By: Stan Renfro

Stan Renfro — Fri, 21 Feb 2020 03:40:43 +0000

So the legislative session has ended, but the methane keeps rising. An invisible cloud keeps rising, but
Sharon Wilson can see it! She, a certified optical gas imaging operator working for Earthworks, has a camera
that makes methane visible, spewing from the wells of the Permian endlessly. We can’t see it but she can, and
the Environmental Defense Fund claims that the U.S. supply chain is leaking 60% more methane than previous
estimates (which largely relied on industry self-reports), a conflagration that helps smother whatever other efforts
we perform to curtail climate catastrophe! Meanwhile, lawmakers relax. In Texas, the 6,000 permits allowing
explorers to flare or vent natural gas this year is 40 times as many permits as were granted at the start of the
supply boom a decade ago. At one site, called “Desperado” Ms. Wilson saw emissions so dense she tried to
report by phone, but was put on hold. Unlit flares bellowing methane continue, while we sleep and while we are
awake. The session has ended.

Comments on: Deadline tomorrow: Help NM slash climate-damaging methane waste

By: Stan Renfro