November 16, 2016 – Andrea Sears, Public News Service (PA)
Google Street View cars have mapped gas leaks in pipelines in 11 U.S. cities so far. (Environmental Defense Fund)
PITTSBURGH – A unique project unveiled Tuesday lets environmentalists and utilities “Google” leaks in gas lines buried under Pittsburgh streets.
A Google Street View car equipped with a device that locates and measures methane in the air has been pinpointing pipes that are leaking the potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. According to Dr. Steven Hamburg, chief scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, the project uncovered a significant, although invisible, problem.
“Looking at the downtown area showed that Pittsburgh has about one leak indication for every two miles of pipe, which is a pretty high level,” he said.
In contrast, Hamburg said, in Indianapolis, where gas pipelines are newer, a similar survey identified only one leak for every 200 miles of pipe.
Peoples Natural Gas, a Pittsburgh utility, initiated the project. While stopping leaks will save the utility money, its concern is the environment. Hamburg said methane is 84 times more effective at capturing heat in the atmosphere than is carbon dioxide.
“Overall,” he said, “methane released through human activity accounts for one-quarter of the increased warming that we’re seeing currently, globally.”
Natural gas leaks have been mapped in 10 other U.S. cities so far. While identifying gas leaks in cities with older gas infrastructure can have the most immediate impact, Hamburg said this collaboration of technology companies and environmental groups now can make the scale of climate pollution visible to individuals everywhere.
“We’ve got to do it across the globe,” he said, “We’ve got to do it in ways that everybody can see their environment and then make the appropriate decisions about what that means for their life, for their families.”
Hamburg estimated that, through the use of monitoring and best practices, methane emissions along the entire gas supply line can be reduced by at least half.
More information is online at edf.org/climate/methanemaps.
Leave a Reply