European Space Agency satellite data show 60 percent higher than the national average of methane is leaking from a vast U.S. oil- and natural gas-producing region. ESA measured an average of 2.7 teragrams of methane emitted from May 2018 to March 2019 in the Permian Basin.
It is more than twice the estimates of the methane leaked from the region's oil and gas activities which is about 1.2 teragrams per year. It represents 3.7 percent of the total volume of natural gas being extracted from the Permian Basin.
Gas leak in Permian Basin
Permian Basin or also known as the West Texas Basin spans more than 160,000 square kilometers in western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. Noted for its rich petroleum, natural gas, and potassium deposits, the place owes its economic importance with these essential natural resources.
Yuzhong Zhang, an atmospheric scientist at Harvard University, and colleagues reported on April 22 in Science Advances that the 3.7 percent total volume extracted from Permian Basin the highest leak rate ever recorded in the U.S. Such rate is 60 percent higher than the national average.
The European Space Agency's Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument shows that the methane measurements over the United States have revealed high amounts of greenhouse gas emitted from the Permian Basin. This study demonstrates its ability to map atmospheric methane emissions from a region.
In the future, satellites could help measure methane leakage from many source regions all over the world, said the researchers.
According to a study, the gas leaked from the Permian Basin makes it nearly equal to the contribution to global warming as carbon dioxide emissions from all U.S. residences. Furthermore, it would meet the gas needs of seven million households in Texas if that same volume of methane were to be used instead for residential purposes, reported by Inside Climate News.
ESA's TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument
The TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument or TROPOMI for short, is the most advanced multispectral imaging spectrometer to date. It was developed jointly by ESA and the Netherlands Space Office.
It detects the unique fingerprints of gases in different spectrums through observing the sunlight that is scattered back to space by Earth's surface and atmosphere.
Topomi measures these gases in the ultraviolet and visible (270-500nm, near-infrared (675-775nm), and shortwave infrared (2305-2385 nm) which makes it apart from other satellites. Thanks to this, a wide range of pollutants like nitrogen dioxide, ozone, formaldehyde, sulfur dioxide, methane, and carbon monoxide can now be photographed, with a resolution as high as 7km x 3.5km, more accurately than ever before.
The mission is to detect air pollution over individual cities, monitor air quality, and provide critical information to services and decision-makers. With its global coverage, it will support global efforts to monitor pollution and improve our understanding of the atmosphere and its chemical and physical properties.
