[HN Gopher] Methane plume seen by satellite over Alabama mystifi...
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Methane plume seen by satellite over Alabama mystifies experts
Author : marc__1
Score : 55 points
Date : 2021-11-10 20:03 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloombergquint.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloombergquint.com)
| curiousllama wrote:
| Title is clickbait. The Alabama Department of Environmental
| Management saying "there is no permanent facility allowed to do
| this" is not mystifying.
|
| > The Oct. 22 release was detected by satellite and pinpointed to
| an area in Marion County near natural gas wells in the Black
| Warrior Basin, a pair of gas pipelines and coal mines.
|
| Read: it's almost certainly gas from the mines.
|
| > The Alabama release is the fifth largest detected by the ESA's
| Sentinel-5P satellite this year in the lower 48 U.S. states,
| according to Kayrros.
|
| "Fifth largest in this part of the country" is... not news.
|
| > The Alabama Department of Environmental Management wasn't able
| to identify a permanent facility that would be responsible for
| any releases after a diligent review of its records.
|
| This isn't even a "they don't know" it's just a "they didn't tell
| us."
|
| C'mon Bloomberg...
| lxe wrote:
| You're just assuming as much as Bloomberg. What makes you reach
| these conclusions?
| amelius wrote:
| > The EPA said that the potential area is too broad and the
| satellite data "does not provide enough tangible information of
| potential sources in which to conduct a programmatic review,"
|
| Perhaps we should have airplanes/drones fitted with similar
| measurement instruments as the satellite, so we can take a closer
| look when necessary?
| drewda wrote:
| I believe that's become standard practice in the last few
| years. For example: https://www.microdrones.com/en/integrated-
| systems/ge-industr... or https://kairosaerospace.com/methane-
| detection/
| mistrial9 wrote:
| waves from Berkeley
| skybrian wrote:
| Apparently this satellite (the Sentinel-5p) has a 7 x 7km
| resolution. [1] There are other satellites with much higher
| resolution that might be used to narrow it down, and more
| launching soon.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinel-5
| entangledqubit wrote:
| If they image repeatedly at various offsets over an area -
| perhaps over multiple flybys - shouldn't they be able to
| localize it better than that?
|
| The Wikipedia pages claims that pictures are taken every second
| but I am not sure how that translates to image density on the
| ground.
| Splendor wrote:
| That link isn't working for me, but I think this is the same
| article:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-10/methane-p...
| ra wrote:
| _" An emissions rate of about 58 tons of methane per hour would
| have been required to generate the plume, according to an
| estimate from Kayrros SAS, which analyzed European Space Agency
| data."_
|
| That sounds like a lot!
| wolfram74 wrote:
| For context [0] says global annual methane generation is
| ~570E6 tons, which puts hourly production at
| 570E6/(24*365)~=65000 or over a thousand times this source.
| Like, not /great/ definitely want to address. But unless it's
| a symptom of a new mechanism I don't know if I should be
| super alarmed.
|
| [0] https://www.iea.org/reports/methane-tracker-2020
| bbulkow wrote:
| Maybe hard for surveillance though? A single railcar of
| liquid is 100 tons (I don't know if liquid methane is
| shipped, this is just a way to visualize - and this is a
| rough number. Methane is about 12 pct lighter than water.)
|
| I wonder what the most likely reasons are. I might think a
| fracking based earthquake opening up an underground reservoir
| that feeds into a mine? But that is very speculative! I am
| assuming there are no chemical plants in the area.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > I wonder what the most likely reasons are.
|
| Per the article you didn't read: "The Oct. 22 release was
| detected by satellite and pinpointed to an area in Marion
| County near natural gas wells in the Black Warrior Basin, a
| pair of gas pipelines and coal mines, some dating back to
| the late 1800s."
| aaron695 wrote:
| > The Oct. 22 release
|
| > An emissions rate of about 58 tons of methane per hour
|
| This 'leak' might have happened for 10 seconds.
|
| The article doesn't even say if it might have run for a hour.
|
| So some facts might be interesting. But it's HN, lets just run
| around with our heads cut off, don't need facts, or the ability
| to read proper. It's the great filter, the internet allows the
| stupid and uninquisitive people to control the narrative.
| el_don_almighty wrote:
| Annual chili eating competition?
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| Look at the photograph, and read the EPA response.
|
| Ladies and Gentlemen of Earth: climate change is not going to be
| solved. Protect your family. Protect your property. You are on
| your own.
| belval wrote:
| Now now, it's hard to open Google Maps/Earth and look at what
| is in that very specific spot plus it's four o'clock already,
| they have to go home to their family.
| pengaru wrote:
| > Ladies and Gentlemen of Earth: climate change is not going to
| be solved. Protect your family. Protect your property. You are
| on your own.
|
| Skip the family by not reproducing and adding more fuel to this
| raging dumpster fire, just stock up on the marshmallows and
| popcorn.
| _jal wrote:
| The Great Filter == Collective action problems.
| kcplate wrote:
| Well, now I'm concerned that European satellites could be
| counting my farts. Great...
| nuerow wrote:
| > _Well, now I'm concerned that European satellites could be
| counting my farts. Great..._
|
| You only have anything to worry about if you're gunning for at
| least the fifth largest ever recorded in your part of the
| country.
| h2odragon wrote:
| not "ever recorded", just "this year". Time for more protein
| powder chilli!
| bell-cot wrote:
| Compare the current market value of ~58 tons/hour of CH4
| (needed to generate the plume which the satellite saw) with the
| market value of 12 solid gold goose eggs per day.
|
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CursedWithAwesom...
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(page generated 2021-11-10 23:01 UTC)