There are many ways that
Texas leads the country.
One of them is in how much methane
we release into the atmosphere.
Powerful source of pollution
that's getting attention lately.
A lot of that methane comes from
here in West TX, so I want to find
out how bad is the problem and
what are some of the solutions.
Skyler White is a rancher and he's
got a problem on his land that he
wants me to see old leaky oil wells.
He says the ride there
can be a little bit bumpy.
You going for it? We'll
give it a shot.
Think we made it? Ah,
he's a cool customer up there
when it comes to gases that
trap in the sun's heat.
Carbon dioxide is the biggie,
our cars and power plants
release massive amounts of it.
Methane, we emit far less of,
but it is far more effective at
trapping heat over a 100 year period.
The EPA says methane's impact on climate
change can be 25 times greater than
carbon dioxides Skyler estimates on his
property there are 100 orphan wells.
That's an old well that needs
to be plugged to keep oil,
methane and other gases from
coming up to the surface.
But there's no longer a well operator
on record to take responsibility.
This is the worst orphan well on his
property with oil bubbling to the
surface and a heavy stink of gas.
You know it's killing everything
around here and it's poison.
Yeah, it smells terrible.
I mean, would you want to eat beef?
That comes from Kettle that drink this crap.
I mean, and that's how I make my living.
And check this out.
An orphan. Well, on a neighboring ranch is
bubbling up with so much underground water.
It formed a new lake,
but not the kind you'd ever want to
swim in air and water samples here found
some gases at potentially lethal levels.
How bad is the overall orphan?
Well problem.
A study from McGill University
suggests abandoned oil and gas wells
may be a top ten source of methane
emissions in the United States.
Why is it that I have to?
Spend my money in my time in
my energy plugging your wells.
Plugging orphan wells is the responsibility
of the Texas Railroad Commission,
and it's about to get $343 million
in federal infrastructure funds
to do more of that work.
But Skyler has told the Commission
that he's already spent $220,000
of his own money plugging wells,
that he says are the state's responsibility,
not his.
And we inherited, it's not.
It's just something that's
here and nobody really.
Gave a damn, this is.
The liability of.
Texans yeah everybody.
While orphan wells are a problem
we inherited from long ago,
the modern oil and gas wells being
drilled today are a far larger
source of methane 25 times larger.
So this is my instrument.
This looks like just sort
of a normal video camera.
How much does that cost $100,000
for this $100,000? Yeah,
Sharon Wilson is an environmentalist.
She documents methane emissions released
into the atmosphere from the Permian
Basin and frequently files complaints
about them. We're headed to
an oil and gas site where the
oil and gas comes up from the
ground and we're going to look.
That the pollution that comes
out of these sites.
Her specialized camera also
used by regulators and industry
can see methane.
Whoa, holy moly.
What in the world is that, wow?
So that's methane.
The methane does not come up by itself,
it's mixed with other gases.
Benzene, toyline, ethyl benzene,
xylene, the camera's great,
because you can't.
Otherwise, they can't see that.
I mean that is huge cloud.
Every one of these is emitting
one way to make methane less potent is
equipment that burns it, or flares it.
But a NASA study of the Permian
Basin found half of the biggest
sources of methane emissions
are likely to be malfunctioning.
Oil field equipment now they
just turned it on just now it came
on. It won't stay on. They don't
know how to operate this flare.
This flare is flickering off and on the
camera shows it is burning some gas,
but you can also see drifting off
to the right is a cloud of methane
that escapes without ever combusting,
but now it's out again.
Now it's out that was wild
like while we were watching
it. The flare came on.
And it was on for. 30 seconds.
And now it's off.
The EPA is proposing new rules
on the oil and gas industry
to reduce methane emissions.
They would improve leak detection and
repair and enhance the monitoring
of and repair of flair malfunctions
even when they have the latest technologies.
They don't work consistently or at all,
so we're we're headed the wrong
way really fast because methane is
a super pollutant for the climate.
OK, well what you do is
you pull all this pipe.
And you basically put cement
down this hole and turn the
hole into a giant rock. Stuart
McDonald is the director of Energy and
Land Management at the University of Texas,
Permian Basin in Odessa, who also
consults for the oil and gas industry.
The number one way to stop flaring
and stop venting is to come up with
a way to get the gas to markets.
And I'm talking about pipelines that
get it two places that we could.
We could use it.
That's been a problem in the oil
and gas industry since the 20s and
30s. More than 30% of U.S.
oil and gas production comes from the
Permian but a study in the journal
Science Advances found three point 7%
of what's extracted is simply wasted.
Midland. Odessa, for example,
does not need more natural gas.
But much of the world does,
but we don't have a way to get it there.
It's horrible that we wasted
because once it's gone, it's gone.
The world's thirst for oil
and gas is what drives climate
change on this trip,
I learned the way we waste
energy makes the problem worse,
and solutions like cleaning,
environmental damage,
regulating emissions or building
more pipeline just don't seem to
match the scope of the problem.
I'm David Schechter reporting.