Without an army of motivated regulators armed with the equipment, regulation is a delay tactic. We also need strong enforcement with meaningful penalties and criminal charges with jail time for repeat offenders.
The industry publicly embraces regulation because they know it’s not realistic. And, even so, they fight it at every step. Meanwhile we are poking more holes and building more infrastructure that will go unregulated.
Methane is a volatile gas that they put inside steel infrastructure. Physics demands releases of the gas as it volatilizes “to protect equipment.” Currently, there is no magic bullet that makes it possible to produce oil and gas without releasing methane. That is why the industry, on one hand, claims they have stopped the pollution, while, with the other hand, they beg for more permits to pollute. The required permits to pollute are freely given, each allowing them to pollute tons of pollution each year.
There is no more time to delay. The best way to reduce methane is to keep it in the ground. We must stop allowing the industry to freely expand and we must rapidly transition to clean, renewable energy.
https://oilfieldwitness.org/technical-limitations-of-satellite-and-regulations-in-stopping-methane/#comment-93
Without an army of motivated regulators armed with the equipment, regulation is a delay tactic. We also need strong enforcement with meaningful penalties and criminal charges with jail time for repeat offenders.
The industry publicly embraces regulation because they know it’s not realistic. And, even so, they fight it at every step. Meanwhile we are poking more holes and building more infrastructure that will go unregulated.
Methane is a volatile gas that they put inside steel infrastructure. Physics demands releases of the gas as it volatilizes “to protect equipment.” Currently, there is no magic bullet that makes it possible to produce oil and gas without releasing methane. That is why the industry, on one hand, claims they have stopped the pollution, while, with the other hand, they beg for more permits to pollute. The required permits to pollute are freely given, each allowing them to pollute tons of pollution each year.
There is no more time to delay. The best way to reduce methane is to keep it in the ground. We must stop allowing the industry to freely expand and we must rapidly transition to clean, renewable energy.