A new paper published in Science last week is the culmination of an extensive amount of research conducted over the past six years examining methane emissions from the U.S. oil and gas supply chain. The study finds that the U.S. oil and gas industry emits 13 million metric tons of methane per year – 60% higher than the EPA Greenhouse Gas Inventory (GHGI) estimates. Some industry sources have questioned the conclusions drawn in the paper and the methods employed to which I respond below.
The 25 co-authors of this Science paper represent 16 different research institutions. These experts were collectively responsible for generating most of the data analyzed and directly involved in writing the paper, which was subjected to a rigorous independent peer review as a condition of publication in one of the world’s top scientific journals.
Informed critiques are a valuable part of the scientific process. But the key issues raised by Energy in Depth (EID) and the American Gas Association seem to reflect a deep misunderstanding of the approaches used in the paper and the underlying data. Here, I explain the methods used to avoid bias and resolve differences among multiple data sets.
