The practice of flaring natural gas releases five times as much methane as previously thought in major U.S. oil and gas-producing regions, a new report said.
Companies flare excess gas instead of sending it directly into the atmosphere in order to reduce the amount of methane — a greenhouse gas with more potent short-term effects than carbon dioxide — that the gas contains. Flaring, which converts methane to carbon dioxide and water, is often associated with oil and gas production and processing.
But previous estimates of methane emissions from flaring have not been based on direct observations, and efforts to collect real-world data have only surveyed small numbers of gas flares, according to researchers at the University of Michigan, the Environmental Defense Fund, Utrecht University and Stanford University...