Refining oil shale would involve far higher carbon emissions than processing conventional oil does, and tapping methane hydrates would require disturbing the ocean floor and also carefully containing the recovered gas, as the climate-warming potential of methane is far higher than that of carbon dioxide.
In addition, to address carbon emissions, large scale synthetic methane transport would require hydrogen conversion closer to end-use alongside a suitable carbon capture technology, but this may be possible at points of aggregation.
The Isle of Mull has 1278 households [ 53] and the average UK annual domestic gas consumption is 57.6 GJ [ 54], so to provide all the households on Mull with gas would require the methane from 430 ha of macroalgae cultivation, the extent of which can be seen on Figure 3.
We suggest that reconciliation between the present findings and the background methane concentrations found in the Gale crater4 would require an unknown process that can rapidly remove or sequester methane from the lower atmosphere before it spreads globally.
It also would require better tracking of methane and coal dust and crack down on the practice of advance warnings when federal investigators approach.
"The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed rules that would require industry to report methane emissions, but several companies have sued the EPA to try to prevent such reporting".
In New York, 91 percent of the samples tested either registered no dissolved methane or contained it in levels below the threshold that would require monitoring.
It also repealed a rule that would prevent coal-mining companies from dumping their waste into nearby waterways, and another rule that would require oil and gas companies to reduce methane leaks from operations on federal lands.
He delayed a rule that would require fossil fuel companies to rein in leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas wells.
Details of the revised proposal were not disclosed, but an Interior Department official said it would require disclosure of chemicals used in the process, control of methane emissions and careful management of drilling wastewater.
