Friday, March 29

Is the unusual cloud of methane that covers northern Europe dangerous?



Denmark was the first to sound the alarm last Monday, September 26, after detecting a gas leak in one of the sections of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline near the island of Bornholm. Hours later, a drop in pressure was detected in Nord Stream 1, the original pipeline that has been paralyzed for weeks due to an alleged problem at a Russian supply station. Within hours, there were already three leaks detected. Two of them over Swedish waters. The fourth would take several more hours to detect. Scientists at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) first estimated that total methane leaks from the natural gas pipelines of the Nord Stream pipeline could be at least 40,000 tonnes. Today, September 30, the new estimates raise that number to 80,000 tons. This is four times more than the annual methane emission of the Norwegian oil and gas industry (which is 170,000 tons per year, according to the Norwegian State Statistics Office). On Tuesday, measurements from the Norwegian Birkenes observatory, as well as from Several sites in the neighboring country, Sweden, “detected extreme concentrations of methane in the air,” according to the NILU. “We have never seen anything like this at any of our observatories,” says scientist Cathrine Lund Myhre. Extreme levels NILU scientists calculated preliminary estimates of a possible 24-hour gas release based on the size of the pipes in Europe’s largest gas pipeline: “With many assumptions about the actual pressure in the pipes and the rate of release, first we found that at least 40,000 tonnes of methane may have been released into the ocean and atmosphere,” says scientist Stephen Matthew Platt. “We have made new calculations and, as of September 30, we estimate that at least 80,000 tonnes of methane have been released from the Nord Stream pipelines.” No effect “In closed spaces, it is flammable and causes suffocation by displacing oxygen, but diluted in the atmosphere, I don’t think it will cause problems for people’s health” Dr. Cristina Martínez Pulmonologist and coordinator of the environmental area of ​​the SEPAR Such a large methane leak is very dramatic, but it hardly has harmful consequences for the health of human beings. Nor does it have it for the environment or the marine biosphere. Even amounts like those that are now being diluted into the atmosphere over much of northern Europe do not pose a health risk to humans or animals. MORE INFORMATION news If “It’s an invisible tar”: leaks from the Nord Stream will emit the same CO2 as the entire fleet of vehicles in Spain in one year news No Alert in Denmark and Sweden after several leaks were registered in the Nord Stream 1 and Nord gas pipelines Stream 2 news Si Bornholm: The strategic Danish island affected by the Russian gas leak houses a NATO radar “Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide (CO2),” explains Dr. Cristina Martínez, pulmonologist and coordinator of the SEPAR Environment area. “In closed spaces, it is flammable and produces suffocation by displacing oxygen, but diluted in the atmosphere, I don’t think it will cause problems,” she continues. But she insists that she “doesn’t endanger anyone.”


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