HUGE methane cloud over New Mexico

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by some_other_dave

IIRC, the CFCs are a catalyst that breaks down ozone. They don't get consumed by the process, so they continue working. That means as long as they not removed from the area, they will continue breaking down ozone.

-soD

CFC levels in the upper atmosphere have been dropping since 2006. The largest hole so far was in 2010, last time I checked.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by aerohead

The carbon in the methane will have a specific radioisotope which is a marker for identification.All forms of carbon emissions can be identified to their source.

Oh I forgot about that.

So we are absolutely beyond any excuse in not finding the source I would say.
There is not a way to find it, there are multiple ways to find it.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

It would appear that the anti fossil fuel church of global warming (aka the epa) finds it more politically advantageous to complain about the problem, then to find out what it really is, just incase it turns out to be natural.

Keeping the public in panic is convenient for the EPA and some so-called "environmentalists", then panicked people would be less prone to raise questions against some "environmental" matters and regulations.

[freebeard]

Does anyone know where ground zero is?



Because at this resolution it looks to be southwest of Archeluta Mesa:
https://roadtrippers.com/us/dulce-nm...!40.809722,z!5

[oil pan 4]

Where do I think ground zero is?
You go a little west of the red splotch and there is a very unusual patch of land that looks like the surface of the moon.

You go a little south and there are oil and gas wells.
You go too far west into AZ and there is a coal mine that doesn't seem like it could be the source.

That red splotch is smaller than the county I live in here in NM.
The source could easily be found with a few guys driving around with hand held gas sniffers.

[Fat Charlie]

So we'll take a government agency constantly accused of being invasive and overbearing, and now that it's been told about a red blotch on the map we'll accuse it of not being invasive and overbearing enough?

I want black helicopters bringing jack-booted thugs to crawl around my backyard sniffing for evidence that I'm polluting! The fact that they haven't done that to me is proof that they don't care about the environment! Harrumph!

Me, I think it's worth checking the area's drilling an mining operations. I'd also hold off on claiming that they aren't the source of it until those gas sniffing crews say otherwise.

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

(your local gas company hires gas auditors, people who do this for a living to come in to an area and find all the tiny to moderate leaks in gas lines and ID leaky meters every year or 2)

So this problem could easily be solved with existing programs and equipment.
But for some reason doing nothing seems to be the better option.
Must be more politically fulfilling to blame oil/gas extraction than risk finding out its natural.

And then I've got a simple question: If actively and routinely searching for leaks is easy and has long been SOP for the gas distribution industry, why is it not already a standard part of the production end of the industry? Miners have long known that they release gasses and take steps to protect themselves. Drillers have long known that they release gasses and instead of simply releasing it they burn it off. As a followup question, I would ask why anyone would insist that drilling and mining operations, which are known to release gasses, are completely unrelated to a gas plume so remarkable that the scientists who spotted it thought their instruments were malfunctioning- and base their denial on the fact that the government hasn't hired gas sniffing crews to pinpoint the source?

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by aerohead

The carbon in the methane will have a specific radioisotope which is a marker for identification.All forms of carbon emissions can be identified to their source.

Ain't so. Methane is CH4. There are 3 carbon isotopes in nature. C-12 and C-13 are stable, C-14 has a half-life of 5700 years, so it decays away over the 100 million year plus age of fossil fuel deposits.

C-12 and C-13 do appear in different ratios in the current environment, because C3 and C4 photosynthesis take them up at different rates. But C4 photosynthesis didn't evolve until about 30 million years ago (recently in geologic time), so this wouldn't be a factor in fossil fuel deposits.

Hydrogen is similar: H-1 and H-2 are similar, other isotopes have such short lives that they aren't found in geologic deposits.

Bottom line: you can use isotopes to distinguish biogenic methane (e.g. cow farts) from natural gas, but that's about it.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

Keeping the public in panic is convenient for the EPA and some so-called "environmentalists", then panicked people would be less prone to raise questions against some "environmental" matters and regulations.

OTOH, convincing people that environmental problems aren't real, and an occasion for worry (if not panic) is awfully convenient for the fossil fuel industry, among others.

Per Google, the EPA's budget for 2015 is a bit over $8.1 billion. US fossil fuel industries made a net profit of $271 billion in 2012, The Koch brothers alone have a net worth that's more than 10 times the EPA's budget. So who has the greater financial incentive to spread disinformation?

[oil pan 4]

Where I work we just hired an engineer that worked on the production and distribution end. I guess I should ask if leak detection is standard.

I find it a little odd that an invasive overbearing government agency all of a sudden goes laissez-faire when it comes to the worlds largest gas leak.
That isn't just a little bit odd?
If they really cared and wanted to fix the fake global warming problem we supposedly have they could start there.

The EPA budget is 8.1 billion dollars?
That's a waste of about 8 billion dollars if they cant find a gas leak in an area that is known for having an abundance of nothing.

[freebeard]