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To put this in perspective, the 18300kg per hour from the Permian site is equivalent (over a 100 time horizon global warming potential) to a 500 Megawatt coal p

To put this in perspective, the 18300kg per hour from the Permian site is equivalent (over a 100 time horizon global warming potential) to a 500 Megawatt coal power plant's CO2 emissions (~1kg of CO2 per kWh of electricity) burning 24/7. Or, to put it another way, it accounts for the same emissions as about 0.3% of the entire US electricity grid.

grammers 4y ago
Wow, that's an important point. Nevertheless, it all adds up and keeps getting more.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bloudermilk 4y ago
It's hard to take this comment seriously when you haven't provided any of the relevant facts or sources to back this claim.
- Robotbeat 4y ago
  Easily googleable numbers for total us electricity, about 475GW averaged over the year, about 1000 grams of CO2 per kWh for coal also pretty easily googleable (and can be derived with just basic facts like the heating value of coal of 35MJ/kg for nice anthracite, the fact that anthracite coal is nearly all carbon, the relative atomic mass of carbon and oxygen and therefore 12 parts coal will release around 44 parts CO2, the fact that a coal power plant thermodynamic efficiency is around 35%, etc). (44/12)/(35MJ/kg * 0.35) in grams/kWh = 1078.grams/kWh. https://www.google.com/search?q=(44%2F12)%2F(35MJ%2Fkg+*+0.35)+in+grams%2FkWh https://www.google.com/search?q=(44%2F12)%2F(35MJ%2Fkg+*+0.3... Global warming potential of CO2 over 100 year timeframe also googleable. These figures are all basic and pretty objective. (You May quibble about me choosing 100year timeframe vs 20 year, but that’s fine… it is still about the same order of magnitude.) More complicated to measure methane’s atmospheric lifetime and infrared absorption proportions, but nothing really controversial. The EIA website also shows this stuff.
- zekrioca 4y ago
  https://www.eia.gov/coal/production/quarterly/co2_article/co2.html https://www.eia.gov/coal/production/quarterly/co2_article/co...
- l3uwin 4y ago
  Same for your baseless snark, maybe provide some facts yourself
  - throw10920 4y ago
    > you haven't provided any of the relevant facts or sources to back this claim It should be pretty clear that no sources are needed beyond using your eyes and looking at Robotbeat's comment - unless it's been edited, then it's rather obvious that no sources were provided, which was the claim being made. Saying "what are your sources" without further elaboration is typically a little rude and combative, but this kind of "no you" comment is flat-out ridiculous.
  - Cthulhu_ 4y ago
    They're not refuting the point or providing counterarguments, they're just questioning the lack of sources, which is valid. It's down to the person making a claim to provide evidence. If someone points out that there is no evidence provided, that someone doesn't need to provide evidence themselves. I mean yeah it's snarky, but it's a comment section on the internet.
neRok 4y ago
Just to confirm the numbers myself; 18,300kg methane per hour * 24 hours * 365 days = 160,308,000kg (~0.160 million metric tonnes). At 25x CO2 equivalent, that is 4,007,700,000kg (4 million metric tonnes). This link about US electricity generation: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 shows 767 "million metric tons" from coal, or 1.55 "billion metric tons" from all sources. 4 / 767 ~= 0.5%, so in the ballpark of the parent comment. Also possibly the second link is ton (~1016kg) vs tonne (1000kg), further tweaking the numbers. And just about the Permian basin, Wikipedia says it "accounts for 20% of US crude oil production and 7% of US dry natural gas production" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian_Basin_(North_America)#Current_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian_Basin_(North_America)#... So if all sites like this were measured, it might be more like 2.5% coal-use-equivalent?
- tremon 4y ago
  At 25x CO2 equivalent Where do you get the 25x from? Wikipedia says it's 80x-100x: > over a 20-year period, [methane] traps 84 times more heat per mass unit than carbon dioxide (CO2) and 105 times the effect when accounting for aerosol interactions (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane) After that 20 years, methane decomposes into CO2 so its long-term contribution is 3x CO2 equivalent (due to the higher mass after acquiring the oxygen atoms), so its lifetime CO2 equivalence can be higher or lower than 25x depending on which timescale you're looking at. Is the 25x an oft-used figure in the industry/literature?
  - mort96 4y ago
    The 100 year global warming potential seems to be a pretty common way to compare greenhouse gases. It makes sense when you discuss things like, say, limiting warming to N degrees by 2100 or long-term climate change, but I agree that the caveat that "it's much, much, much worse on shorter time scales" should be emphasized way more than it is. Especially given the current situation.
  - neRok 4y ago
    It was just my first google result for "methane co2 equivalent", and so the number came from this link (am Australian) - https://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/NGER/About-the-National-Greenhouse-and-Energy-Reporting-scheme/Greenhouse-gases-and-energy https://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/NGER/About-the-Natio... You are right that there are different valid factors to consider, as can be seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential But also, 25x vs 100x is a 4x difference, which doesn't affect the comparison to coal that much (it's still single digit % "at best").
mort96 4y ago
It's even worse than that, since that's the effect over 100 years and we don't have 100 years. Over 20 years, 1 ton of methane is equivalent to about 80 tons of CO2 (compared to ~25 tons over 100 years), so about 3x worse than your numbers.
- trashtester 4y ago
  By what parameters do you think we don't have 100 years? When I read the IPCC reports, it seems that during the next 50 years, we may see moderate increases in temperatures (1-3C, depending on scenario). While this may be bad in some areas, it's nothing compared to the worst case scenarios for 2200-2300 (up to 12C). A temperature increase of ~2C may at worst be comparable with a large pandemic or even WW2, just with the damage spread out over 2-3 generations. 12C, on the other hand, will leave large parts of the globe uninhabitable without technological assistance, and could wipe out a non-trival fraction of humanity if our tech doesn't keep up (still less hostile than Mars or Venus, though). But for the scenarios that go 150+ years into the future, methane is a pretty small contributor compared to CO2.
  - mort96 4y ago
    Sorry, I shouldn't have written it like that. I suppose what I really mean is that it makes sense to look at the CO2 equivalent over a 100 year period when thinking about long-term climate change, but we're going to see large effects in the coming decades. The full sentence I should've written is something like, we don't have 100 years before we start seeing major changes, so the short-term impact should be a part of the conversation.
    - trashtester 4y ago
      > we don't have 100 years before we start seeing major changes I think perhaps (please correct me if you think I'm wrong) you're overestimating short term changes. Environmentalists tend to blame every disaster, flood or hurricane on climate change. This is like a mirror image to how the climate change deniers use every cold winter (or summer) as proof that climate change is a hoax. If you look at the data, the current effects of climate change is somewhere in the middle. At present, one could argue that the net effects of climate change are actually slightly positive. Deaths due to heat is going up slightly, but deaths due to cold is going down faster than the deaths due to heat is going up. By 2050, the adverse effects of the warming is probably greater than the positive ones, depending on scenario. Still, provided there is some technological and economic growth over the next 100 years, people living in 2122 will most likely be wealther (and more food secure), healthier and safer than people that live today, even if the improvement will be less than over 1922-2022. > so the short-term impact should be a part of the conversation. But by then, the impact of methane released today is already much LESS than the 25x quoted. More like 10x, and falling rapidly from there. Also, there is the fact that changing policies takes time. One might even argue that there is an advantage to having a component to the warming where we will actually get a somewhat "quick" effect from cutting. Methane will contribute quite a bit to warming in the very short term, but as soon as we are able to stop releases, the effects will be gone within a generation, give or take (while CO2 hangs around for centuries).
zelos 4y ago
Thank you: kind of incredible that the author of the article didn't think to include that kind of information.
gowings97 4y ago
"Or, to put it another way, it accounts for the same emissions as about 0.3% of the entire US electricity grid." And what % of US energy needs does that site supply to the grid?
- Robotbeat 4y ago
  None comes from the leaks themselves. That’s just wasted energy.

grammers 4y ago

Wow, that's an important point. Nevertheless, it all adds up and keeps getting more.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bloudermilk 4y ago

It's hard to take this comment seriously when you haven't provided any of the relevant facts or sources to back this claim.

Robotbeat 4y ago
Easily googleable numbers for total us electricity, about 475GW averaged over the year, about 1000 grams of CO2 per kWh for coal also pretty easily googleable (and can be derived with just basic facts like the heating value of coal of 35MJ/kg for nice anthracite, the fact that anthracite coal is nearly all carbon, the relative atomic mass of carbon and oxygen and therefore 12 parts coal will release around 44 parts CO2, the fact that a coal power plant thermodynamic efficiency is around 35%, etc). (44/12)/(35MJ/kg * 0.35) in grams/kWh = 1078.grams/kWh. https://www.google.com/search?q=(44%2F12)%2F(35MJ%2Fkg+*+0.35)+in+grams%2FkWh https://www.google.com/search?q=(44%2F12)%2F(35MJ%2Fkg+*+0.3... Global warming potential of CO2 over 100 year timeframe also googleable. These figures are all basic and pretty objective. (You May quibble about me choosing 100year timeframe vs 20 year, but that’s fine… it is still about the same order of magnitude.) More complicated to measure methane’s atmospheric lifetime and infrared absorption proportions, but nothing really controversial. The EIA website also shows this stuff.
zekrioca 4y ago
https://www.eia.gov/coal/production/quarterly/co2_article/co2.html https://www.eia.gov/coal/production/quarterly/co2_article/co...
l3uwin 4y ago
Same for your baseless snark, maybe provide some facts yourself
- throw10920 4y ago
  > you haven't provided any of the relevant facts or sources to back this claim It should be pretty clear that no sources are needed beyond using your eyes and looking at Robotbeat's comment - unless it's been edited, then it's rather obvious that no sources were provided, which was the claim being made. Saying "what are your sources" without further elaboration is typically a little rude and combative, but this kind of "no you" comment is flat-out ridiculous.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  They're not refuting the point or providing counterarguments, they're just questioning the lack of sources, which is valid. It's down to the person making a claim to provide evidence. If someone points out that there is no evidence provided, that someone doesn't need to provide evidence themselves. I mean yeah it's snarky, but it's a comment section on the internet.

neRok 4y ago

Just to confirm the numbers myself; 18,300kg methane per hour * 24 hours * 365 days = 160,308,000kg (~0.160 million metric tonnes). At 25x CO2 equivalent, that is 4,007,700,000kg (4 million metric tonnes). This link about US electricity generation: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 shows 767 "million metric tons" from coal, or 1.55 "billion metric tons" from all sources. 4 / 767 ~= 0.5%, so in the ballpark of the parent comment. Also possibly the second link is ton (~1016kg) vs tonne (1000kg), further tweaking the numbers. And just about the Permian basin, Wikipedia says it "accounts for 20% of US crude oil production and 7% of US dry natural gas production" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian_Basin_(North_America)#Current_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian_Basin_(North_America)#... So if all sites like this were measured, it might be more like 2.5% coal-use-equivalent?

tremon 4y ago
At 25x CO2 equivalent Where do you get the 25x from? Wikipedia says it's 80x-100x: > over a 20-year period, [methane] traps 84 times more heat per mass unit than carbon dioxide (CO2) and 105 times the effect when accounting for aerosol interactions (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane) After that 20 years, methane decomposes into CO2 so its long-term contribution is 3x CO2 equivalent (due to the higher mass after acquiring the oxygen atoms), so its lifetime CO2 equivalence can be higher or lower than 25x depending on which timescale you're looking at. Is the 25x an oft-used figure in the industry/literature?
- mort96 4y ago
  The 100 year global warming potential seems to be a pretty common way to compare greenhouse gases. It makes sense when you discuss things like, say, limiting warming to N degrees by 2100 or long-term climate change, but I agree that the caveat that "it's much, much, much worse on shorter time scales" should be emphasized way more than it is. Especially given the current situation.
- neRok 4y ago
  It was just my first google result for "methane co2 equivalent", and so the number came from this link (am Australian) - https://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/NGER/About-the-National-Greenhouse-and-Energy-Reporting-scheme/Greenhouse-gases-and-energy https://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/NGER/About-the-Natio... You are right that there are different valid factors to consider, as can be seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential But also, 25x vs 100x is a 4x difference, which doesn't affect the comparison to coal that much (it's still single digit % "at best").

mort96 4y ago

It's even worse than that, since that's the effect over 100 years and we don't have 100 years. Over 20 years, 1 ton of methane is equivalent to about 80 tons of CO2 (compared to ~25 tons over 100 years), so about 3x worse than your numbers.

trashtester 4y ago
By what parameters do you think we don't have 100 years? When I read the IPCC reports, it seems that during the next 50 years, we may see moderate increases in temperatures (1-3C, depending on scenario). While this may be bad in some areas, it's nothing compared to the worst case scenarios for 2200-2300 (up to 12C). A temperature increase of ~2C may at worst be comparable with a large pandemic or even WW2, just with the damage spread out over 2-3 generations. 12C, on the other hand, will leave large parts of the globe uninhabitable without technological assistance, and could wipe out a non-trival fraction of humanity if our tech doesn't keep up (still less hostile than Mars or Venus, though). But for the scenarios that go 150+ years into the future, methane is a pretty small contributor compared to CO2.
- mort96 4y ago
  Sorry, I shouldn't have written it like that. I suppose what I really mean is that it makes sense to look at the CO2 equivalent over a 100 year period when thinking about long-term climate change, but we're going to see large effects in the coming decades. The full sentence I should've written is something like, we don't have 100 years before we start seeing major changes, so the short-term impact should be a part of the conversation.
  - trashtester 4y ago
    > we don't have 100 years before we start seeing major changes I think perhaps (please correct me if you think I'm wrong) you're overestimating short term changes. Environmentalists tend to blame every disaster, flood or hurricane on climate change. This is like a mirror image to how the climate change deniers use every cold winter (or summer) as proof that climate change is a hoax. If you look at the data, the current effects of climate change is somewhere in the middle. At present, one could argue that the net effects of climate change are actually slightly positive. Deaths due to heat is going up slightly, but deaths due to cold is going down faster than the deaths due to heat is going up. By 2050, the adverse effects of the warming is probably greater than the positive ones, depending on scenario. Still, provided there is some technological and economic growth over the next 100 years, people living in 2122 will most likely be wealther (and more food secure), healthier and safer than people that live today, even if the improvement will be less than over 1922-2022. > so the short-term impact should be a part of the conversation. But by then, the impact of methane released today is already much LESS than the 25x quoted. More like 10x, and falling rapidly from there. Also, there is the fact that changing policies takes time. One might even argue that there is an advantage to having a component to the warming where we will actually get a somewhat "quick" effect from cutting. Methane will contribute quite a bit to warming in the very short term, but as soon as we are able to stop releases, the effects will be gone within a generation, give or take (while CO2 hangs around for centuries).

zelos 4y ago

Thank you: kind of incredible that the author of the article didn't think to include that kind of information.

gowings97 4y ago

"Or, to put it another way, it accounts for the same emissions as about 0.3% of the entire US electricity grid." And what % of US energy needs does that site supply to the grid?

Robotbeat 4y ago
None comes from the leaks themselves. That’s just wasted energy.