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US Will Regulate Methane Leaks from Oil and Gas to Fight Climate Change (msn.com) 127

Posted by EditorDavid from the lessening-leaks dept.
Methane traps about 80 times as much heat as carbon, the Washington Post points out. So Friday at the UN's Climate Change conference, America's Environmental Protection Agency "unveiled an updated proposal to regulate methane seeping from pipes and other equipment maintained by the U.S. oil and gas industry, the country's biggest industrial source of the potent greenhouse gas." The proposal, which was partially released during last year's climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, would be the first time the federal government requires existing facilities to find and fix methane leaks. "These are critical, common sense standards that will protect workers, protect communities ... and make very sharp cuts in dangerous pollutants that threaten our planet," EPA Administrator Michael EPA [Administrator Michael] Regan said at a news conference in Egypt.

Under the proposal, the agency is seeking to compel oil and gas operators to use remote sensors to quickly address leaks and to require states to develop plans to curb methane from older wells. Gathering feedback from the industry over the past year, the EPA plans to offer companies more flexibility in how they monitor for leaks. Federal regulators will also establish a program to respond to blowouts and other "super-emitter" events, allowing third-party groups to help quickly identify major leaks. Officials say the regulations will reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by one percentage point below 2005 levels, adding to the roughly 40 percent cut expected to come from the Inflation Reduction Act passed earlier this year. A methane fee program included in that legislation would require oil and gas to pay for all emissions above a certain threshold — providing an incentive for operators to abide by the new regulations, Regan said.

The rule should also help the country fulfill the "Global Methane Pledge" — a U.S.-backed effort to curb emissions of the potent greenhouse gas 30 percent by 2030. Although more than 100 nations have signed on to the pledge since it was launched in 2021, a recent World Meteorological Organization report found that methane emissions this year are rising faster than ever before...Three of the world's t op five methane emitters — China, India and Russia — have not joined the initiative....

The United Nations on Friday also announced the launch of a public satellite system to detect major methane releases from the power, waste and agricultural sectors.
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US Will Regulate Methane Leaks from Oil and Gas to Fight Climate Change More

US Will Regulate Methane Leaks from Oil and Gas to Fight Climate Change

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  • it will last until the deniers have control (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cats-paw ( 34890 ) on Saturday November 12, 2022 @02:14PM (#63045871) Homepage

    No policy related to global warming can be allowed if your official party platform is that global warming is a Chinese hoax.

    By the way, this would be a really good example of both sides are NOT the same.

  • SCOTUS (Score:4, Informative)

    by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Saturday November 12, 2022 @02:14PM (#63045875)

    The Supreme Court already shut down the EPA's ability to unilaterally regulate CO2 emissions without authorization from Congress. It's doubtful that the EPA will do any better regulating methane leaks.

    • You'll note Congress is getting right on that, like one would expect in a Democracy.

    • Zero. Zero chance this will happen. The current Supreme Court wont even allow the EPA to pick it’s nose, let alone regulate a new industry. The only way this could possibly happen would be if a red state decides to pass a law. In which case, it’s clearly a states rights issue and god obviously wants it to happen.

    • Re:SCOTUS (Score:5, Informative)

      by slack_justyb ( 862874 ) on Saturday November 12, 2022 @03:02PM (#63045985)

      The Supreme Court shut down the EPA's authority as a broad question. Congress in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, explicitly gave the power to the EPA, thus reversing the Supreme Court ruling.

      The law literally grants the EPA to do exactly this. Because SCOTUS had indicated that "well the law is too vague". So Congress literally sat down and enumerated it all out since the court used the "too vague" argument.

      It's doubtful that the EPA will do any better regulating methane leaks

      The EPA literally has the explicit power to do this exact thing as of August 16th, 2022.

      • Re:SCOTUS (Score:5, Informative)

        by slack_justyb ( 862874 ) on Saturday November 12, 2022 @03:10PM (#63046003)

        And I just realize I forgot to mention it. It's under section 21001 of PL 117-169

        To carry out, using the facilities and authorities of the Commodity Credit Corporation, the agricultural conservation easement program under subtitle H of title XII of that Act (16 U.S.C. 3865 through 3865d) for easements or interests in land that will most reduce, capture, avoid, or sequester carbon dioxide, methane, or nitrous oxide emissions associated with land eligible for the program

        And literally indicates methane under the greenhouse gas term applicable to Title 40 of the law therein. Which is literally what the SCOTUS argument predicated on. That is under section 60101 of the law.

        (4) GREENHOUSE GAS.—The term ‘greenhouse gas’ means the air pollutants carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride.

        So, no, no, no, no, no. We already did this with SCOTUS. So Congress fucking pulled the teeth and explicitly gave the EPA the power. In short, THERE ARE ZERO QUESTIONS AS TO IF THE EPA CAN DO THIS. The answer is YES, absolutely this is an explicitly given power. Holy fucking shit, on my God, did Congress absolutely have to go fucking address this.

      • The law literally grants the EPA to do exactly this. Because SCOTUS had indicated that "well the law is too vague". So Congress literally sat down and enumerated it all out since the court used the "too vague" argument.

        Which is really how the government should work.

  • What about intentional releases? (Score:5, Informative)

    by laughingskeptic ( 1004414 ) on Saturday November 12, 2022 @02:26PM (#63045897)
    Shouldn't we start with banning intentional releases? Sensors for detecting leaks are all well and good, but a lot of releases like the 6" line purge by Texas Gas Service that sounded like a jet engine for an hour in my neighborhood a couple of weeks ago are done on purpose. They didn't tell the neighborhood first, so 911 had to field all of the calls. The 911 operators at least apparently knew this was coming since they had a reassuring script to read. Getting the required compressor vehicle and a queue of LNG trucks in place to capture this sort of release is not considered worth it at this time because there is no penalty for releasing hundreds of tons of methane into the air in Texas.
  • This is another example of regulating the emissions in the processes of extraction, production, transportation of fossil fuels, without addressing the need to seriously draw down production levels of fossil fuels.

    The needed 45% total GHG reductions needed by 2030 to give a chance of limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees C above pre industrial-revolution temperatures would obviously require around about a 45% drop in actual fossil fuel production and use.

    This kind of incremental regulations policy will not

  • Methane traps about 80 times as much heat as carbon

    What the fuck is this supposed to even mean, "editor david?"

    methane traps about 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide during its first 20 years in the atmosphere

    That's the actual quote. Fix your shit.

  • There are oil & gas fields releasing over 25000 kg of methane all over the world. That's per hour, by the way. Good to see that after all the diversions into subsidies that gives us at best incremental benefit in cutting greenhouse gases, the US is doing something that can have immediate and substantial impact and not just greenie points.

  • "What is the half-life of methane in the atmosphere?" If you don't know the answer, take a guess, and then look it up.
  • We need to make use of the Satellites to find the largest emitters, solve them and then keep working down.
    But need to do this all over the world. Sadly, far too many GHG emitters.
    • But that is exactly what is being done. Check this out [smithsonianmag.com]. Before these satellites, we were practically flying blind, with only the emitter's own ground-based detectors, (which of course costs them $$ if they detect anything, so...)
      • Yes, they are just getting started.
        OCO2 caused China to admit that they had been lying about their coal amount (though they claim that burning a lot more coal did not increase their CO2 emissions; sheesh). But CHina is not the only one. There are plenty of nations that are emitting a lot more than they either admit or realize (take your pick).
        Since only western nations allow for real close monitoring, we need a lot more birds to be watching and just catch the large emitters would made a huge difference.

  • "Three of the world's top five methane emitters — China, India and Russia — have not joined the initiative"

    That's it. These three countries rarely join any climate change initiative. They aren't going to allow their economies to be borked by anyone. Remember that China especially teaches their leaders to play Go instead of chess. Meanwhile, every third-world country on the planet bleats that they can't afford it and need to be subsidized which ultimately means that they want to milk the US a

  • The solution is to have the CEOs go out and check for leaks with a short-handled blowtorch.

    If they survive the process, they get to keep their jobs.

    Any other process is just jerking off while the world burns.

  • âoeChina, India and Russia â" have not joined the initiative..â

  • Does it regulate dead wells? (Score:3)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Sunday November 13, 2022 @09:33AM (#63047499) Homepage

    A lot of the leaks come from abandoned dead wells. To make it worse, often they get sold off from the original developer.

    It goes like this: Allen Company drills well, earns billions on it, becoming a $1 trillion dollar company. When it is now producing thousands of dollars instead of billions, it sells the well off to Bob Company, that is worth $10 million. Bob uses it for 10 years, then spend $900 to cap it. But the cap is not tight and leaks. For decades, because nobody is using it, maintaining it, or even checking it.

    Eventually the EPA finds out that Bob Company has 954 leaking wells. But it will cost Bob Company $20 million to fix all the wells. Bob company has $5 million insurance, and is only worth $10 million. Bankruptcy time. Nothing gets fixed.

  • This is just part of the war on gas and oil, and not really related to climate change.

  • If it leaks, let's just not use it. Electric stoves work great (despite what the "cooking with gas" campaign led us to believe). Heat pumps are great too, especially if you already have air conditioning.

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