Have we lost control of METHANE gas?

Methane is 87 times more potent as a greenhouse than carbon dioxide over the 12 years or so that it typically hangs around in our atmosphere. The new 2024 Methane Budget from the Global Carbon Tracker tells us that it has been accelerating in recent years reaching record levels between 2017 and 2024. So, what's going on, and what can we do about it?

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Research papers referenced in the video :

Methane Tracker

Methane Budget 2024

IEA Methane Tracker 2021

Al Gore summarises the opportunity during a speech at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan

Sketch Planations Graphics

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Our Changing Climate :

[williamdeltufo]

My day job is working as a biochar developer for a rewilding initiative in Sussex England. I’m experimenting with developing low emission systems for turning (otherwise left to rot) byproduct biomass into biochar carbon. Then adding it into and onto the soil inoculated with mycorrhizal sporulates to attempt an accelerated rewilding of previously impoverished post industrial land. Experimental tests are so far encouraging enough to suggest a far faster increase in soil biomass carbon sequestration over and above the biochar carbon being added. If this could be implemented broadly on small scale then it would become possible to draw down millions of tonnes of carbon from the carbon cycle and lock it back into the soil and out of the atmosphere. At the same time as dramatically improving soil fertility, negating the need for petrochemical fertilisers and helping to bring back habitat and biodiversity. I’m working hard at it to see if it will help.
Thinking ‘terra preta’ wise, we may have lost connection to nature, to spirit and to ancient technologies however it is all possible to regain if we can be brave and face uncomfortable truths. Changing our habits and daring to take risks, be bold and strive to want less material possessions. Wildroots Wood.

[JonDecker]

Well, it doesn't help the half of the US is speckled with abandoned and forgotten oil and gas wells leaking unmeasured methane into the atmosphere.

[ochlokrat]

I admire, how you always manage to tightrope all these gloomy news in a very entertaining, funny, yet still professional and thought provoking manner! Seems to be a British quality, like shops, who were bombed during air raids in WW2, and put out signs the next day like 'even more open today!". Humour seems to be the best strategy to not succumb to all the bad news surrounding us.

[thomasross]

Thank you so much for including fugitive emissions. I've heard that only 5% methane emissions from leaks in the piping system cancels out all of methane's "clean burning" advantages, and that's basically where we are at when it comes to leaks, making natural gas a total clean energy mirage.

[coreywhite]

I'm surprised you don't have more subscribers. This is a very important channel.

[jerryvelders]

It isn't ignorance that prevents humanity from dealing with this imminent head-on disaster .. it's greed.

[elephantintheroom]

There may be people smarter than you, Dave, but you're a smarter communicator. And the world needs communicators, especially about climate change!

[andiralosh]

The fact that methane that could be industrially burned is instead left to be a WORSE greenhouse gas, while more is drilled for is beyond upsetting. It will always be more profitable to mine and destroy unregulated resources

[laurencetayloruk]

"our collective inability to apply critical thinking to a blindingly obvious rapidly approaching catastrophe" Very succinctly put 😄

[seattlegrrlie]

My friend, who is a very left liberal and not an idiot did not realize that "natural gas" is methane. They have done a great job with marketing

[Theravadinbuto]

One of the places to start is in changing how we deal with organic waste, including human waste. Our current sewage systems have had very positive impacts on human health, but they are responsible for horrendous losses of critical plant nutrients like phosphorus, which have a finite available supply, and additionally they are significant sources of methane emissions. Aerobic composting at high enough temperatures to sterilize the organics, and recycling as plant nutrients, is critical. However, the big problem is illegal dumping of toxic metals like cadmium into our sewage system. Implementing continuous monitoring of sewage flows for metals and toxic substances is needed, and a large scale program to recycle these organics and their critical plant nutrients.

[Namebripskipp-ggdw]

This channel should have more subscribers and views, its so important for people to be educated about this stuff and he explains it so well.

[composthis]

It's frustrating to hear people with zero grounding in agricultural science talk about ruminant digestion as if silage corn and feedlots are the only way to raise these animals. Raising ruminants on grazing only, as has been done for the last ten thousand years or so, greatly reduces all these problems and when done in the right way on the appropriate kinds of land is actually a net positive for the ecology of the system - but it reduces the stocking density to a level that only makes enough money to keep farmers farming; it doesn't produce enough profit to pay shareholders, nor does it produce cheap enough meat to keep McDonald's in business. As usual, the problem here isn't agriculture, the problem is capitalism.

[sharonyoxall]

I live in a state doing massive LNG extraction, with resulting massive CO2 (with mythical CCS con job) & massive methane emissions as by-products
With no slowing of exploration & granting of leases
At the same time, we are all busy sorting our rubbish, returning our cans for deposits & installing solar at a rate of knots. I am very well aware that this ‘window dressing’ & performative greenwashing is pitifully ineffective - any savings are so far below these emissions it’s a joke
is all - we are too stupid to deserve to survive

[breathonthewind]

Over 10 years ago I had an "argument" online with a "engineer" who followed the then popular thinking that natural gas was our solution away from burning coal and so a solution for CO2 global warming. My point was other research that clarified that if only 3% of the natural gas pumped from place to place around the US leaked than the emissions of methane would make the use of natural gas more problematic than using coal. Actual figures suggested that the number was closer to a 12% leakage from pipelines. Now on top of this I have seen numbers that suggest we only are able to collect 20 to 30% of the natural gas produced from fracking and there are large areas above natural gas fracking fields satalites have shown with increased natural gas emissions.

[SonicPhonic]

Our Canadian government gives billions in subsidies, interest-free loans and funding to big-oil through the Export Development Corporation. That totals to about $17 billion in the last 2 or three years.

[davidboyle]

There’s a new source in town, and so far I’ve found no one who mentioned anything about it. That source is SpaceX, specifically its Starship/Superheavy rocket powered by O2 & CH4. I’m not good at quoting numbers, but from what’s been posted, some 7 tons of CH4 is dumped into the atmosphere every time SH is either tested or flown. A smaller amount is also released during Starship testing. And in the very near future, Starship launches will be increasing significantly - it’s the vehicle that will launch its newer, heavier internet satellites. It’s also the ship destined to head to the moon (?) and mars. And with each of those missions, Starship will be visited by 8-10 tanker version ships (the actual number required yet tbd).

Somewhere along the line it would be nice if someone in the know would do the calculations for how much raw methane SpaceX will be dumping into the atmosphere on a yearly basis. I would not be at all surprised to hear that SpaceX will be the single biggest source of methane releases on the planet.

Oh, and during flight of Starship - the orbital component - it will dump over a thousand tons of water vapor into the stratosphere. I do hope someone out there can do the requisite calculations.

Good presentation, btw.

[tuff-duty]

I’m 75 years old. Greenhouse gases have risen dramatically during my lifetime. As the permafrost thawed out, and continues to thaw out, all around the world, tremendous amounts of greenhouse gases are released and this can’t be stopped. Our activities created the thaw, and now there is nothing that can be done. It is beyond our control. So, “have a think!”

[trailsandsails]

I am now retired but worked as a field researcher for universities and for the Fed Gov on greenhouse gas budgets since the mid 80's. Quantifying the methane budget is a bit more tricky than co2 as it's heavily dependent on ground hydrology -bacteria may generate methane in wetter conditions or feed upon it in dryer condtions. That's one of several complications. Nearer and in the Arctic, ice in permafrost may cap methane rich zones as it has for millenia and predicting that thaw is very difficult- there is literally a degree difference whether that cap exists or not. On both land and sea, data gathering is logisitically a tall challenge so data is sparse and the heterogenity of deposits is very variable.
Many thanks for again putting together a great and highly topically presentation on a pressing enviromental issue. Dean

[Andriastravels]

A mere 17% increase in Methane emissions over the last 30 years is impossibly low, a cover up. This is common sense. The increase in emissions since the 1990's due to expansion of cattle farming, natural gas extraction, processing and delivery, human waste, and landfills would far exceed a 17% increase. Fracking alone is a huge new source of fugitive Methane emissions.