<
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/05/03/fossil-fuel-companies-build-structures-to-hide-methane-flaring-from-satellites/>
"For decades, fossil fuel companies have tried to bamboozle the public into
thinking that the methane they sell under the deceptive name “natural gas” is a
clean “bridge fuel” to the future. It is not. Although it does burn cleaner
than coal, methane itself is 80 times more destructive to the atmosphere than
carbon dioxide. Humans have been rigorously monitoring the so-called Keeling
Curve that tracks the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for decades, but
until quite recently no one has been monitoring the amount of methane entering
the atmosphere as well.
But now there are satellites that can perform that task, and they have found
the amount of unburned methane being released from drilling sites, pipelines,
distribution lines, and even inside buildings is orders of magnitude greater
than previously known. The industry has been characteristically cavalier about
those emissions, calling it simply a cost of doing business, even though their
product is a significant factor in global heating. They insist that trying to
capture all of the methane that comes out of the ground is simply too expensive
and would ruin their business model. If methane were gold, we can be pretty
sure ways would be found to capture it all, but because it is invisible and
odor-free, it is treated as a commodity that can be recklessly wasted.
There are two ways to dispose of excess methane at the wellhead. Either release
it directly into the atmosphere — known as venting — or burn it — known as
flaring. If it is released freely, satellites will detect it. But flaring,
which uses a giant Bunsen burner like the one we used in chemistry class in
high school, converts the methane to carbon dioxide and other waste products.
The flame is large enough to be seen by satellites in space, so the fossil fuel
companies have come up with a diabolical workaround. It is too expensive to
capture the methane, but there is plenty of money to build large shelters over
those flaring operations to hide what they are doing from those satellites."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
