Aerial Footage of Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Leak
Aliso Canyon leak sheds light on national problem. Methane leaks occurring across our natural gas supply chain take huge climate toll.
New footage released by the Environmental Defense Fund offers the first bird’s-eye, infrared view of the natural gas leak at the Aliso Canyon storage facility owned by Southern California Gas Company.
The leak, which has been going on since October, is invisible to the naked eye. It’s disrupting life in nearby parts of Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley and pumping 62 million cubic feet of methane into the atmosphere each day. That’s bad news for the climate.
Methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, has over 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame. EDF estimates the daily, near term climate damage caused by the Aliso Canyon leak is equal to the emissions of seven million cars.
This video was filmed by a specialist using a special infrared camera called a FLIR. Leaks this size are rare but major leakage across the oil and gas supply chain is not, and it adds up to a BIG climate problem—not just in California but across the country.
That’s why EDF believes oil and gas companies should be required to regularly monitor their systems and curb methane leaks. The footage underlines the severity of the methane leakage problem in the oil and gas industry and the risks it poses both to communities, and the climate.
