https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/blowout-turned-an-ohio-gas-well-into-a-methane-super-emitter/
Blowout turned an Ohio gas well into a methane ‘super-emitter’
Dec. 16, 2019
By Steven Mufson
The Washington Post
Using satellite data, scientists have confirmed that a 2018 blowout
turned a natural gas well in eastern Ohio into a “super-emitter,”
leaking more methane in 20 days than all but three European nations emit
over an entire year.
Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, escaped from the well at a rate twice
as fast as the Aliso Canyon leak in California in 2015, a four-month
incident that became the nation’s largest accidental release of methane,
according to the group of 15 scientists.
The blowout in rural Ohio took place Feb. 15, 2018, at a well owned by
XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, and it took 20 days to get it
under control. The well had been “fracked,” or hydraulically fractured,
before the blowout took place. Workers had been completing the well,
according to news reports at the time, a job made more difficult by
heavy rains and a crane that collapsed when the explosion took place.
“We deeply regret this incident occurred and are committed to
identifying and managing risks associated with our activities to prevent
recurrence,” Julie King, a spokeswoman for ExxonMobil, said in an email.
The new report gauges that the mishap spewed 60 kilotons of methane into
the atmosphere – five times the amount ExxonMobil estimated.
“We are eager to learn more about their study,” King said. “ExxonMobil
is working with government laboratories, universities, NGOs and other
industry participants to identify the most cost-effective and
best-performing technology, including satellites, that can be adopted by
all producers to detect, repair and accurately measure methane.”
The accident shines a light on the use of natural gas, which has spread
widely, especially in the United States, thanks to the sharp increase in
fracking and to opposition to coal-fired power. Natural gas emits only
half the greenhouse gas as coal at the point of combustion.
But leaks of methane throughout the production system can undercut the
advantage of natural gas and can drive emissions back up to dangerous
levels.
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, up to 25 times as potent, pound
for pound, as carbon dioxide, according to Environmental Protection
Agency estimates.
Major oil companies have said that they are improving their ability to
capture methane and seal leaks, yet many environmental groups say
difficult-to-detect leaks – from the wellhead to the processing plant to
the distribution pipes – continue to offset the advantages of natural gas.
The blowout in Ohio was measured by the Tropospheric Monitoring
Instrument, a satellite that at the time was doing a routine global
survey of methane emissions, scientists said in an article published in
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The satellite was able to observe the well on the 13th day of the
blowout, and it calculated the changes in well pressure and the speed of
emissions.
“To combat climate change and build a low-carbon economy, being able to
accurately monitor greenhouse gas emissions is an essential
prerequisite,” the study said. Its authors said that the study shows how
methane emissions “from large gas leakages due to accidents in the oil
and gas sector can escape the greenhouse gas emission accounting system,
adding a significant source of uncertainty to the annual estimates
reported to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.”
“Satellite-based instruments that regularly scan the entire globe
provide a means to detect and quantify methane emissions, which are
challenging to measure,” said the article, whose lead author was
Sudhanshu Pandey of the SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research.
The group said its paper “highlights the importance of accidental
emissions for regional and national-scale emission reporting and
inventories, as the lack of incorporating such emissions can lead to
significant underestimation of overall emissions.”
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