A new front in the Obama war against fracking.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
Greenhouse gases are leaking from some US gas drilling sites at up to double the expected amounts, raising questions over the use of gas as a low-emissions fuel, according to researchers from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The report has implications for Australia’s coal seam gas industry, which is marketing itself as a source of clean energy…
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists stumbled upon the findings during an air monitoring experiment, when unusual levels of methane were detected and traced back to the gasfield.
”Our analysis suggests that the emissions of the [methane] we measured are most likely underestimated in current inventories and that the uncertainties attached to these estimates can be as high as a factor of two,” said their report, which is published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Geophysical Research.
Small extra amounts of methane can make significant differences to climate change because it is up to 100 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
It also has a shorter life span than carbon dioxide, meaning that most of the warming effect of gas released today is concentrated into the next two decades, a crucial period for avoiding future tipping points into dangerously rapid climate change.