Get Zero Carbon delivered to your inbox.
Methane madness
You’d think it would be hard to find anything shocking about national greenhouse gas emissions anymore. They’ve been inventoried and catalogued, lumped and split, analyzed from the top down, from the bottom up and from every other angle, ad nauseum. But Barry Saxifrage managed a shocker this week.
Come with me, if you will, and conjure the last time you had a sweeping view over a big Canadian city. And remember the scene — cars and trucks, houses and SUVs as far as the eye could see. Now extrapolate, if you can, imagining all the passenger vehicles and homes from every other big city. Add on all the smaller towns and communities, all the rural acreages and throw in every cabin and pickup hidden in the woods.
All those tailpipes and homes spew less climate pollution than the methane leaking from the oil and gas industry.
“Canada's methane leaks pack a 20-year climate punch equal to five tonnes of CO2 per Canadian,” Saxifrage calculated this week. “That's more than from our cars, trucks, SUVs and homes combined. Methane's short-and-fast heating acts like climate napalm in the first decade or two.”
The more we look, the more leaks we find. They’re called “fugitive emissions” in the business (a curious turn of phrase — wily CH4 molecules with their devious plots, outwitting the most powerful industry ever created).
There are a staggering number of fugitives reported to have escaped into the atmosphere. But, as ridiculous and credulous and regulatory-captured as it sounds, it probably won’t surprise you to hear that we’ve mostly been relying on industry to self-report its fugitive emissions. Satellite observations tell a more incriminating story.
Sometimes it’s an individual case: Last year, the European Space Agency and Karryos made the news for spotting a methane plume at a facility near Lloydminster, Alta. The company and the Alberta Energy Regulator admitted they didn’t know anything about it.
And a much broader analysis of satellite data shows that in both Canada and the U.S., methane leaks have been about 50 per cent higher than reported. That satellite date was the basis for Saxifrage’s calculations, using methane’s 20-year global warming potential.
It’s one of many studies finding a huge spew of unreported methane emissions. In 2021, a study published in Nature looked at 6,650 sites in Canada and found methane emissions at least 1.5 times higher than the official tally. The International Energy Agency figures global methane emissions from the energy sector are 70 per cent higher than reported.
Those may be undercounts. For years, overflights and special cameras imaging specific locations have gotten even worse results. One study near Red Deer, Alta., measured emissions 15 times higher than reported. A group of federal scientists measuring methane from fossil fuel facilities across Saskatchewan and Alberta found methane twice as high as the official reports.
"There's uncontrolled methane everywhere," said Tim Doty, a former regulator for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Doty used infrared cameras to look at 128 sites in Alberta and Saskatchewan on a trip organized by the David Suzuki Foundation. "I just can't describe the magnitude of the emissions we saw," he said
"It wasn't a problem finding emissions," said Doty. "It was a problem with the number of hours in a day."
When Saxifrage used the satellite findings of 50 per cent above reported levels and plotted methane’s 20-year impact, the oil and gas industry’s climate impact absolutely soared above all other Canadian sectors. The red bar is just fugitive methane detected by satellites. The grey bar on top is the rest of the oil and gas industry’s greenhouse gas emissions.
All that leaking methane is exasperating. “It's not even doing anything,” Saxifrage told me this week. “It’s not like we’re heating our houses with it. It’s just crappy equipment trashing the planet.
“Industry could fix it without losing money.” The cost-effectiveness is a common view, even within the energy sector because methane is basically natural gas. If industry would plug the leaks or install better gear, it could sell the product and recoup the cost of rounding up those wily fugitives.
It’s all the more exasperating because methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas and it’s flooding into the atmosphere. Scientists aren’t entirely sure why the levels are spiking so dramatically. The fracking boom is one cause. But it doesn’t account for all the increase. One worrying theory is that we’ve hit a temperature threshold that’s thawing frozen carbon stores or causing wetlands to spew methane earlier and faster than expected.
But we do know that about 40 per cent of human-caused methane comes from the energy sector. That’s something industry can control and there is a significant effort underway to regulate the problem. Alongside a broader energy transition off fossil fuels, it’s a quick way to triage some of the short-term effects of methane.
By the end of this year, Canada will be tabling new methane regulations and gathering feedback on a plan for a 75 per cent reduction by 2030. The David Suzuki Foundation, the Pembina Institute and the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment have banded together with Environmental Defense Fund and the Clean Air Task Force to push for strong regulations and mobilize public pressure while the new rules get finalized.
“The draft 2030 regulations are coming out soon and we will be encouraging the public to push for ensuring they are strong,” says David Suzuki Foundation’s Tom Green.
Green highlights a number of areas where public pressure will be crucial. Monitoring is a key one. Under the current methane regulations, “some of the monitoring was near useless,” says Green. “There is a clear gap in regulators’ ability to assess if the regulations are working and if Canada is on track to meet its methane reduction target.”
Enforcement is another. The coalition of groups notes, “For example, regulators in Alberta report nearly 30 per cent of operators are out of compliance with the region’s pollution standards, yet there have been zero penalties for violating these standards. And Saskatchewan doesn’t require companies to monitor inactive wells for pollution, yet one recent study found inactive sites are responsible for nearly half of the region’s pollution.”
We have some decent examples of stronger monitoring and enforcement that Canadians can press our governments to match. The Pembina Institute’s Jan Gorski points to the Alberta Peace River Rules, which are “very strong and nearly eliminate methane, but not widely known about. They only apply to a small part of Alberta, though.” And the new American draft rules have already been made public. They are “very strong,” says Gorski, who anticipates “final rules around the end of year.”
Colorado and New Mexico have been much tougher on rule-breakers. New Mexico is aiming for a 98 per cent gas-capture rate — five oil and gas producers were fined $275,000 just days after failing to comply with the state’s rules.
Money talks. We hear alot about how it shouldn’t be free to pollute but companies aren’t charged any carbon tax on all that fugitive methane — surely one of the most egregious examples of using the atmosphere as an open sewer. (B.C. is considering applying carbon pricing to methane emissions.)
Nor did the feds put any funding in the budget for their much-touted “Centre for Excellence on methane detection and elimination.” It was part of the ministers’ mandate letters from the prime minister two years ago. “We need a co-ordinated approach to measuring methane emissions in Canada,” says Gorski. “There is lots of good work being led by government, academics and industry, but we need a centre to bring it together.”
Atlantic provinces off coal
In a welcome display of co-operation, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the feds agreed to a plan to transition off coal. The premiers have “recently been at odds with the federal government over climate policy,” reports Cloe Logan.
Last week, the provinces announced they were abandoning the Atlantic Loop project — a planned energy transmission project linking the Atlantic provinces with hydropower from Quebec and Labrador. Instead, the provinces will pursue a grid intertie between themselves to trade power back and forth.
Nova Scotia will focus on wind, solar and battery storage to replace the 40 per cent of its power that’s currently coal-fired.
“There are many options to shift our electricity system to renewable energy and we are advancing them to meet our goals,” Natural Resources and Renewables Minister Tory Rushton said.
Climate advocates are less keen on New Brunswick’s plan. The province will also eliminate coal power but plans to convert the Belledune coal-fired station to biomass and pursue small nuclear reactors. Biomass typically means wood.
“When we talk about solving climate change, we simply have to stop burning things. If you have to burn something to generate electricity, you're not part of the solution, you're just creating more emissions,” said Moe Qureshi, manager of climate solutions with the Conservation Council of New Brunswick.
Supreme Court rules against feds’ impact assessment law
The federal law assessing big development projects is “overbroad” and steps outside federal jurisdiction, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Oct. 13.
It was an advisory opinion and the feds claim they can make the needed changes in “a relatively surgical way.” But several premiers, including Alberta’s Danielle Smith, Ontario’s Doug Ford and Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe declared sweeping victory over Ottawa. Smith claimed the ruling also signalled the end for clean electricity regulations, the proposed cap on oil and gas emissions and federal power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
“In fact, the court did no such thing,” writes Stewart Elgie, professor in the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law. “Ottawa still has ample authority to assess the environmental impacts of major projects, like oilsands facilities and pipelines, and to bring in new climate regulations, like the proposed ones for clean electricity and oilsands emissions.”
“Most federal climate laws — including the proposed rules about clean electricity and oilsands emissions — are made as regulations under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA).
The Supreme Court has explicitly upheld CEPA as constitutionally valid legislation, falling under the federal power over criminal law."
The Salmon People
You can now binge the entire second season of the award-winning podcast The Salmon People from Canada’s National Observer. The final episode dropped this week.
“Throughout Season two, investigative reporter Sandra Bartlett brings you the very best of what boots-on-the-ground Canadian journalism has to offer, taking listeners on an epic journey to the rugged shores of the West Coast, and into the next chapter of the battle to save wild Pacific salmon from extinction. In the final episode, Sandra examines the impact industrial fish farm closures will have on Indigenous communities and explores what other options are available to these First Nations.
Rivers not running through
It’s a rough time for rivers. Total electricity generation dropped in Canada this year. Statistics Canada says “hydroelectricity fell 13.6 per cent. Quebec (-13.4 per cent) and British Columbia (-30.9 per cent) were the main contributors to the hydroelectric generation decline.”
And China has leaned “hard on coal-fired power plants as well as wind and solar generators to make up for a shortfall in hydroelectric generation,” Reuters reports. “South China’s drought and reduced hydro generation explain why the central government has encouraged coal miners to maximize production and coal-fired generators to stockpile fuel.”
The Amazon is in particularly dire straits. The Guardian reports, “Drought turns Amazonian capital into climate dystopia.”
“A withering drought has turned the Amazonian capital of Manaus into a climate dystopia with the second worst air quality in the world and rivers at the lowest levels in 121 years.” Amazonas state officials are calling for more federal and international assistance and convened emergency meetings on the regional climate crisis. In addition to the human suffering, there have been mass deaths of pink river dolphins.
Smacking small business
"An alarming number of companies — nearly six in 10 — were impacted because of extreme weather events, and the year is not over.” That’s what KPMG discovered surveying Canadian small and medium-sized businesses.
In particular regions, the numbers are more extreme — in B.C., outside Greater Vancouver, 66 per cent reported damaged stores or facilities. In Ontario, outside the GTA, 79 per cent say they were directly impacted, with over half (56 per cent) reporting damaged facilities and 72 per cent suffering significant increase in costs.
‘Global, irreversible solar tipping point’
A study just published in Nature looked into the momentum of the solar energy transition and found that “due to technological trajectories set in motion by past policy, a global irreversible solar tipping point may have passed where solar energy gradually comes to dominate global electricity markets, without any further climate policies.”
And a new analysis from Ember found that “half of the world is past a peak in fossil power.”
“Not many people realize just how many countries’ power sectors are already well into a phase of fossil decline,” said Dave Jones, global insights lead for Ember. “For many countries, this was done simultaneously to rising electricity demand.”
The report found that “half of the world’s economies are already at least five years past a peak in electricity generation from fossil fuels. Emissions from these 107 power sectors have fallen by almost 20 per cent in the last decade. Collectively, they represent 38 per cent of global electricity demand. Economies which are at least one year past a peak in fossil power represent 50 per cent of global demand, setting the stage for a peak and subsequent decline in global power sector emissions.”
In just one of many creative examples around the world, Japan is converting rural golf courses into solar farms. The Asahi Shimbun reports:
“Rural golf links may soon be back in vogue in Japan. But not because of a comeback in the sport’s popularity. Power generation companies across the country are finding that old courses … are ideal locations for new solar installations.
No more gas lines
Stop connecting buildings to gas — that growing chorus got a very prestigious new member this week. A report from the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine called for states and municipalities to ban new gas lines and rethink gas infrastructure as one of 80 recommendations to cut carbon emissions.
Kingston says no to gas plants
By a vote of 11-1, Kingston city councillors voted to only support projects that involve solar, electricity storage and biofuels.
“Supporting electricity generated through the burning of fossil fuels would really run counter to the direction we’ve chosen for our city,” Coun. Wendy Stephen told The Kingston-Whig Standard.
Tobacco tactics and the fire industry
I’ll leave you with two recommendations. If you want a dive into the machinations of the gas industry, Jeff Brady has produced a deep one for NPR: How gas utilities used tobacco tactics to avoid gas stove regulations.
“As the scientific evidence grew over time about the health effects from gas stoves, the industry used a playbook echoing the one that tobacco companies employed for decades to fend off regulation. The gas utility industry relied on some of the same strategies, researchers and public relations firms.”
And I’ve plugged John Vaillant’s superb book Fire Weather before. But if you need any more convincing to buy a copy, check out his fiery five-minute testimony this week at a special session of the House of Commons’ natural resources committee.
“The radiant heat coming off the Fort McMurray fire — 10 kilometres wide with 100-metre flames — was 500 Celsius… The oil industry is a fire industry. It is a CO2 industry. Which means it’s a climate-changing industry.