A new study shows that strong methane point sources contribute an average of 40% emissions across multiple basins in the US. The study released by Carbon Mapper, University of Arizona, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Arizona State University, and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) reveals that a small number of emitters release disproportionately high methane.
Carbon Mapper is a non-profit organization focused on facilitating timely action to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. It uses a range of geospatial tools to detect and study about various pollutants.
The research team used a tiered observing systems to quantify the net emission of each of the companies, with point sources emitting greater than 10kg of methane per hour deemed to be super-emitters. A total of 3000 individual high emission point sources were studied and analysed.
The data was collected from 2019-21 in five major basins in the US including the southern San Joaquin Valley in California, Uinta basin in Utah, Denver-Julesburg basin in Colorado, the Permian basin in Texas and New Mexico, and key sections of the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania.
The research team used the high-resolution data from the GAO and NASA JPL’s Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS-NG) to attribute emissions to major sectors—including key oil and gas production segments, wet manure management from animal feedlots, large landfills, and coal mine venting—and assessed their intermittency by sampling each area several times, in some cases spanning intervals from months to years. The team then contextualized these emissions by comparing them with total basin methane derived from Sentinel 5p satellite observations.
“This study exposes the diversity of methane emission distributions both spatially and by sector across the U.S., offering a glimpse into the improved methane detection we can expect in the coming years thanks to the deployment of new satellites,” said Dr. Daniel Cusworth, Project Scientist with Carbon Mapper and lead author. “This multi-tiered observing approach demonstrates and reinforces the potential value of a more sustained and comprehensive assessment of methane sources.”
“Arizona State University’s Global Airborne Observatory (GAO), which is one of the imaging spectrometers used in this study, can pinpoint methane sources to within 15 feet while flying at 18,000 feet. When methane emission plumes are detected, we can then use a high-resolution imagery to relate the plumes to individual pieces of equipment,” said Greg Asner, professor and director of the Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science, in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at ASU.
