 Are the proposed methane regulations string enough to protect the environment and public health from radiation exposure and global warming? Environmentalists think not. Today's post is shared from hillcom/ The Obama administration on Wednesday unveiled first-ever regulations targeting methane emissions from industrial sources directly, setting the stage, experts say, for future action to rein in the greenhouse gas. The standards, which will be proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency this summer, are one piece of a larger effort that the administration says will help it to achieve its new goal to slash methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 45 percent. The 2025 reduction target will be based on 2012 levels, the White House said. Experts say that while the initial actions announced by the administration aren’t enough to reach the 45 percent target by 2025, the move is “significant.” Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is an extremely potent greenhouse gas with 25 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 100-year time period. Jessika Trancik, assistant professor at MIT, said one “critical” missing component from the pending proposal is language targeting methane emissions from existing wells, equipment and the like in oil and gas operations. Wednesday’s actions include two main regulations that the EPA and Interior Department will propose, which target methane from new and modified oil and gas wells and equipment responsible for venting and flaring on public lands. Trancik said a concern shared among scientists and researchers is that the 40 percent to 45 percent reduction target... |
Read more about methane:
Aug 08, 2013
In an internal EPA PowerPoint presentation obtained by the Tribune/Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau, staff members warned their superiors that several wells had been contaminated with methane and substances such ...
Aug 21, 2014
They returned to sites where methane spikes were detected to confirm the presence of a leak. The results were released Wednesday by the Environmental Defense Fund, which coordinated the project, revealing just how ...
Dec 01, 2014
That history ended in November, with the indictment of Donald L. Blankenship, the chief executive whose company owned the Upper Big Branch mine near here, where an explosion of methane gas in 2010 spread like a ...
Dec 15, 2013
Such accidents are usually caused by a failure to ventilate methane gas from the shaft. Safety improvements have reduced the number of deaths in recent years, but regulations are still often ignored. The official Xinhua News ...
