Aliso Canyon gas leak

Aliso Canyon gas leak
Aliso Canyon relief well being drilled on December 14, 2015
DurationOctober 23, 2015 (2015-10-23) – February 18, 2016 (2016-02-18)
LocationAliso Canyon Oil Field, Porter Ranch, Los Angeles, California
Coordinates34°18′54″N 118°33′51″W / 34.31500°N 118.56417°W / 34.31500; -118.56417
Also known asPorter Ranch gas leak / blowout
TypeGas leak / blowout
Aliso Canyon is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area
Aliso Canyon
Aliso Canyon
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Gas leak site shown within the Los Angeles metropolitan area
Aliso Canyon SS 25 wellhead, December 17, 2015. Note subsidence craters at center, apparently from the attempts to plug the leaking well.

The Aliso Canyon gas leak (also called Porter Ranch gas leak[1] and Porter Ranch gas blowout[2]) was a massive methane leak in the Santa Susana Mountains near the neighborhood of Porter Ranch in the city of Los Angeles, California. Discovered on October 23, 2015,[3] gas was escaping from a well within the Aliso Canyon underground storage facility.[4] This second-largest gas storage facility of its kind in the United States belongs to the Southern California Gas Company (SoCal Gas), a subsidiary of Sempra Energy. On January 6, 2016, Governor Jerry Brown issued a state of emergency.[5] On February 11, the gas company reported that it had the leak under control.[6] On February 18, state officials announced that the leak was permanently plugged.

An estimated 97,100 tonnes (95,600 long tons; 107,000 short tons) of methane and 7,300 tonnes (7,200 long tons; 8,000 short tons) of ethane were released into the atmosphere.[7] The initial effect of the release increased the estimated 5.3 Gt of methane in the Earth's atmosphere by about 0.002%, diminishing to half that in 6–8 years.

It was widely reported to have been the worst single natural gas leak in U.S. history in terms of its environmental impact.[8][9][10]

The entire rest of the South Coast Air Basin combined, with a population of about 18 million people, emits approximately 413,000 tonnes of methane and 23,000 tonnes of ethane annually.[11] The Aliso gas leak's carbon footprint could be larger than the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.[12]

In comparison, a remote sensing satellite found that the Raspadskaya coal mine is releasing 762,120 metric tons, or 832,200 short tons, of methane every year, with no remediation planned.[13]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference wilcox was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Matt Ferner, Lydia O'Connor (8 January 2016) Here's What It's Like To Live Next To California's Gas Blowout Catastrophe
  3. ^ Sharon McNary (10 February 2016) Sorting out Porter Ranch facts vs. rumors
  4. ^ Abram S (December 19, 2015). "Two months in, Porter Ranch gas leak compared to BP Gulf oil spill". Los Angeles Daily News. Retrieved December 27, 2015.
  5. ^ Tony Barboza (January 6, 2016). "Brown declares state of emergency at Porter Ranch amid massive gas leak". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 7, 2016.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference socalgas was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Conley et al., Methane emissions from the 2015 Aliso Canyon blowout in Los Angeles, CA. In: Science (2016), doi:10.1126/science.aaf2348.
  8. ^ "Porter Ranch gas leak permanently capped, officials say". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 18, 2016.
  9. ^ Matt McGrath (February 26, 2016). "California methane leak 'largest in US history'". BBC. Retrieved February 26, 2016.
  10. ^ "The Massive Methane Blowout In Aliso Canyon Was The Largest in U.S. History". ThinkProgress. Retrieved February 26, 2016.
  11. ^ Wunch, Debra; Toon, Geoffrey C.; Hedelius, Jacob K.; Vizenor, Nicholas; Roehl, Coleen M.; Saad, Katherine M.; Blavier, Jean-François L.; Blake, Donald R.; Wennberg, Paul O. (2016). "Quantifying the loss of processed natural gas within California's South Coast Air Basin using long-term measurements of ethane and methane". Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 16 (22): 14091–14105. Bibcode:2016ACP....1614091W. doi:10.5194/acp-16-14091-2016. ISSN 1680-7324.
  12. ^ Tim Walker (January 2, 2016). "California methane gas leak 'more damaging than Deepwater Horizon disaster'". The Independent. Archived from the original on January 4, 2016. Retrieved July 6, 2017.
  13. ^ Fountain, Henry (June 14, 2022). "One Site, 95 Tons of Methane an Hour". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 15, 2022.