A new study published in Nature has found that a lot more methane is leaking from fossil fuel operations into the atmosphere than previously thought. The study was the first that could differentiate methane emitted from fossil fuels from the background levels emitted by natural sources, using carbon-14 measurements of methane in ice cores. According to the study, “This result indicates that anthropogenic fossil CH4 emissions are underestimated by about 38 to 58 teragrams CH4 per year, or about 25 to 40 per cent of recent estimates.”

Then there are the compressor stations which keep the gas moving through the pipeline. The Coastal GasLink pipeline will ultimately have eight of them. These all burn gas; one study indicated that, on average, a reciprocating compressor burned “45 000 GJ of natural gas during the reporting year and the flare burned 2400 m3 of processed natural gas.” That’s 42 million cubic feet of gas per year, a fraction of the 2.1 billion cubic feet per day that the pipeline carries per day, but equivalent to the consumption of 684 average American houses. A small matter, but just pointing out that every step of the way, from start to finish, there are leaks, flares, boil-offs, pumps and compressors eating up the gas.