Slashdot Mirror


Damage Report: LA Methane Leak Is One of the Worst Disasters In US History (inhabitat.com)

MikeChino writes: A week after the ruptured natural gas well in Aliso Canyon was finally declared sealed, we have a full account of the damage — and it doesn't look good. In total, 97,100 metric tons of methane were released into the atmosphere over the course of 112 days — the equivalent greenhouse gas emissions of over half a million cars.

5 of 240 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Equivalent to 500000 cars over what time period by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are 253 million cars in the US on the road. So 0.2% of the total. What a calamity.

  2. Is that a lot? by hawguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the equivalent greenhouse gas emissions of over half a million cars.

    Is half a million cars a lot in a nation that has over 230 million cars on the road? LA County alone has over 7 million cars and trucks registered.

    Having more cars than licensed drivers in the USA sounds like more of an environmental disaster... and worse yet, China already has more drivers than the entire population of the USA, and the numbers are still climbing.

  3. Bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Worst disasters in US history? Bull Shit.

    How many died? How much property damage?

    This doesn't even rank in the top thousand by any objective measure.

    Every last bit of that methane was due to be burned. It was at the last step before retail use. You only get to count the extra from being unburned and if this was really such a fucking disaster it could have been flared.

  4. Big deal by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Coal Oil Point off of Santa Barbara, a NATURAL methane/oil seep, leaks 40 tons per day. Been doing it for hundreds of years. And will continue doing so. And that's just one natural seep in California - there are hundreds of them off-shore.

    --
    Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
  5. Re:Equivalent to 500000 cars over what time period by thestuckmud · · Score: 5, Informative

    ... link it shows the "enviro-left" IPCC predictions vs actual temperature measurements. Not even close.

    The Guardian addresses several of your errors interpreting this graph in this article. Perhaps the biggest error is the implication that the models predict specific temperature rises over time. In reality, the projections all included error bounds which, if included, would have show a very different picture.

    I will note that those error bounds were pretty broad back in 1990. And that newer models are narrowing those bounds.

    Last, a quotation from the article: "The 1990–2012 data have been shown to be consistent with the [1990 IPCC report] projections, and not consistent with zero trend from 1990"