Researchers are rushing to calculate the greenhouse-gas emissions resulting from mysterious leaks:
, a real-life geopolitical whodunit has ensued, with NATO now among those attributing the leaks to sabotage. Seismologists picked up data that might help to pinpoint the cause of the leaks, and other researchers are trying to work out how much methane — aOvernight on 26 September, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline’s operators saw a sudden pressure drop, from 105 bar to just 7 bar. Soon after, a 1-kilometre-wide area of the Baltic Sea’s surface was bubbling with the escaping gas.
Baxter estimated that 115,000 tonnes of methane had probably been released during the initial sudden pressure drop in Nord Stream 2, on the basis of the pipe’s dimensions and the water temperature. Per unit mass, methane has a much more potent greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide — particularly in the short term. Baxter says the overall impact of this leak is equivalent to the annual carbon emissions from two million cars.
The event, although huge, accounts for around 0.14% of the global methane budget, says Mark Davis, chief executive of Capterio, a company in London that tracks gas flares from the oil and gas industry, but which didn’t detect the vented gas because it isn’t burning. He argues that, once the leak was discovered, setting it alight could have mitigated much of the damage, by converting the methane to carbon dioxide.
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