While the EPA contends that its GHGRP reported data represents the majority of emissions in the United States, unmonitored, unknown leakage coupled with the exclusion of untold ‘smaller’ emitters below the 25,000 metric tons CO2e threshold are significant deficiencies. In short, the EPA data is less than comprehensive; any additional reporting would necessitate worse climate impacts, not better¹². But even analysis of the EPA data as it stands does not deliver a decisive victory to the oil and gas industry — quite the contrary. At best, the industry is clocking in very slight incremental improvements on its methane variable, all the while intensifying overall emissions within fracking basins. This level of performance is no better than the perpetual maintenance of a climate disaster.

Reason III — The Super Emitters

We didn’t focus on it because we weren’t sure if it was a true signal or an instrument error. — Research scientist Christian Frankenberg of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Pasadena, California.

The Four Corners Debacle

A decade ago, the United States was essentially flying blind in its attempts at top down methane analysis. By its own admission, NASA was unable to verify a persistent methane anomaly, dating 2003–09, known now as the Four Corners hotspot¹³. Measured via the European Space Agency’s Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Chartography (SCIAMACHY) instrument, the Four Corners hotspot, aptly named for the intersection of 4 southwestern states — Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico — consistently exhibited values nearly 3.5 times averaged background concentrations. Predating widespread fracking, researchers at the time were unable to draw the correlation that is now fully understood:

the methane emissions should not be attributed to fracking but instead to leaks in natural gas production and processing equipment in New Mexico’s San Juan Basin, which is the most active coalbed methane production area in the country.

The Four Corners methane hot spot — SCIAMACHY instrument data, NASA, JPL-Caltech, University of Michigan.

The Aliso Canyon Blowout

Shortly after Nasa’s Four Corners research was published in 2014, the public’s collective Veil of Ignorance surrounding ‘natural’ gas was fully pierced. On October 23, 2015, the Aliso Canyon ‘blowout’ in Southern California, alternatively referred to as a ‘leak’, was ‘discovered’. Not until mid-February of the following year was the ‘leak’ permanently plugged¹⁴. The extent of the climate impact was nothing less than climate disaster — all caught on [infrared] film for the public to see. In total, An estimated 97,100 tonnes of methane and 7,300 tonnes of ethane were directly released into the atmosphere¹⁵. What Exxon Valdez and Deep Water Horizon are to oil, Aliso Canyon is to ‘natural’ gas.

Belmont County, Ohio, 2018 — ‘Extreme Methane Leakage’

Fast forward exactly two years (February 15th, 2018), rural Belmont County, Ohio awakes to its own version of Aliso Canyon — the Powhatan Point XTO Well Pad Explosion.

The damaged well platform released an estimated 120 tons of methane per hour across 20 days, resulting in a massive emission increase — more than European countries like France, Spain and Norway emit over the course of a year. Yet in Ohio — an epicenter of the nation’s fracking frenzy — this accident accounted for just 25% of the state’s total annualized oil and gas methane emissions.

Regardless, in the emerging era of refined top down instrumentation, the 20 day release did not escape notice. Sure enough, the TROMPOMI instrument picked up the massive release on its 13th day, 27 February, 2018.