Emissions of a potent greenhouse gas from Alberta’s energy industry are underestimated by nearly 50 per cent, according to a new study from one of Canada’s premier climate labs. The study from Carleton University’s Energy and Emissions Research Lab also says oil and gas produced in the province emit significantly more methane for the energy produced than jurisdictions such as British Columbia — a measurement that offers a warning to industry, said lead author Matthew Johnson.
“The future is, your ability to sell (gas) into certain markets will be based on methane intensity,” he said. Johnson’s lab, which published its latest paper in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment, combined several different measuring methods for methane, a greenhouse gas considered to be about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the first 20 years after its release. In methods published and praised in the scientific literature and now in use by the United Nations Environment Program, the team measured emissions at surface level, from a plane and from satellite dat