3 united with his daughter on the median side of the border moments of relief at the time of desperation. and set you up to date so well, we'll use at the top of the aisle coming up next 10 on the w a. dr. trouble looking at the climate killer. that is the famed gas, which is responsible for him 25 percent of the global temperature increase. that's next. a good the not just another day. so much is happening all at once. we take time to understand this is the day i'm in, that's look at current use events, analyzed by experts and critical thinking is weekdays on d, w the

the at nearly 3000 meters high. the duke's pizza is famous for its breathtaking panorama. and some of the cleanest air in germany at the summit, the highest environmental research station in the country. it includes an observatory that monitors the earth atmosphere throughout the year with a focus on potent greenhouse gases. the

for the complex analyses, businesses to ralph system and from the karlsruhe institute of technology capture some the and directly into the interior of the mountain station with a system of gold coded mirrors. so what is the state of the earth delicate atmosphere the in the laboratory, a spectrum meters separates the light and analyzes the individual wave length with up to $140.00 measurements per day. the team gains extremely precise insight into the composition of the atmosphere locus. so marcus, let's take a look at our current solar measurements for years they've noted an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases. this is what's going on. it turned out, well today, this is the sun life and i can see these fingerprint, the fingerprints for the,

for each gets produced as typical lines in the solar spectrum. the deeper the blue gaps and the spectrum, the more gas was measured. you know exactly the double line. if you zoom in there again, the 2 lines, maybe he's very concerned about rising methane. this baton is that guns can be seen as quite a critical global warmer. on the one hand, you might think it's harmless, elizabeth, because it disappears from the atmosphere within 10 years, quite the opposite of carbon dioxide which lingers for thousands of years. so you might think it's harmless. on the other hand, in those 10 years that meeting is in the atmosphere, its contribution to the greenhouse effect is at least a 100 times that of carbon dioxide is a good deal. after c, o 2, methane is the most important human cost greenhouse gas and accounts for about a quarter of global warming to date. so where exactly does the color list order

list gas come from? there are some natural sources in wetlands, nothing escapes as organic matter decomposes, and it's also released in forest fires. but the massive increase in methane emissions since the beginning of the industrial era is due to humans. large quantities are emitted intensive live stock farming. and in the x direction and use of fossil fuels, the methane is the main component of natural gas. as low as human activity has more than doubled the concentration of methane and the atmosphere to push to how much of this is due to fossil fuels, nearly understood, some kind of a mazda moment does need his honest and what could be causing the extremely

accelerated increase that researchers have been observing in the last 15 in years down to the side is on days as low as 0. so you can use a decisive clue for ralph superman, lies in measuring another gas. and thanks to the clinic, eat tons, the sites always exhibit on times when the sky you see now is the 2nd most abundant components of natural gas. after me saying, what's an agriculture in castle farming? it was. there's new, se natal, i'm just like the fact that there's a sharp rise in the scene and 20 or 7 is this all the same time. there's also a southern increase in the scene is very telling me we can actually then calculate the 40 percent of this up swing display of this entire increasing atmospheric concentration from 20 to 7 till today. this is caused by oil and gas production, though if it was with international studies confirm, there are more than $80000000.00 tons of methane entering the atmosphere as natural

gas every year. how can it be? we launched an elaborate investigation in search of the source of these climate impacting emissions, natural gas, the allegedly clean the fuel is used to heat about a 3rd of europe's homes, offices and stores to feed the demand, an underground network of gas pipelines, criss crosses our cities is natural gas escaping from this distribution system on notice the thomas rockman of the dutch university of food tract is trying to find out the measurements, taken by his american colleagues, have inspired the climate scientist to search for evidence in europe. the. his van is equipped with technology that continuously monitors the surrounding air. for traces of methane, the,

the 2 researchers drive through the streets of new tract constantly on the lookout for an unusually high concentrations of methane, the it's not long before the alert goes off. oh yeah, very good. the reading shows a sudden jump in methane level. is there a natural gas leak nearby? now they have to follow the trail on the flip side, where exactly is the color listened? odorless gas coming from. with their immobile detector, they slowly work their way to the source. the post in greenhouse gas is seeping out

through cracks in the pavement. yep. 6 by 3 pm. since methane and methane levels are measured simultaneously, they can immediately distinguish natural gas from other methane sources, such as waste water. right at the drain, the concentration is almost high enough to present an explosion risk. and this is, this is a big one here, right? it's a clear case. natural gas is seeping out. the ones you think the bigger mess is gonna be a problem. we find these regularly on practically every else thing. we find a handful of leaks. we'll now report that to the gas network, corporate to inform them that there is probably a gas leak here. and they can actually dig a hole and find out exactly where the lake is. and we can see that from the surface, of course, we can only see the point where it's entering the at misty, ever prolonged. this time, thomas workman's fines further leaks and several other streams that we have to be done. however large enough to oppose the risk to residents,

the, the local gas supplier is unaware of all these lakes. although they themselves checks the pipes, the guy. so it's all the them. what does she be sure for the gas appliance motor to the straits of different team to move? and of course, it depends on what kind of pipeline materials they've used drop. it's generally annual check spots and also the every 3 or 5 years on. so it means if a lake like that it goes and isn't found quickly, it can be there for months. so we did is before it's actually repaired, then the emissions has stopped winter and hopefully we certainly stops here. but then in other cities, it can be holcman and several researchers from other universities have been tracking down methane leaks across europe and 11 cities to date. but then industry to the conclusion everywhere. precious natural gas is escaping the grid, possible for this could be largely prevented if gas suppliers carried out more

frequent and thorough monitoring by the person. but their investigations also clearly show that the municipal gas networks are probably only responsible for a small percentage of the $80000000.00 tons of methane that escape in the form of natural gas. so where's the rest coming from the in paris, we visit a company that specializes in global energy and environmental analysis. the startup k rose was founded to advise companies and investors in the oil and gas sector. one of the founders and one half was formally cheap analyst at the international energy agency at k row supervisors. clients with high quality data on the extraction, trade and consumption of oil and gas. but

some of his clients began asking if and where methane was escaping in the process. his team of data analysts set out to investigate using publicly available information in the european environmental satellites. sentinel, 5 b has been orbiting the earth since october 2017. the instruments on board measure pollutants such as ozone, and formaldehyde, as well as methane once a day. this produces a map of methane concentrations across the globe. but this measures the total methane released over the years from natural sources. and man made sources such as agriculture and industry. can the methane currently entering the atmosphere as natural gas be tracked down in this mountain of data?

it is a huge amount of processing, artificial intelligence modeling. you need to understand everything, you need to understand the whole industry. you need to understand how the weather and when that turns affect the dispersion of methane. so we combine all these inputs to develop, i go as in that process the, the data data specialists in paris have recently succeeded in what was previously impossible. they've used computer programs to identify specific locations where natural gas, nothing is being released. these are found worldwide. precisely where major production sites of natural gas and oil are located method and these are the problem is so they could have been for a long time, there's been there kind of a defensive digital was messing. no, no, i'm not. i'm not the meeting this and no, those measurements cannot be right. i'm doing,

i'm good. any transparency is to collecting for many, many produces, including some of the majors. does this also apply to companies in germany? we try to gain access to one of the approximately 1100 production facilities in the country. after a rejection by oil giant exxon, we negotiated with germany's largest oil and gas company ventures, how they finally, we obtained permission to visit a gas production facility, east of freeman, the are large quantities of methane escaping here, and noticed the

vendors how data has recently begun to address this question, it's voluntarily committed to inspecting its facilities for leaks once a year, which it did in germany for the 1st time. at the end of 2021. the sensitive gas cameras are used to detect potential trouble spots. using a gas cylinder technician marcel van to call like demonstrates how the camera works . it's the optical gas detection is based on the fact the gas is absorbed, atmospheric radiation, and become visible with in for read with conventional video technology, the gas is indivisible only. and in for red mode, does it show up as a black cloud,

as the technicians systematically search the plant for leaks. hundreds of valves connections and pipelines have to be checked the in addition to the gas camera, a high precision sniffing meter searches for the smallest leaks. the company says that a handful of minor leaks are usually detected during the to day inspection of such a plant. the gas camera doesn't register anything during our visit. such images might not have been appreciated by the company in

the todds. so as you can view it, i mean the missing ones who are funding on the companies are in fact trying to reduce emissions because you don't have to believe everything. they say they have to invest things off the stage. and that's why it's important to carry out independent measurements and establish techniques that are properly tested so that companies can really deliberate critical data, or do you intend to invoke the show? the bottom line is, we're still seeing an increase in methane company. and in the last year, more than ever before. and let's see as they've got stack eyes just to say, i do hope because, you know, so where do the millions of tons of natural gas detected in the atmosphere come from? not from germany, according to independent measurements. this is plausible, less than 0 point one percent of global oil and gas extraction takes place here. europe as a whole, contributes only about 5 percent of global production. so it follows that europe

share of global methane emissions from oil and gas would be relatively small. the major oil and gas reservoirs are found in russia and other states of the former soviet union. and in the middle east, with major producers in the persian gulf. in the past 15 years, production has increased significantly, especially in north america, around a quarter of the world. oil and natural gas is now produced here much of it in the so called permian basin in south western us. this border region between the states of texas and new mexico is one of the global centers of this 1000000000 dollar industry. about 40 percent of us oil is produced

here and natural gas production in the region has increased by 350 percent since 2011 new production records were announced in the 1st half of 2022. there are over 800000 wells in the permian basin rigs upon rick. as far as the i can see how much natural gas along with methane escapes during production. the a research site at colorado state university is dedicated to answering this question. so you're thinking over here, maybe for over a decade engineer daniel similarly has been refining methods for detecting methane leaks in the industry that can be found. yes, so water over there to this and he's created a unique testing facility

a. what at 1st glance looks like a typical oil and gas extraction facility is just a deceptively real facade. the, the natural gas does not come out of the ground here, but it's delivered by truck it can be distributed throughout the site via hidden pipeline and release in the targeted manner. this allows researchers to test measuring devices and to trained technicians and detecting leaks and oil and gas production. let's look at this at the, the vertical pipe. there's

a little valve sticking off horizontally on the now know much more about the typical weak points and such a system here. probably the big thing that's changed in the last 5 years. this is when we talked about fugitive emissions 5 years ago. people were interested kind of small things like, you know, this joint or that joint or this piece of equipment. and that was where the focus was. and what we've learned in the last 56 years is that the big problem is things we weren't even looking at 5 years ago, where you end up with large emitters. because some bell fails or some process failed. and you have a very large, you're talking about the companies that run those sites and the regulators, the companies that run the sites, the regulators that were constructing the programs. i would say, even the energy owes that were kind of looking at emissions. didn't really quite understand the frequency and the size large amounts of gas pouring unnoticed into

the environment. does this explains a huge increase of methane in the atmosphere. we turn to the international association of oil and gas producers who secretary general him on hill. we made in houston for an interview we're here today to talk about methane, right? i mean, the oil and gas industry is big and it's, it's international. all right, so do you a represent like all of it? we can confidently say that we represent our industry and we have members from every continent. now, we concern ourselves with looking across our membership and that membership and being as global as possible. to give a members the tool kits to be able to, as, as you know, accurately as possible, define the baselines with respect to what the current,

me say, and emissions all, and then encourage them. and again, providing actual how deliverables in, in the form of a tool kit to allow them to start to put together, maintain an emissions reduction plans. and fundamentally, nobody in this sector doesn't believe there's not one single member company that i know of. that doesn't believe that this is the top priority for them. and it's tough with the agenda for the work that, that, that they're doing. it sounds exemplary, but none of the companies we contact in the us are willing to show us their production facilities. we receive one rejection after another. we respectfully decline participating in the production. unfortunately, we cannot accommodate your request at this time. at these time, we are not able to accommodate these request. can large methane emissions really

remain on noticed? be contact independent researchers, the scientists at the environmental defense fund, e d. f. a non governmental environmental organization is equipped with a special camera. this helicopter will be searching today for methane emissions here in south western us. and all findings will be systematically documented by adf experts. david lion the helicopter is also frequently used by the us environmental protection agency. adf has rented it for its research, with funding from foundation grants and donations the

. today the environmental list will be getting an impression of the site and be able to view the methane leaks in person. the, the helicopter is scheduled to fly over 60 production sites today in a sequence chosen in consultation with assign to the crew focuses on a facility where both gas and oil are being extracted. the gas camera can detect methane with and for read the bingo. a continuous stream of methane

is pouring from the emergency event of one of the tanks, the, the helicopter cru reports define to the ground station. now the researchers set off the, fortunately, they're able to get relatively close to the site. often for holes can only be reached by private roads that are closed off to the public the

. this production, well, like the vast majority here, is on man. none the less adf researchers keep a safe distance from the rig, so as not to illegally enter the site. the, and even from this distance, the special camera should be able to detect the venting gas. the, the diagnosis is easy. so at this site we're seeing cost and emissions coming from

these valves to the top of the tank. so i think what was happening at this site is this equipment over here is the separator, and it separates the oil and gas. and if it's working, normally, it will have the oil go to the tanks and the gas go to the pipeline so it can be sold to customers. but we things happen is the separator has stuck valve. so the gas instead of going to the pipelines, was going to the tank outside to the atmosphere. so not only is it's causing methane emissions, but the company is losing products. so it's really important for the companies to fix the equipment. in this case, the separator, they would stop the emissions and they'd sell more natural gas. the end of this discovery would not be the last of the day. the

over and again, the crew finds faulty valves and leaks in tanks the and a defective flare. we're excess natural gas is incompletely burned. yeah, it's a very common problem so that the 2 big issues we see are abnormal emissions coming out of the tanks and then i'm with layers. so in the permian. we're using multiple times of measurements at different scales from measuring the total emissions in the permian basin to measuring emission at individual sites the. the environmental defense fund is taking on what should be the government's jobs. for 2 years, researchers have been collecting data in texas and mexico. larger areas were scanned by plains, scientists from the university of wyoming were tasked with documenting emissions

from individual production sites and central gas processing plants. the helicopter has been deployed over and over again on methane detecting missions for adf. the, unless layers are a major source of methane emissions, players are used for burning excess gas from oil production, which is often a cheaper solution than building transport pipelines for the gas. but extinguished or defective players released the potent greenhouse gas directly into the atmosphere. the engine numerous such incidents were detected by researchers. the evidence that f and its partners have gathered is overwhelming and extremely inconvenient for the industry,

the player $10.00 to $15.00 times more methane is apparently being released. and so the western us then the company's claim. the adf continually updates its findings online. well, also notifying the relevant operators there reactions, very many of the operators now are trying to figure out what is exactly causing these emissions and then figure it out how they can stop the recurrence. but there still are a lot of companies. these 2 are not using measurements and really need to start figuring out where their emissions are coming from. so they can start reducing nervous. david zamarelli of colorado state university has had similar experiences. what about the the fact, hey, what about the those, those heavy emissions? what, what can be done about those? so for the large emitters,

you've got 2 things. one of them is recognition that they even exist. ok. so the aircraft overflights you're seeing and many basins, even satellite words you're seeing now is highlighting that they exist 5 years ago . people distance? yeah, they didn't believe they existed. okay, so awareness is job one. okay. we talked to dennis and my little see if you, me, tech. and he told me that the author right is on very often surprised how much stuff there is, especially when it comes to the heavy tail to the, to the, you know, super emitter stuff. that sounds like you member companies might not know a lot of their emissions. and i would disagree with you on back to actually i really would i call and speak for don a call and speak for the work that he's doing. i will, i can speak to really is the knowing the internals and the way the tom and the companies operate. it seems that many companies in the oil and gas industry are

still in denial. but the new revelations are putting them under pressure at french data analysis company, k, rowse, the specialists have her find their methods to get it. now they can even identify individual companies and plants from the raw data deliver daily by environmental satellites. the yellow stripes are kilometer long, methane plumes. several tons of methane gas are blown into the atmosphere every hour by one single facility. and analysts are detecting such super emitters all over the world in practically all major oil and gas production regions. this is huge. we thought at the start at the start of a work that we would pick up maybe a dozen such events every year. we sometimes decap a dozen a day we,

we always become more than a 1000 to reach. so those events of age a frequent that the intimate sense that don't last very long time, but in a few hours, because she permits or can meet as much as much company for that as tens of thousands of cost for an entire year. in south western us, in early 2022 emissions rose by a full 3rd. analysts are also finding super emitters in the middle east. and in russia. these revelations have been met with resistance from the industry initially when satellites started revealing levels of emissions that were

significantly above what the companies were reporting. there was an idea of disability discomfort and, and push back. we're now beyond that point, we're now at this stage of coming up to terms with the stock reality, which is a problem the challenge because it costs a negative life on industry. but it's also an opportunity because so much can be done. can be done quickly, can be done cheaply and can be done in a way that can be communicators in a way that can be trusted. technical solutions already exist. as seen at colorado state university, danielle simmer lee and his colleagues day are show us measurement technology that can detect methane emissions cheaply and quickly. the several different manufacturers are currently having their sensors and cameras

tested on campus. the goal is to have production facilities and pipelines, comprehensively monitored around the clock in contrast to standard practice to make the test as realistic as possible. the researchers are running a secret test protocol over several days. they repeatedly release different amounts of methane gas at different locations because they don't measure 0, right? that's the lower scratch, sort of just let the operators of the monitoring devices don't know when where or how much the the technology must be capable of alerting the facility operator at once. so they can stop the methane leak. the,

as it works, the camera registers methane problem solved. i'm in the business of leak detection and repair. so i should be the grand champion of leak detection, right? but in reality, leak detection is probably the worst way to mitigate emissions, right? okay it's, it's the equivalent of looking for the horses after they already have run out of the bar, right? so where you really want to be doing is using the information from your leak detection to improving your process. so the way to mitigate emissions is to start with controls on your site, the design of your site to make the emissions less probable. and then you come in at the end with leak detection, to find out when that control didn't work. in germany,

such continuous monitoring methods are to get in use oil and gas companies have so far concentrated on looking for small leaks once a year. as a result, they too may be overlooking emissions of methane here as long as we look at this time again and look at a gap between the actual emission and the emissions. we repeal things that are good and we're working now to fill a gap somehow in this regard. more emission, soul phase half being defined on some sol says that we haven't even been aware of course, we're working on the gap as and why these initiatives exist. we have just such that we understand that we want to improve soviet and berlin. a non profit organization is closely monitoring the activities of the

industry, environmental action germany has been calling for some time for more consistent, extend against methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. we ask its executive director, sasha mueller craner, what he thinks of the company's efforts is we just good to there's now a voluntary initiative on the part of the industry a to 50 saying we want to assess the frontier loan just populate mountain method. in addition to voluntary commitments, we also need legal regulations of costs. and the thing is ultimately it's about taking action that costs money. when i, when push comes to shuffle, it's most binding exponent, tre, 5, and the time the cost of the me sign reduction measures, going to be taken time of that. so that's why we need clear cut legislation, halleck association, or you can, the organization has criticized the fact that companies in germany are not even obliged to measure their methane emissions. the e u is working on

a uniform methane strategy. but this has been the subject of behind the scenes wrangling for years. the draft resolution requires companies to measure their emissions and stipulates that no more natural gas may be deliberately discharged. this is still common practice in many countries during maintenance work. but there's another way to handle that. here, the long distance network operator o g e is building a new compressor station on an active gas pipeline, which is full of natural gas. the nearest location where the pipe can be shut off, is 17 kilometers away. in order to open the pipelines safely, the natural gas, more than $500.00 tons of it must be removed from this section in the 17 kilometer section of pipeline which has been shut down and is now being evacuated when it

comes to empty of natural gas. you could supply $530.00 single family homes with gas for a year. and in the past about 10 to 15 years ago, you would have basically ended up releasing that gas into the atmosphere in places where that's still common. russia, for example, a super emitter then shows up in the methane satellite imagery by investing and such trucks, o g e, has greatly reduced venting and its own operations. the mobile compressors use high pressure to transfer the natural gas between pipeline sections. the gas is no longer loss. controlling emissions doesn't only make economical sense. the, do you hear me say and initiative contains a number of useful things, most of for the 1st time maintained emissions and the you it to be recorded and reported in a standardized form and also to be verified. but the very important things missing

. most importantly, the most natural gas is not produced in a year, but it's important unless to maintain emissions done to kind of within the utah within the producing countries and filled them in. the european union can only cover a small part of its natural gas needs through its own production. the big suppliers are norway and russia, who before the ukraine war supplied about 40 percent of europe's gas needs. but no matter where germany and you have imported their gas from to date, they've had little or no influence on the suppliers, methane emissions. yet the fact remains high. standards for clean production are imperative. if we wished to combat global warming to you, you would basically have to introduce mandatory labeling from natural gas being imported into the and you'd have to check closely so our pricing is transparent.

how much meantime escaped during production? was the climate compatibility with oil focus on securing our energy needs and if we come to fault to lose sight of our climate target and sometimes i have the feeling that the climate get difficult. i think the sobering conclusion of our research, more than $80000000.00 tons of methane continue to escape into the atmosphere as natural gas year after year. all of it preventable the gas causes further global warming. and at the same time as last as a valuable energy source, the only the codes is even a few part of this when you think that was needed, has the restructuring of the entire industry and transport sectors. and it can't be done individually. we can only be tackled with the political level, it's used and it would have to be globally coordinated again, politically. and you can't help noticing the joint action. global politics is a bit restricted right now,

but it's all it's left is to hope that at some point things will progress progress significantly. we don't have much time would be obviously a suicide. the somalia has been, she's hard to say though with the issue. but there is a way out affordable the celebration of sea water and initiative by somali. businessman demonstrates how it can be done a code for it could in 30 minutes on d, w,

they're tiny yet vital micro chips. without them, the global economy would grind to a halt. the race to produce and secure access to these minuscule components is on. but real subsidies making important superfluous in the future borders, germany's economic survival requires a different strategy made in germany. in 90 minutes, on d. w was, he's out of civilization and reflection about this policy as though it. so awakening is an entire universe of culture and a new episode every week, august 21 on the

the dw news line from pallet and a group of young people, assuming all of the countries of the european union and the e you itself, i think you are paying the cause of human rights, they accused of, of failing to do enough to protect them from climate change. also on the program by a kills and in just hundreds, a wedding party in t rock. i witnessed a site firework sauce at the info asking the comedy unions in the going and kind of back of leading in the thousands of cars from the road into. i mean, it was almost

a quarter of the pump.