A new study published in the journal Nature found that the oil and gas industry could be emitting about three time the amount of methane than government estimates have shown. Methane, 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide, is a greenhouse gas that is warming the planet.
Although the Environmental Protection Agency has recorded estimates stating that 1.01% of gas that the industry produces is spilled into the air as methane. The researchers, however, estimate it’s actually 2.95%, with specific measurements ranging from around 1% at a site in Pennsylvania to nearly 10% at a site in New Mexico.
Places with higher percentage of methane released are typically those focused on oil, said Evan Sherwin, a study author and a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In Pennsylvania, the drillers were focused on producing natural gas, which caused much less leaked methane.
