![]() ![]() But they cannot trespass on private property - where most oil and gas infrastructure resides - and their cameras are not equipped to measure the volume of methane coming from a facility, information that regulators need to decide whether to pursue their complaints. ![]() ![]() Restricting leaks, as well as routine venting and flaring, from oil and gas wells and equipment is one of the fastest way to cut methane emissions, which are often undetectable to the naked eye and for the most part odorless.Įnvironmentalists like Barrett have searched for leaking wells and pipelines for years. Methane emissions, which come from oil and natural gas production, plant decay and agricultural waste, are 25 times more potent in warming than carbon dioxide. Sure enough, the camera's viewfinder captures a dark stream of methane spewing out of the pole. The rotten egg smell is a telltale sign of hydrogen sulfide, which can be found in the state's natural gas alongside the main component, methane, meaning gas is seeping out somewhere nearby. He points the $120,000 camera at a thin metal pole sticking out of the ground near a rusty storage tank. ARTESIA, New Mexico, May 23 (Reuters) - Charlie Barrett walks through an oilfield in New Mexico's southeastern desert, where the air smells of rotten eggs and old pumpjacks sit among shrub oaks, and turns on an infrared camera that can detect emissions from oil and gas equipment.īarrett, who works for environmental group Earthworks, is hunting for methane - a greenhouse gas accounting for about a third of global warming that has become a focus for the oil industry's and the Biden administration's climate agenda. ![]()
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