At the U.N. Climate change summit, a new array of policies were discussed to cut down on the emission of Methane gas. Methane is a strong greenhouse gas, which is more than 80 times more harmful than carbon-di-oxide in its Global Warming Potential. In the U.S. it is mainly emitted during energy production, agriculture, and waste management.
Seen as a major policy decision, it shall bring forward amendments such as standardization rules for old wells, monitoring of gas leaks, and detailed inquiry, which may also attract penalties, etc. It shall be a comprehensive advancement in the direction of tacking percolation of methane in the oil and gas infrastructure by the government.
The methane gas is a major part of natural gas’s composition, often used in refrigeration and cooling equipment, to cook and it finds many commercial uses as well, for which it is transferred in pipelines.
To ensure a better grip at regulating the safety standards, and work on preventing hazards the Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration will expand its scope of work to include more than 400,000 miles of currently unregulated onshore gathering lines.
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Under previous regimes, the focus was more concentrated towards upcoming drilling grounds and governmental activities and was largely ignored by the large corporate houses functioning in the domain due to which widespread adoption was not seen. However, under the Biden administration, it shall be seen that the big companies also come under the scope of this regulation.
This comes ahead of the push by the United States and European Union trying to push for member states to become signatories of the Global Methane Pledge, which aims to cut down emissions by 30% until 2030. However, it has not been given too much weightage by major emitters like China and Russia.
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