Methane Spewing Mines Are as Bad For The Climate as Their Coal
- Global Energy Monitor says mine emissions often overlooked
- Methane can account for up to 50% of mines’ climate damage
Methane, the simple hydrocarbon that makes up most of natural gas, is the second-biggest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide.
Photographer: Sanjit Das/Bloomberg
New coal mines are leaking methane gases that are in some cases just as destructive to the environment as the pollution released from burning the coal itself, according to a new study.
Methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in its first two decades, leaking out of some mines could be having as much of an impact on global warming as burning the coal they produce, researchers with Global Energy Monitor, a San Francisco-based non-profit group, said in the study. The amount of methane that would leak from new coal mines currently being proposed globally would do as much damage as all of the coal power plants in the U.S. combined.