An international study involving CNRS and CEA researchers and the company Kayrros has uncovered hundreds of major methane releases linked to global oil and gas extraction activities.
An international study involving CNRS and CEA researchers and the company Kayrros has uncovered hundreds of major methane releases linked to global oil and gas extraction activities. The team of scientists has shown that limiting volumes released would mitigate climate effects and save money—billions of dollars for the main fossil-fuel-producing countries. Their study is published in Science (4 February 2022).
A major contributor to climate change, methane (CH4) has a global warming potential approximately 30 times higher than that of CO2, over a 100-year period. One quarter of anthropogenic emissions of this greenhouse gas originate in worldwide extraction of coal, oil, and natural gas (of which methane is the main component). A study in 2018 already revealed that official US inventories greatly underestimated actual emissions from oil and gas extraction and distribution activities.1 The observed discrepancy is apparently due to undeclared sporadic releases of large quantities of methane by industry operators.
An international research team led by the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (CNRS / CEA / UVSQ), in cooperation with the firm Kayrros,2 have achieved a world first by completing a global tally of the largest emissions of methane into the atmosphere by the fossil-fuel industry. These may be accidental or the result of intentional venting associated with maintenance operations, which account for very large releases. To obtain their data, the researchers methodically analysed thousands of daily images generated by the ESA’s Sentinel-5P satellite over a two-year period. This allowed them to map 1,800 methane plumes around the globe, of which 1,200 were attributed to fossil-fuel extraction. They deem the impact of such releases on the climate comparable to that of 20 million vehicles on the road for one year.
Read more at CNRS
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