Methane regulations impact gas recovery
The Biden administration on Tuesday announced a proposal to regulate methane from oil and gas sources, touting the rules as having the potential to produce immediate emissions cuts and hoping the proposal will bolster U.S. clout at the ongoing U.N. climate conference.
Methane, the main component of natural gas, is less known than carbon, the biggest contributor to climate change. But emissions from methane are driving more than 25% of global warming, mostly caused purposely or accidentally by leaks during production and transportation of natural gas. Those methane leaks could offset the carbon reduction benefits of the switch in recent years from coal to natural gas and renewables for generating electricity in the United States.
Combating methane emissions can have a more immediate effect than cutting carbon because methane is more than 80 times more potent than carbon over a 20-year period, although it degrades faster in the atmosphere compared to carbon, which lingers for 100 years.
Oil and gas companies are motivated to limit leaks of methane voluntarily because they can sell the gas they save for profit, but regulations would ensure uniform compliance, proponents say.
The new rules from the Environmental Protection Agency, importantly, will apply for the first time to oil and gas infrastructure built before 2015 — the vast majority of well sites in existence today — in addition to updating rules for new sources imposed by the Obama administration. The EPA proposes to create a monitoring program requiring companies to find and fix leaks.
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I suspect if there was a cost-effective way to do this it would have been done by now. Companies would have the profit incentive to do it. Perhaps they will now find a way. There seems to be no program aimed at eliminating the gas released by the Biden administration or the President.
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