Exclusive: Fixing a leak can be simple and equivalent to closing a coal power station, making lack of action maddening, say analysts
The world’s worst mega-leaks of the potent greenhouse gas methane in 2025 have been revealed by an analysis of satellite data.
The super-polluting plumes from oil and gas facilities have a colossal heating impact on the climate but often result from poor maintenance and can be simple to fix. The assessment found dozens of mega-leaks, each having the same global heating impact as a coal-fired power station.
The researchers said it was “maddening” that such easy action to fight the climate crisis was not being taken, and said people should be angry. Stopping the leaks can even be free, given that captured gas can be sold – methane is the “natural gas” that fires power stations.
I saw last week the Gas Leaks Project published some more data on this subject. The largest leak they found was something like 50-60 times higher than the EPA definition of a ‘super emitter’. Incredible really.
When compared to coal, methane is obviously much more efficient at energy generation. But this is true when we measure only the material burned, not when we look at the supply chain. With methane being 80-90 times more damaging to the atmosphere than the byproducts of burning coal, the end result is very tight once these leaks are accounted for.
So tight that, given the reporting requirements for methane leaks are ‘we trust you to use the honour system’, it’s more likely than not methane is doing more damage per resulting kilowatt than coal ever has. The equivalent ‘leaking’ for the coal supply chain is a lump of it falling off a train car and becoming a rock, to the benefit of only one guy. Rocks don’t tend to destroy the air, only naughty children’s Christmas mornings.
Of course this isn’t to suggest we build more coal infrastructure, just to point out that with these methane leaks being so prevalent, it’s not remotely as useful an energy source as has been believed. Remember a decade ago when ‘bridge fuel’ was mentioned in every conversation about clean energy? Honestly it’s shocking that these companies have deemed it cheaper to not even look for leaks than to keep the product they sell from floating away.
Here's an interesting quote from former Exxon mechanical engineer, Dar-Lon Chang:
"When they were marketing natural gas as clean energy, they didn’t really know what they were talking about because they were fixated on the idea that natural gas, when burned, produces half the carbon dioxide emissions of coal.
The industry was not monitoring methane leakage, so they did not have data about how much was leaking, and there wasn’t much appetite for management to measure methane leakage because if they found out there was a problem they would have to do something about it."
Source (I lost the timestamp, but it’s in part three, apologies)
Rocks don’t tend to destroy the air, only naughty children’s Christmas mornings.
It’s none too good for their lungs, either. Black Lung and all of that excitement.
Big Christmas has long perpetuated the jolly nature of the big guy. He’s rather diabolical though, having invented black lung in his workshop to cull the naughties. This is now the truth I choose to believe.
But don’t forget to pay extra the airlines for green fuel and save the planet…
Link to analysis - https://law.ucla.edu/news/spotlight-top-25-methane-plumes-2025-oil-gas
It’s a miracle we didn’t get extinct yet
There are people that can fix that any day at this point.
The researchers said it was “maddening” that such easy action to fight the climate crisis was not being taken, and said people should be angry. Stopping the leaks can even be free, given that captured gas can be sold – methane is the “natural gas” that fires power stations.
It’s maddening but expected.
When corporate decisions are based solely on pleasing investors, fixing a leak isn’t a priority. It might be a long-term investment that eventually pays for itself, but it comes with a front-loaded cost that diminishes the profits of the current quarter.
The only way to get them to care about the problem is if it’s actively unprofitable or comes with personal liability for the leadership, and the only way that will happen is with regulations.
In other words: “why about the survivability of the species when we can instead care about making our investor’s loins tingle?”
This is why we need waste to energy, you solve three problems at the same time. First is landfill methane emissions, second is land waste usage, third is energy production.
How does this compare to the methane from beef? (seriously, I’d like to know)
