As the federal government moves to tighten regulations on methane emissions, new assessments suggest the amount of the powerful greenhouse gas escaping into the atmosphere has been vastly underestimated.
A recent survey of oil and gas facilities in Canada found widespread methane emissions. Satellite images showed giant plumes of the gas escaping landfills. And published research suggests claims of success in curbing the gas may be partly the result of accounting changes, not actual reductions.
“There’s uncontrolled methane everywhere,” said Tim Doty, a former senior regulator for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, who last July used an infrared camera to track emissions at oil and gas facilities along the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. to look
Read more:
Beef a bigger challenge than oil and gas when it comes to tackling methane emissions in Canada
Read more
-
![]()
Beef a bigger challenge than oil and gas when it comes to tackling methane emissions in Canada
Brought to Canada by the David Suzuki Foundation, Doty surveyed 128 sites around Lloydminster, Alta., and Kindersley, Sask.
“Finding emissions was not a problem,” he said. “It was a problem with the number of hours in a day.
“I just can’t describe the magnitude of the ejection that we saw.”
Doty said he has seen flares, which are used to dispose of unwanted methane from oil wells, burn off far less than the 98 percent of the gas they are supposed to burn. He saw torches unlit, turning it into a methane vent. He has seen very few vapor recovery units that collect fugitive gases.
Doty is familiar with Texas’ Permian Basin, which he calls “the worst” for methane emissions.
“I wouldn’t say what I saw in Canada was much better,” he said.
A Montreal company called GHGSat uses six orbiting satellites to track methane emissions in real time. Just over the past week, it found two significant plumes of landfills in Quebec — one emitting more than a ton of methane per hour.
Read more:
Researchers are investigating new materials to cap inactive, leaking oil and gas wells
This is significantly more than the official figure, based on modeling and estimates. Actual measurements show that the estimates are low.
“The method of choice around the world has been estimates,” said Jean-Francois Gauthier, vice president of GHGSat. “It has been shown to be grossly inadequate.”
Elisabeth Besson, spokeswoman for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the industry is on track to cut methane emissions by 45 percent by 2025. She said emissions intensity was cut by a third between 2011 and 2019.
She said tank vents, pneumatics and pumps are being improved and venting and flaring are being reduced.
“CAPP and its members have made reducing emissions a priority and will continue to invest in innovation,” she wrote in an email.
Still, production volumes increased. Data from the European Union shows Canada is the only G7 country where methane emissions have increased since 1990, although the rate of increase is slowing.
Other studies suggest that methane, 83 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years, is underestimated.
A 2016 Carleton University study using overflights concluded that Alberta’s emissions were up to 50 percent higher than federal estimates. In February, the International Energy Agency warned that about 70 percent more methane is reaching the atmosphere worldwide than governments are reporting.
Read more:
Reducing methane emissions key to slowing climate change: UN report
Even Canada’s successes can be overstated. A peer-reviewed study last week suggested they could be at least partly the result of a change made in 2020 to how emissions are calculated.
Researchers from the Environmental Defense Fund found that a dramatic drop in Alberta’s emissions between 2019 and 2020 coincided with a new method to calculate them. When they applied the old method to the new data, the drop was much less.
“Does it just mean that the change in accounting resulted in an apparent decrease?” asked co-author Scott Seymour. “That’s what it turns out to be.”
The questions about how much methane Canada is pumping into the atmosphere come as the federal government expands regulation of the gas.
Canada is now developing regulations that apply to all natural gas facilities, reducing the use of flares, ensuring that those that exist are operating properly, increasing inspection and requiring equipment upgrades. The new rules must include comprehensive, consistent monitoring and reporting of emissions.
It can’t come soon enough, Doty said.
“I don’t think – and my experience tells me – that regulatory authorities have any idea of how much methane is entering the atmosphere. This is just an estimate.
“And I guarantee you, that’s an understatement.”
© 2022 The Canadian Press
