Methane Clips: July 29, 2022

GENERAL NEWS

How The Senate Climate Bill Could Slash Emissions By 40 Percent. According to E&E News, “A surprise climate and energy agreement between Sen. Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer promises a large U.S. emissions cut of 40 percent that seemed out of reach just a few days ago. The announcement marked a startling reversal, breathing new life into the prospects for federal climate legislation two weeks after talks between the two senators broke down. The agreement would offer President Joe Biden a major political victory just before the midterm elections by delivering on his campaign pledge to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to boost clean energy deployment. ‘The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 will make a historic down payment on deficit reduction to fight inflation, invest in domestic energy production and manufacturing, and reduce carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030,’ Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Manchin (D-W.Va.) said in a statement. The bill includes $60 billion to boost domestic clean energy manufacturing, including $30 billion in production tax credits for solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and critical mineral processing. It also offers lower- and middle-income motorists a $7,500 tax credit for clean vehicles, while states and electric utilities would see $30 billion in grants and loans to expand clean energy. The bill also includes $60 billion for environmental justice communities and a fee on methane emissions that will rise to $1,500 a ton by 2026. Biden praised the deal last night, saying it’s ‘the action the American people have been waiting for.’” [E&E News, 7/28/22 (=)]

Seven Key Provisions In The Climate Deal. According to The New York Times, “The climate and tax deal announced by Senate Democrats on Wednesday would pump hundreds of billions of dollars into programs designed to speed the country’s transition away from an economy based largely on fossil fuels and toward cleaner energy sources. The legislation, called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, is a far cry from the ambitious multi-trillion-dollar domestic policy and tax proposal that President Biden sought and that Democrats in Congress spent more than a year laboring to pass. [...] Cracking down on methane The bill would also impose a fee on excess methane leaking from oil and gas wells, pipelines and other infrastructure. Methane is a particularly powerful greenhouse gas: While it dissipates more quickly than carbon dioxide, it is many times more potent when it comes to heating the atmosphere. Polluters would pay a penalty of $900 per metric ton of methane emissions that exceed federal limits in 2024, increasing to $1,500 per metric ton in 2026.” [New York Times, 7/28/22 (=)]

Massive Methane Leaks In Texas Oil And Gas Fields Speed Climate Change As Governments Fail To Act. According to Anchorage Daily News, “To the naked eye, the Mako Compressor Station outside the dusty West Texas crossroads of Lenorah appears unremarkable, similar to tens of thousands of oil and gas operations scattered throughout the oil-rich Permian Basin. What’s not visible through the chain-link fence is the plume of invisible gas, primarily methane, billowing from the gleaming white storage tanks up into the cloudless blue sky. The Mako station, owned by a subsidiary of West Texas Gas Inc., was observed releasing an estimated 870 kilograms of methane – an extraordinarily potent greenhouse gas — into the atmosphere each hour. That’s the equivalent impact on the climate of burning seven tanker trucks full of gasoline every day. But Mako’s outsized emissions aren’t illegal, or even regulated. And it was only one of 533 methane ‘super emitters’ detected during a 2021 aerial survey of the Permian conducted by Carbon Mapper, a partnership of university researchers and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The group documented massive amounts of methane venting into the atmosphere from oil and gas operations across the Permian, a 250-mile-wide bone-dry expanse along the Texas-New Mexico border that a billion years ago was the bottom of a shallow sea. Hundreds of those sites were seen spewing the gas over and over again. Ongoing leaks, gushers, going unfixed.” [Anchorage Daily News, 7/28/22(=)]