Gas fracking has be estimated to release much more methane than previous gas industry claims. The worst offender for Methane releases in the US is probably the natural gas field in the Four Corners area.
Methane anomaly in Four Corners area under investigation
By John Hollenhorst
DURANGO, Colo. — There's something in the air in the Four Corners region. Methane. Natural gas. Four research planes and more than two dozen scientists and technologists have descended on the region to figure out where it's coming from.
In the region where Utah rubs shoulders with three other states, satellite imagery detected the nation's worst methane hot spot.
“That’s a huge anomaly,” said Andrew Thorpe from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “But we don’t know exactly where the methane is coming from.”
The most obvious suspect is the natural gas industry. It's one of the most productive natural gas fields in the country.
Aubrey explained, “I think it was intriguing to us and deserving of more study.”
Planes operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are collecting airborne samples to quantify the methane.
Eric Kort, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Michigan, said they are also measuring the chemical fingerprints in the area.
When they detect a plume, researchers go in on the ground, in this case to a natural gas facility near Farmington, New Mexico.
A tripod-mounted infrared camera can detect and display the gas escaping from a leaking facility.
“And we have multiple examples of that,” Thorpe said. “We’ve seen more plumes than I can get to.”
The science teams have detected some gas seeping naturally from the ground. But one member of the team told KSL reporters off-camera the gas industry is "by far" the biggest source. Officially, though, the agencies won't reveal their findings until they've studied their data in detail.
Methane is at least 20 times more potent as a Greenhouse Gas (GHG) as CO2 is. That's what makes this Four Corners Methane plume so disturbing.
There's nothing "natural" about extracting Natural Gas using fracking. The local risks from Fracking are alarming enough. Now the catastrophic global risks from Fracking are starting to become more apparent.
Also see: Researchers to study large methane plume above the Four Corners