Methane Pollution Has Cheap, Effective Solutions That Aren't Being Used
Jun 21, 2025 7:00 AM The International Energy Agency estimates that 70 percent of the fossil fuel sector's methane emissions could be cut with existing technologies—many of which would save polluters money. Photograph: TheThis story originally appeared on Vox and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Odorless and colorless, methane is a gas that is easy to miss—but it's one of the most important contributors to global warming. It can trap up to 84 times as much heat as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, though it breaks down much faster. Measured over 100 years, its warming effect is about 30 times that of an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide.
That means that over the course of decades, it takes smaller amounts of methane than carbon dioxide to heat up the planet to the same level. Nearly a third of the increase in global average temperatures since the Industrial Revolution is due to methane, and about two-thirds of those methane emissions comes from human activity like energy production and cattle farming. It's one of the biggest and fastest ways that human beings are warming the Earth.
But the flip side of that math is that cutting methane emissions is one of the most effective ways to limit climate change.
In 2021, more than 100 countries including the United States committed to reducing their methane pollution by at least 30 percent below 2020 levels by 2030. But some of the largest methane emitters like Russia and China still haven't signed on, and according to a new report from the International Energy Agency, global methane emissions from energy production are still rising.
Yet the tracking of exactly how much methane is reaching the atmosphere isn't as precise as it is for carbon dioxide. 'Little or no measurement-based data is used to report methane emissions in most parts of the world,' according to the IEA. 'This is a major issue because measured emissions tend to be higher than reported emissions.' It's also hard to trace methane to specific sources—whether from natural sources like swamps, or from human activities like fossil fuel extraction, farming, or deforestation.
Researchers are gaining a better understanding of where methane is coming from, surveilling potential sources from the ground, from the sky, and from space. It turns out a lot of methane is coming from underappreciated sources, including coal mines and small oil and gas production facilities.
The report also notes that while there are plenty of low-cost tools available to halt much of this methane from reaching the atmosphere, they're largely going unused.
The United States, the world's third largest methane-emitting country, has seen its methane emissions slowly decline over the past 30 years. However, the Trump administration is pushing for more fossil fuel development while rolling back some of the best bang-for-buck programs for mitigating climate change, which will likely lead to even more methane reaching the atmosphere if left unchecked. Where Is All This Methane Coming From?
Methane is the dominant component of natural gas, which provides more than a third of US energy. It's also found in oil formations. During the drilling process, it can escape wells and pipelines, but it can also leak as it's transported and at the power plants and furnaces where it's consumed.
The oil and gas industry says that methane is a salable product, so they have a built-in incentive to track it, capture it, and limit its leaks. But oil developers often flare methane, meaning burn it off, because it's not cost-effective to contain it. That burned methane forms carbon dioxide, so the overall climate impact is lower than just letting the methane go free.
And because methane is invisible and odorless, it can be difficult and expensive to monitor it and prevent it from getting out. As a result, researchers and environmental activists say the industry is likely releasing far more than official government estimates show.
Methane also seeps out from coal mines—more methane, actually, than is released during the production of natural gas, which after all is mostly methane. Ember, a clean-energy think tank, put together this great visual interactive showing how this happens.
The short version is that methane is embedded in coal deposits, and as miners dig to expose coal seams, the gas escapes, and continues to do so long after a coal mine reaches the end of its operating life. Since coal miners are focused on extracting coal, they don't often keep track of how much methane they're letting out, nor do regulators pay much attention.
According to Ember, methane emissions from coal mines could be 60 percent higher than official tallies. Abandoned coal mines are especially noxious, emitting more than abandoned oil and gas wells. Added up, methane emitted from coal mines around the world each year has the same warming effect on the climate as the total annual carbon dioxide emissions of India.
Alarmed by the gaps in the data, some nonprofits have taken it upon themselves to try to get a better picture of methane emissions at a global scale using ground-based sensors, aerial monitors, and even satellites. In 2024, the Environmental Defense Fund launched MethaneSAT, which carries instruments that can measure methane output from small, discrete sources over a wide area.
Ritesh Gautam, the lead scientist for MethaneSAT, explained that the project revealed some major overlooked methane emitters. Since launching, MethaneSAT has found that in the US, the bulk of methane emissions doesn't just come from a few big oil and gas drilling sites, but from many small wells that emit less than 100 kilograms per hour.
'Marginal wells only produce 6 to 7 percent of [oil and gas] in the US, but they disproportionately account for almost 50 percent of the US oil and gas production-related emissions,' Gautam said. 'These facilities only produce less than 15 barrels of oil equivalent per day, but then there are more than half a million of these just scattered around the US.' There Are Ways to Stop Methane Emissions, but We're Not Using Them
The good news is that many of the tools for containing methane from the energy industry are already available. 'Around 70 percent of methane emissions from the fossil fuel sector could be avoided with existing technologies, often at a low cost,' according to the IEA methane report.
For the oil and gas industry, that could mean something as simple as using better fittings in pipelines to limit leaks and installing methane capture systems. And since methane is a fuel, the sale of the saved methane can offset the cost of upgrading hardware. Letting it go into the atmosphere is a waste of money and a contributor to warming.
Capturing or destroying methane from coal mines isn't so straightforward. Common techniques to separate methane from other gases require heating air, which is not exactly the safest thing to do around a coal mine—it can increase the risk of fire or explosion. But safer alternatives have been developed. 'There are catalytic and other approaches available today that don't require such high temperatures,' said Robert Jackson, a professor of earth system science at Stanford University, in an email.
However, these methods to limit methane from fossil fuels are vastly underused. Only about 5 percent of active oil and gas production facilities around the world deploy systems to zero out their methane pollution. In the US, there are also millions of oil and gas wells and tens of thousands of abandoned coal mines whose operators have long since vanished, leaving no one accountable for their continued methane emissions.
'If there isn't a regulatory mandate to treat the methane, or put a price on it, many companies continue to do nothing,' Jackson said. And while recovering methane is ultimately profitable over time, the margins aren't often big enough to make the up-front investment of better pipes, monitoring equipment, or scrubbers worthwhile for them. 'They want to make 10 to 15 percent on their money (at least), not save a few percent,' he added.
And rather than getting stronger, regulations on methane are poised to get weaker. The Trump administration has approved more than $119 million to help communities reclaim abandoned coal mines. However, the White House has also halted funding for plugging abandoned oil and gas wells and is limiting environmental reviews for new fossil fuel projects. Congressional Republicans are also working to undo a fee on methane emissions that was part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. With weaker incentives to track and limit methane, it's likely emissions will continue to rise in the United States. That will push the world further off course from climate goals and contribute to a hotter planet.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The new Ozempic? Weight-loss pill Amycretin could be more effective than jabs
A new weight-loss treatment that can be administered as either a weekly injection or a daily pill has shown promising results in early-stage trials, according to a new study. In one of the trials, 125 adults were assigned to weekly injections of amycretin. Those receiving the 60 milligram dose lost nearly a quarter of their body weight over 36 weeks. This would make amycretin a more effective than other weight loss drugs like Wegovy, where a trial found that patients lost 15 per cent of their body weight over a longer 68 week period. Another trial enrolled 144 adults to test the pill version of amycretin. Those who took the 100 milligram daily tablet lost an average of 13.1 percent of their weight over 12 weeks. While jabs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro only target the body's GLP-1 receptors, amycretin targets them as well as the amylin receptors, which help regulate blood glucose levels and appetite. The drug helps to prevent overeating and promote feelings of satiety. The findings were published in The Lancet and presented this week at the American Diabetes Association's Scientific Sessions in Chicago. Researchers also reported that the drug appeared to improve participants' blood sugar control, an important marker for those at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical company behind amycretin — and also the maker of Wegovy and Ozempic — hopes the pill version of amycretin could make weight-loss therapy more accessible, especially in Britain, where around 1.5 million people currently receive weight-loss treatments, mostly as injections prescribed through specialised clinics or by private providers. Pill formulations may simplify prescribing and make long-term weight-loss support easier to scale up. Unlike drugs like Ozempic, amycretin tablets would not need to be refrigerated and do not require syringes. However, amycretin remains in the early stages of clinical testing and that larger trials will be required to fully establish its safety and efficacy. Both forms of the drug were also associated with improvements in blood sugar levels. Patients did report side effects, including nausea and vomiting, but researchers said that they tended to resolve as the treatment progressed.
CNN
32 minutes ago
- CNN
Science recap: This week's discoveries include the fossilized skull of a mysterious, prehistoric human species
Tens of thousands of years ago, our species — Homo sapiens — mingled and interbred with other prehistoric humans: our distant cousins, the Neanderthals and Denisovans. Hundreds of Neanderthal fossils give us a good idea of their appearance, lives and relationships, but so little is known about Denisovans that they still don't have an official scientific name. Evidence of their existence has surfaced in faint traces, mapped by DNA markers that lurk in our own genetic makeup and confirmed by only a few fossil fragments. This week, however, a 146,000-year-old skull dredged out of a well in China in 2018 may just be a key missing piece to this cryptic evolutionary puzzle. A long time ago The nearly complete skull did not match any previously known species of prehistoric human. But two new studies — which researchers say are among the biggest paleoanthropology papers of the year — detail how scientists were able to extract genetic material from the fossil and help unravel this biological mystery. The DNA sample taken from 'Dragon Man,' as the specimen is called, revealed that he was in fact related to Denisovans, early humans who are thought to have lived between roughly 500,000 and 30,000 years ago. The finding could be monumental, helping to paint a fuller picture of a time when our own species coexisted with other prehistoric humans. Across the universe Astronomers have long grappled with the quandary of 'dark matter,' but plenty of enigmas surround regular matter as well. The proton-and-neutron-based atoms that we're familiar with are called baryonic matter. And this material is strewn between galaxies like intergalactic fog, making it extremely difficult to measure. Perhaps, that is, until now. A new study explains how scientists were able to observe the baryonic matter using the flashing of fast radio bursts. In a rare encounter, scientists have captured the first-ever footage of an elusive 3-foot-long squid alive in its deep-sea habitat. Unearthed Fruit, flowers, birds and musical instruments decorated the walls of a luxury villa — part of a site the excavation team dubbed the 'Beverly Hills' of Roman Britain — before the building was razed roughly 1,800 years ago. The frescoes were painstakingly pieced together by experts from the Museum of London Archaeology. Han Li, senior building material specialist at MOLA, described the effort as a 'once in a lifetime' opportunity. Romans invaded modern-day Britain in AD 43 and established Londinium, the precursor to modern London. The occupation lasted for almost 400 years. Curiosities Under the life-affirming glow of the sun, methane is a dangerous gas to be avoided. A heat-trapping chemical pollutant in Earth's atmosphere, methane exacerbates the climate crisis. But within the planet's deep recesses — thousands of feet below the ocean's surface off the US West Coast — the gas can be transformed into a nutritious meal. At least for spiders. Scientists say they've discovered three previously unknown species of sea spider living around methane seeps. In these marine habitats where sunlight can't reach, gas escapes through cracks in the seafloor and feeds bacteria that latch on to the spiders' exoskeletons. The bacteria convert carbon-rich methane and oxygen into sugars and fats the spiders can eat, according to a new study. The newfound Sericosura sea spiders may pass methane-fueled bacteria to their hatchlings as an easy source of food, the researchers suggest. Take note Check out these other must-read science stories from the week: — A SpaceX Starship rocket exploded during a routine ground test on Wednesday. Explore how this and other recent setbacks may affect the company's Mars ambitions. — A tiny brown moth in Australia migrates some 600 miles at night using the stars for navigation — something only humans and birds were known to do before. — A hunt for ghostly cosmic particles found anomalous signals coming from Antarctic ice. A new detector could help scientists explain what they are. — Researchers used DNA to reconstruct the face of a prehistoric woman who lived around 10,500 years ago in what's now Belgium, suggesting that skin color already varied considerably among different populations.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
DARPA smashes wireless power record, beaming energy more than 5 miles away — and uses it to make popcorn
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The U.S. military has set a new record for wireless power transmission, beaming a laser carrying more than 800 watts of power across a distance of 5.3 miles (8.6 kilometers). The test, performed by the U.S. military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as part of its Persistent Optical Wireless Energy Relay (POWER) program, is a key step toward unlocking the near-instant beaming of power. It also smashes previous records set by the POWER program, which previously beamed 230 watts across 1 mile (1.7 km) for 25 seconds, and a smaller, undisclosed amount of power as far as 2.3 miles (3.7 km). "It is beyond a doubt that we absolutely obliterated all previously reported optical power beaming demonstrations for power and distance," Paul Jaffe, the POWER program manager, said in a statement. The concept of wireless power transmission (WPT) has been a popular goal since the days of Nikola Tesla, who in 1901 began constructing the Wardenclyffe Tower on Long Island, New York — a 187-foot (57 meters) structure intended to be the first node in a "World Wireless System" that would beam power around the globe. Yet technical challenges meant that funding for the project, initially provided by the financier J.P. Morgan, dried up, leaving Tesla's vision unrealized. Related: NASA's 1st successful 2-way laser experiment is a giant leap for moon and Mars communications Nonetheless, interest in the concept has recently increased, both for military applications and space-based solar power, a nascent technology that would collect and transmit energy from sunlight in space, where it is 10 times more intense than at Earth's surface. Energy is essential for military operations, and getting that energy to the battlefields and disaster areas where it's needed is slow, risky, and resource intensive, often using up a lot of fuel, DARPA representatives wrote in the statement. RELATED STORIES —World's most powerful X-ray laser set for massive upgrade that will help us better understand the atomic world —DARPA's military-grade 'quantum laser' will use entangled photons to outshine conventional laser beams—Scientists uncover the secret to building Star Wars-style laser weapons — but don't worry, we won't have a Death Star anytime soon "These tests, referred to as PRAD (POWER Receiver Array Demo), mark an important step toward the POWER program's long-term goal of being able to instantly beam power from a location where it can be easily generated to wherever it's needed," the agency added. In the latest experiment, conducted at the U.S. Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the power was beamed over the 5.3-mile distance in a 30-second pulse. The laser beam arrived at the receiver before passing through a small aperture, bouncing off a parabolic mirror onto solar cells within. The pulse was transmitted with an approximate 20% efficiency, and some of the power it transmitted was used to make popcorn. The researchers have bigger ambitions for the system's use in the field, however, suggesting that it could be used to power unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). They will now move on to testing power beaming both across multiple connected relays and vertically, where the atmosphere is thinner and transmission more efficient.
