Alberta Sets a Methane ‘Super-Emitter’ Record

[Oscar]

Alberta Sets a Methane ‘Super-Emitter’ Record

[ https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/12/11/Albe ... ign=111223 ]

The province fails to measure much of the potent greenhouse gas released by the fossil fuel industry, say scientists.

Andrew Nikiforuk - December 11, 2023 - The Tyee

McGill researchers directly measured, for the first time, methane emission rates at 238 abandoned and unplugged wells in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Photo by Larry MacDougal, the Canadian Press.

Alberta owns a new record. The province is home to an abandoned and unplugged gas well that leaks methane, an explosive greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere at the highest rate ever recorded in North America.

The super-emitter spews approximately nine cubic metres of gas per hour, or 78,840 cubic metres of gas a year. That’s enough to heat an average Canadian residence for nearly 34 years.

The leak is two to three times higher than the previously published record emission rate from an unplugged well in Pennsylvania in 2014.

McGill University researchers made the discovery while undertaking, for the first time, direct measurements of methane emission rates at 238 abandoned and unplugged wells in the oil-dependent provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. . . .

More . . .