Last month, Bloomberg Green reported that the state of Louisiana was investigating a massive plume of methane captured via satellite Jan. 21 that stretched across 56 miles. According to the outlet, the burst of greenhouse gas observed by energy analytics firm Kayrros SAS was the equivalent of the annual emissions of 1,900 cars and was the most powerful such plume in the U.S. seen by satellite since October. That plume observed in October was probably the one hovering over Alabama that Bloomberg Green proclaimed had “mystified experts.” At the time of its Oct. 22 release, it was the fifth-largest detected by the same satellite that captured the Louisiana plume. And nobody knows who’s responsible for either emission. The Louisiana emission occurred near pipelines and facilities owned by Boardwalk Pipelines LP and Kinder Morgan Inc.—both of which claimed no fault—and Energy Transfer LP, which declined to comment. Kinder Morgan also owns a pair of gas pipelines and gas wells along with coal mines that are located near where the Alabama plume was discovered. The company claimed the methane emissions were not its fault and that it had ”no active mining [operation] in the area.”
While it’s certainly worth taking a trip down memory lane to consider all the massive plumes of methane seen by satellite over the past few months (the cause behind a plume discovered above a Hilcorp Energy Co. gas well in New Mexico on Sept. 21 remains a mystery too), let’s not forget how little accountability is available and awareness is made of this pollution. Regardless of operational status, abandoned wells across the country have found to have been responsible for emitting 281,000 tons of methane in 2018 alone. Methane plumes were also found to have been a side effect of routine maintenance and accidents in the oil and gas sector. According to a recent study released by the journal Science, “these sources represent as much as 12% of global methane emissions from oil and gas production and transmission.” Methane emissions from oil and gas companies alone add up to around 197 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year in the U.S., according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report notes just how damaging rampant methane emissions can be, citing methane as a major factor in lower crop yields and rising global temperatures. According to the UN Environmental Program (UNEP), “methane is the primary contributor to the formation of ground-level ozone” and “80 times more potent than carbon dioxide.” The Louisiana plume was so intense, Kayrros SAS found that it took an estimated 105 tons of methane emitted per hour to create it. The Alabama plume saw bursts of methane emitted at about 58 tons per hour, while the New Mexico plume was created by a sustained emission of methane at about 39 tons per hour.
None of this is new, as you can see by the interactive map depicting hundreds of plumes emitted over the course of 2019 and 2020. For every location that lacks a number of tons of methane per hour emitted, Kayrros SAS says it simply doesn’t know just how strong the blast was, but that it was large enough to be observed by satellite. Over the course of the next few months—and likely even longer—I’ll be digging into these freak emissions incidents to locate what oil and gas facilities they’re near (active and not) that fall within and just outside of Kayrros SAS’ 15-kilometer uncertainty range as well as which communities are impacted. For example, the lone plume in California was observed near an agriculture-heavy area that includes cattle ranches and farms as well as copious oil and gas operators like Chevron and Aera Energy, the latter of which is jointly owned by Shell and ExxonMobil. Just over 17% of residents in Fresno county live in poverty, and more than half of residents identify as Latino or Hispanic. The city of Fresno itself has such extreme disparities that Fresno State launched an Unequal Neighborhoods program to study them.
The amount of plumes clouding the atmosphere in the U.S. is nothing compared to the amount of plumes observed from space above countries like Russia, China, and Turkmenistan. The European Space Agency (ESA), which operates the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite that typically logs methane plumes, earlier this year urged the Biden administration to continue its work on reducing emissions and monitoring the greenhouse gases that do enter the atmosphere. The ESA lauded Biden for making good on a campaign promise to rejoin the Paris Agreement and even cited the work done during the COP26 to ensure that countries made accelerated efforts to reach net-zero. “Limiting the amount of greenhouse gases we pump into the atmosphere is absolutely essential to achieving these goals and to averting disaster. As nations around the world take steps to drastically curb carbon emissions, measuring and monitoring carbon dioxide and methane gases in our atmosphere is key to helping nations show that they are accomplishing their emission reduction goals,” the ESA noted.