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New Study Shows that U.S. Methane Emissions May Be 50 Percent More than EPA Measure
Green Technology Featured Articles
November 27, 2013

New Study Shows that U.S. Methane Emissions May Be 50 Percent More than EPA Measure

By Tammy Marie Rose
TMCnet Contributing Writer

A newly released study on methane finds that emissions in the United States are much higher than what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had calculated. The study says the reason behind the miscalculation has to do with methodology. The study states that the EPA may not have included all methane emission sources in its calculations.


Methane emissions may actually be 50 percent higher that the EPA’s estimates. The study was released this week by a team of Harvard and other researchers.

The study shows that emissions from cows and other livestock operations could be as twice as high as predicted. Areas where there is major fossil fuel extractions and refining could have as much as five times more emissions than calculated by the EPA.

Anna Michalakof, the Carnegie Institution of Science's Department of Global Ecology and co-author of the study, says, "It's really a very clear signal of how much methane U.S. industry and other sources emit." Michalak adds that the new study combines an “unprecedented amount of data.”

Data for the study was taken by federal agencies from the tops of telecommunication towers. They used newer statistical tools and meteorological models to calculate the amount of methane that is in the atmosphere and where it most likely came from. This approach of calculating emissions is much different than the EPA’s bottom-up estimating. The EPA calculates emissions based on the amount of methane released per animal or per coal sold. 

Colm Sweeney of the University of Colorado-Boulder and co-author of the study explains, "The main result is significant." Sweeney lead an aircraft group that did flyovers to measure methane for NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory Global Monitoring System.

image via issibrn

Steven Everly of Energy in Depth, a research group, adds, "Ignoring a half decade of research and innovation is almost comical.” Everley also says that the new study doesn't definitively show where the methane is coming from. He believes the study gives a "educated guess" based on mathematical modeling. "One study cannot tell us everything we need to know, and this latest research is no different.”

Others like David Archer, a climate scientist at the University of Chicago's Department of Geophysical Sciences believes that the study is “very plausible." Archer says if there are more methane emissions than previously thought, "that means there's more we can cut."




Edited by Ryan Sartor


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