Currently in Toronto — May 27th, 2022
The weather, currently.
A wet start to your Friday, as a surge of Gulf moisture pushes into the region. Rain will begin by late tonight and continue through Friday morning, with a wake up temperature in the teens. The core of the moisture will fall in the first half of the day — however scattered showers and the risk of thunderstorms are likely later in the afternoon. The high will be 22°C and the UV index will be 5 or moderate. For those heading to cottage country please note scattered afternoon thunderstorms will develop well north of the GTA especially south of Georgian Bay and hugging the shores of Lake Huron. There is a risk of severe limit storms.
Friday Night: Cloudy with some rain showers and a low of 13°C.
What you need to know, currently.
Six idle wells in Bakersfield were found to be leaking methane last week, the Associated Press reports. Although Uduak-Joe Ntuk, head of the California Geologic Energy Management division of the California Department of Conservation, assured residents that the leaks were “minor in nature,” a report from the state showed that three wells were leaking methane at explosive levels.
Methane is a colorless, odorless gas that’s about 25 times as potent as CO2 when it comes to global warming. It’s also quite obviously a public safety hazard—even if it’s not leaking in concentrations high enough to blow up your house it can cause long-term respiratory, cardiological, and neurological issues and sometimes result in death.
A recent report in Environmental Science and Technology found that wells across New Mexico were emitting about six times as much methane as the EPA expected. Plugging all these abandoned wells isn’t easy, especially the older ones. Theoretically, oil and gas companies are obligated to plug wells when they go dry, but lax regulations and the boom and bust nature of the oil gas industry means there’s little oversight when this infrastructure is abandoned.
A report published in Environmental Research Letters last year, showed that curbing methane emissions could reduce the speed of global warming by as much as 30 percent.