Methane is the main ingredient in natural gas, and it packs about 80 times the climate-warming power of carbon dioxide
Sharon Wilson sets up a thermal imaging camera near a compressor station in Arlington, Texas, Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2022. Wilson, a field advocate for Earthworks, which promotes alternatives to fossil fuels, uses the high-tech camera to detect methane leaks at oil and gas facilities. As Sharon Wilson pulled up to the BP site in Texas last June, production tanks towered above the windblown grass roughly 60 miles southeast of San Antonio. Cows and pumpjacks lined the roadsides.
Yet some of the best equipment for reducing emissions is already installed on oil and gas infrastructure, including at the BP site that Wilson filmed. 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.
The spewing methane that Wilson detected was among more than a dozen such scenes she documented over three days in the Eagle Ford Shale, an oil and gas field in south Texas. The methane poured from unlit or broken flares, storage tanks, vapor recovery units and compressors. She found it escaping at sites owned by companies including BP and Marathon Oil, both of which have pledged to reduce methane emissions.
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.
One reason it’s hard for the industry to control methane emissions is that many leaks come from the nation's vast gas distribution network. Millions of miles of pipelines are next to impossible to completely monitor. What's more, Gibson said, pipelines are often buried, making leaks harder to detect.
Malfunctioning flares like the one Wilson found are also a major contributor to methane pollution. Flaring is supposed to burn off 98% of the methane that would otherwise shoot directly into the atmosphere. But whether because of malfunctions or poor design,into the atmosphere, according to a study by the University of Michigan.
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