
Satellites reveal major new gas industry methane leaks - montalbano
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-methane-satellites-insi-idUSKBN23W3K4
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perfunctory
> But as satellite technology improves, researchers are starting to stress
> test the data - and the early results show leaky oil and gas industry
> infrastructure is responsible for far more of the methane in the atmosphere
> than previously thought.

This is such a common refrain in climate related news it's depressing.
Everything is always worse than _previously thought_.

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hpoe
Saw a similar article about the same thing on hn a few weeks ago. It pointed
out this is actually a good thing. This was leaking before and being factored
in to calculations but now we know where it is coming from and it turns out it
isn't going to require insande lifestyle changes or crazy new tax schemes to
cap this portion of methane emissions instead we can just retrofit the gas and
oil infrastructure, which is a lot less radical than other things we might
have to do.

Of course nothing the west does will make much of a difference as long as
China keeps escalating it's emissions.

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perfunctory
> we can just retrofit the gas and oil infrastructure

I have an issue with the word _just_. Just watch how gas industry jumps to the
opportunity to increase their costs.

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ip26
I keep wondering if the gas industry will turn on the major leakers- they give
everybody else a bad name, and perhaps if the public focuses on the major
leakers, producers who are doing a good job can then avoid scrutiny &
regulation altogether. Doesn't seem to have happened yet though.

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vernie
My sense is that methane leaks can get away with way more because they don't
have the same shocking imagery as oil leaks; am I wrong?

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mturmon
You have an interesting point. You can see methane leaks in some IR
photography, but it’s not as compelling as an oil plume in the water, or oil
coated shores. Video from the huge leak outside LA —

[https://www.scpr.org/news/2015/12/09/56118/video-porter-
ranc...](https://www.scpr.org/news/2015/12/09/56118/video-porter-ranch-
methane-leak-plume-made-visible/)

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watertom
The good news is the it's already too late to fix climate change.

The positive feedback loops are all running, and they won't stop until either
the earth exhausts all of it's captured greenhouse gases, or something big
happens like the eruption of a super volcano or a large meteor strike.

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atomi
I think the Earth will likely end up like Venus.

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njarboe
Over the history of the Earth, most of the CO2 in Earth's original atmosphere
and the CO2 released from volcanoes, have been sequestered by rocks, not
hydrocarbons and coal. Plate tectonics keeps creating fresh rock that can keep
absorbing CO2 over geologic timescales. Plus life has been depositing
carbonate rocks for the past 500 million years. Venus' high CO2 problem is due
to having no tectonics and no life. We are not likely to end up like Venus,
void of life, but we could make the atmosphere unbreathable for currently
evolved humans. I would suck if one had to have a breathing device to go
outside.

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oblib
You can smell it when driving through Oklahoma.

