Nature Québec says they calculated that total emissions from three particular natural gas wells are the same as the methane emissions from 107 anonymous cows.
Really? Not 106? Not 108? Did they take in to account the diet of the cow?
University students drink a lot of beer, which is known to increase methane emissions. I wonder if Nature Quebec could calculate how many University of Montreal students on a Saturday night would be the same as the emissions from their three chosen wells.
On a serious note, I am actually curious about how many emissions Quebec could eliminate by creating a green highway from Quebec to Windsor or by running all buses in Montreal on Utica natural gas. I would like to invite Nature Québec to work with the natural gas industry on calculating that.
Most wells — such as Questerre’s — don’t have any emissions (zero cows). Some are inconsequential and difficult to measure (one or more cows maybe). Some are measurable and minor (a few more cows) and some are significant (107 cows divided by three – that’s 35.6667 cows).
In the end it seems we can all agree these emissions are no different than those from cows, is it really important how many?
What is important is wells with emissions considered significant must be fixed. It seems to me the system is working.
