Canada Methane Plume Coincided With Work on Natural Gas System (1)

摘要

A plume of methane detected by satellite last month in Canada lined up with the intentional release of the superpotent greenhouse gas from a network of natural gas pipelines.SaskEnergy Inc. said its TransGas unit performed relief-valve maintenance at the Rush Lake Compressor station in Saskatchewan on the morning of Sept. 24, releasing natural gas —whose main component is methane — for 10 minutes. A concentration of the gas cloud was observed at 2:15 p.m. local time by a European Space Agency satellite.The operator first said it released about 400 gigajoules of gas, but on Wednesday revised that assessment to less than 13 gigajoules, after consulting with onsite teams. Kayrros SAS, ageoanalytics company, estimated an emissions rate of 52 tons an hour based on the satellite data, which is roughly in line with the original figure SaskEnergy provided.