The LA Times has a horror story that’s been going on since Oct. 23, when a Southern California Gas Co. natural gas well began leaking uncontrollably. The rate of leakage is estimated at 110,000 pounds an hour. That’s 55 tons, or the equivalent of 55,000 of these being emptied out every hour. It’s not burning, which is why it probably hasn’t gotten more coverage in the news, but 1,700 homes have been evacuated so far.
Rents in the Porter Ranch area are going up as people try to find housing — while still having to pay rent, mortgages, etc. on their homes in the affected zone around the well. It’s not just the fire risk — it’s also the other chemicals mixed in with the leak, including the rotten egg smell of hydrogen sulfide. The gas company estimates it could take another 3 months to seal the well.
The Environmental Defense Fund has video of the plume, made visible by using a camera that sees in the infrared range.
The leak is primarily methane, a green house gas roughly 25 times more potent than CO2 when it comes to global warming effects. This one leak alone accounts for 25% of natural gas leaks in California, and has been compared to the BP 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s just the biggest single problem in a much larger ongoing natural disaster.
...About one-fourth of the anthropogenic global warming we’re experiencing today is due to methane emissions, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. Leaks like the current one in California, it turns out, are a major contributor. In Pasadena, for instance, just miles from the leak in Aliso, investigators found one leak for every four miles:
So far, over 150 million pounds of methane have been released by the leak, which connects to an enormous underground containment system. Silva says that the cause of the leak is still unknown, but research by EDF has also revealed that more than 38 percent of the pipes in Southern California Gas Company’s territory are more than 50 years old, and 16 percent are made of made from corrosion- and leak-prone materials.
emphasis added
We keep getting told how clean natural gas is, how it’s much cleaner than coal — which is true, but… it’s like thinking you’re doing something about your health by switching from Camels industrial grade tobacco cigarettes to a ‘low nicotine’ brand with a filter. It’s not as bad for you, but it’s not exactly healthy either. And, if we are going to be pumping natural gas in increasing volumes through a network of aging, leaking pipes, we’re going to see more disasters like this as well as the continuing release of natural gas into the atmosphere. Either way not good.
What is also not good is the failure of the media to report on climate change. D.R. Tucker over at Washington Monthly’s Political Animal has put together a summary of just how bad coverage of climate change by the media is, and how reluctant it is to bring up the topic.
Remember three years ago, when then-CNN star Candy Crowley issued a weak mea culpa for her horrible failure to ask even one question about carbon pollution in the second presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney? The half-hearted nature of her apology notwithstanding, at least Crowley had the decency to acknowledge her sin of omission on emissions. What’s CNN’s excuse for not having their moderators ask any of the Republican presidential candidates about climate change in the “main-event” GOP debate on December 15? What’s ABC’s excuse for not having their moderators ask Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders about the climate crisis in last Saturday night’s Democratic debate?
The right wing loves to talk about the Great Climate Change Hoax, and the world-wide conspiracy of scientists and big governmental liberals behind it. The “liberal media” is another of their pet hobbyhorses. With all that, you’d think the media would be all over things like the gas leak and its role in climate change unless this is all just a coincidence, right?
