- ENORMOUS METHANE PLUME SEEN FROM SPACENASA discovered a methane hotspot over the Four Corners region that is the largest in the United States.
At least half of a Delaware-sized cloud of methane hovering over the Four Corners region is coming from natural gas operations, and most of that is coming from two dozen individual sources, according to a new NASA-led study.
The report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said about 250 individual sources — including gas wells, storage tanks, pipelines, and processing plants — appear to account for about half of all methane emissions in the area. Of that, about 50 percent is coming from just 25 individual sources, meaning two dozen points of emission are responsible for about one-fourth of all the methane spewing into the atmosphere in the Four Corners.
The report showed broad variation in methane leakage rates from identified sources, with emissions ranging from just a few pounds to 11,000 pounds per hour.
