Massive methane leaks speed up climate crisis. [View all]
LENORAH, Texas (AP) To the naked eye, the Mako Compressor Station outside the dusty West Texas crossroads of Lenorah appears unremarkable, similar to tens of thousands of oil and gas operations scattered throughout the oil-rich Permian Basin.
Whats not visible through the chain-link fence is the plume of invisible gas, primarily methane, billowing from the gleaming white storage tanks up into the cloudless blue sky.
The Mako station, owned by a subsidiary of West Texas Gas Inc., was observed releasing an estimated 870 kilograms of methane an extraordinarily potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere each hour. Thats the equivalent impact on the climate of burning seven tanker trucks full of gasoline every day.
But Makos outsized emissions arent illegal, or even regulated. And it was only one of 533 methane super emitters detected during a 2021 aerial survey of the Permian conducted by Carbon Mapper, a partnership of university researchers and NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
https://apnews.com/article/science-texas-trending-news-climate-and-environment-0eb6880f7c4532a845155a3bd44c2e4b