Scientists named Russia among the countries with the highest methane emissions

NYT: the most powerful sources of methane emissions are in Russia, the USA, Turkmenistan, Algeria

Scientists from France and the US have identified sources of maximum methane emissions into the air using satellite data. Russia was among the countries in whose territory such production facilities are located, informs The New York Times, citing the results of the study.

For the analysis, scientists used data from the European satellite Sentinel 5. Most of the sources of methane emissions are located in the territories of petrochemical industries, the scientists found out. In addition to Russia, they named the United States, Turkmenistan, Algeria and the countries of the Middle East.

According to the newspaper, until recently, the search for the main places of methane emissions was mainly carried out using aircraft, drones or ground equipment. Satellite can provide broader searches, but with lower accuracy, making it difficult to identify a specific release source.

At the same time, scientists found that using satellite data they can identify “extremely large” sources of emissions – more than 25 tons per hour. Using data for 2019 and 2020, they found about 1.2 thousand such sources of methane emissions.

They estimated the total emissions from such facilities at about 9 million tons per year.