful greenhouse gases, via the Kigali Agreement to the ozone-controlling, atmosphere protecting Montreal Protocol. 

While the world waits for regulations to change the behaviour of the most recalcitrant fossil fuel producing nations and companies, it seems clear that the increasing availability of detection equipment will empower scientists, citizens and responsible companies to take action now. We are in a race against physics and so far we’re losing badly. Maybe our human ingenuity and dogged determination can help us make up some ground. 

To listen to the interview with methane hunters Sebastien Biraud and Sharon Wilson visit cleaningup.live, search for Cleaning Up on your podcast platform of choice, or watch the video on YouTube here.

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