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This is insane! A gas power plant in LA has been leaking over 10,000 cubic feet of #methane per hour for the past *2 YEARS*.
That's over 40,000 metric tonnes of CO2e every year until the leak is fixed - equivalent to adding 10,000 cars on the road. https://uk.reuters.com/article/usa-methane-california/los-angeles-natural-gas-plant-has-been-leaking-methane-for-years-idUKL1N2FS29W
That's over 40,000 metric tonnes of CO2e every year until the leak is fixed - equivalent to adding 10,000 cars on the road. https://uk.reuters.com/article/usa-methane-california/los-angeles-natural-gas-plant-has-been-leaking-methane-for-years-idUKL1N2FS29W
NASA team found the leak & altered utility. It's a peaker plant, so there's a chance that more gas leaked than used to generate power.
As an aside, #methane leaks from power plants are quite understudied compared to other parts of supply chain. https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/08/26/us/26reuters-usa-methane-california.html
As an aside, #methane leaks from power plants are quite understudied compared to other parts of supply chain. https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/08/26/us/26reuters-usa-methane-california.html
EDF did a study on a small number of power plants and found emissions as high as 0.34% - this might not seem like much, but US EPA estimates of total O&G methane emissions (excl. power plants) is only 1.7%, so just the power plants may add 20% more. http://blogs.edf.org/energyexchange/2017/03/16/study-emissions-from-power-plants-refineries-may-be-far-higher-than-reported/
The good news is that reducing #methane emissions is not hard and policies like leak detection and repair regulations actually work - I know because we went out and checked (before and after figures)! But they need to be stringent and sustained over years. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6ae1/meta
And advances in sensor systems, satellite technology, and machine learning make it easier & cheaper to find large leaks quickly. Methane leakage does not have to be as big a problem as it is - we know what the solutions are. We just need to enforce them. https://twitter.com/arvindpawan1/status/1171427279588610049?s=20
