Methane emissions from Canada’s non-producing oil and gas wells appear to be seven times higher than government estimates, according to a new study led by researchers at McGill University. The findings spotlight a major gap in the country’s official greenhouse gas inventory and raise urgent questions about how methane leaks are monitored, reported and managed.

“Non-producing wells are one of the most uncertain sources of methane emissions in Canada,” said Mary Kang, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at McGill and senior author on the paper. “We measured the highest methane emission rate from a non-producing oil and gas well ever reported in Canada.”

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas. Over a 20-year period, it traps about 80 times more heat in the atmosphere than the same amount of carbon dioxide. It’s also associated with air pollution and health risks.Kang’s team directly measured methane emissions from 494 wells across five provinces using a chamber-based method and analyzed well-level data such as age, depth and plugging status. The national emissions estimate they arrived at – 230 kilotonnes per year – is sevenfold higher than the 34 kilotonnes reported in Canada’s National Inventory Report. The study was published in Environmental Science & Technology.

Shocking. /s

I think there was an estimate of the warming effects of natural gas including methane leaks which showed it being worse than coal.

I’m not an oil guy, but since methane has its uses, would there not be a way to capture this gas and sell it?

“Than thought”

Man, I wonder where that “thought” came from

It’s a good bit of infrastructure to capture, compress, transport, and sell methane on the market. Since these are “non-producing” wells, I would assume that the leakage is (relatively) low and maybe not be worth the cost of all the setup and maintenance.

Looks like the cover to Supermassive Black Hole

The page seems down. Could someone forward the study to me

Seems to work for me, but here’s the direct link for the study https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.4c05602

A more correct title would be “7 to 8 times more than originally reported”

Turns out that all the site for McGill don’t want me to enter

Just put a methane generator on them and sell the power onto the grid. Its what many landdfills do with their methane.

Lots of industries just flare it when the winds are blowing the right way, ie: downwind of any Environment Canada sensors.

Who is going to prison over that?

If only those companies were wealthy enough to do something about it. I guess our only choice is let the tazpayer handle it.

Flaring is much better than just letting the methane escape so it would be a better solution than doing nothing and would be a great stepping stone to a more permanent option. Flaring would be much cheaper than a methane generator or capture device.