In March, a SpaceX rocket launched MethaneSat, a joint U.S.-New Zealand endeavor, which joined a satellite network already detecting methane emissions from oil and gas production on Earth. The new satellite circles the Earth 15 times a day, detecting releases of the greenhouse gas from drilling sites and pipelines worldwide.
However, on the ground in the oilfields of Texas, we see that the promise of this technology will fall short of the rapid reductions of methane emissions needed to slow climate change.
America leads the world in using natural gas, burning almost twice as much as Russia, the second leading user. Natural gas is 85 to 90 percent methane, which is primarily produced by hydraulic fracturing cracking deep shales underground to release gas. Fracking’s success has made the U.S. the world’s leader in exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG). But it has a downside: in addition to releasing carbon dioxide when it is burned, methane itself is a much more powerful greenhouse gas as it produces 80 times the warming impact of carbon dioxide (albeit over a much shorter atmospheric lifetime). That explains why methane has contributed at least 30 percent of total global warming since the industrial revolution began. The U.S. oil and gas industry is the top emitter of methane, making it a major contributor to this global methane emergency.
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In response, this year the U.S. implemented new federal regulations designed to reduce oil and gas methane emissions. Unfortunately, the promise offered by these new regulations, and satellites like MethaneSat, very likely will not lead to these reductions, and will instead delay us from beginning to phase out fossil fuels—the only actual way to limit methane emissions.
Current tools available to track large sources of methane emissions from oil and gas production already indicate that the Permian oil region of Texas and New Mexico, some 86,000 square miles stretching from Big Spring, Tex., to Carlsbad, N.M., is a leading source of methane emissions. We have spent years tracking emissions on the ground with optical gas imaging cameras. And we know that even the huge advances that have occurred in the ability to track and identify emission sources haven’t stopped the industry’s practice of dumping methane in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, strong economic incentives prolong this process.
On a visit to the Permian in mid-March, near Midland, Tex., natural gas prices there were negative, meaning oil and gas producers have to pay to have their gas taken away instead of selling it, because of a basic supply and demand issue. As oil wells in the Permian also produce increasing amounts of gas, there is more gas being produced there than customers willing to buy it. In the Permian this year we saw several events of large emissions at oil and gas production facilities—emissions of methane that had negative economic value at the time. It was cheaper for the companies to vent it than sell it. That means we all end up paying the cost for their pollution.
This is a serious and perhaps fatal flaw in efforts to reduce and stop methane emissions and flaring in the Permian. Up to 40 percent of methane emissions could be captured if the industry invests in new equipment, according to the International Energy Agency and other groups. The IEA also estimated that for the worldwide industry the money from the sale of that captured methane would pay for the infrastructure investments. Except that, given the consistently low gas prices in the Permian, this incentive does not exist in Texas and New Mexico.
As the oil industry is motivated by profit, with no financial incentive to capture methane, such a solution is unlikely to happen. This was confirmed by a July 2023 study in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, which used satellite observations of methane emissions and concluded that periods of rapid growth in emissions correlated to “sharp reductions” in local natural gas prices.
In theory regulations should curb this behavior but history shows that enforcing regulations against the powerful oil and gas industry rarely succeeds. In 2021 New Mexico passed methane regulations that banned the routine flaring and venting of natural gas, a move that theoretically should have eliminated most methane emissions. In May an analysis by Capital and Main showed that in the years since the regulations were implemented methane emissions grew significantly worse.
Earlier this month the Environmental Protection Agency and the New Mexico Environment Department released the results of a joint inspection of 124 oil and gas facilities in New Mexico and found violations at 60 percent of the sites, including those owned by Exxon subsidiary XTO and oil major Chevron.
“The results of our federal and state oil and gas investigations are cause for alarm, with a meager 40 [percent] compliance rate,” James Kenney, New Mexico’s Environment Department cabinet secretary, said in a statement. “With the impacts of climate change ravaging our state and air quality degrading, we have no choice but to increase sanctions on polluters until we see a commitment to change behavior.”
The oil and gas industry has proven it will conduct business as usual when it comes to methane emissions, continuing to cause pollution in exchange for bigger profits. The public is just now getting access to satellite data on methane emissions, but the oil and gas industry has had the info for years from private companies. Instead of using that information to work with the government to stop polluting, the industry is supporting lawsuits challenging the new regulations.
You don’t need a satellite to see the problem. During multiple visits to the Permian this year, what we saw was worse than business as usual. We are concerned that current plans and policies to deal with this problem are set up to fail, an unacceptable outcome with the world’s climate at stake. The facts are clear that the only viable path to addressing methane emissions is strong and courageous intervention from government to rapidly build out clean energy resources while phasing out oil and gas production.
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.