Fertilizer plants emit 100 times more methane than reported

Using a Google Street View car equipped with a high-precision methane sensor, the researchers discovered that methane emissions from ammonia fertilizer plants were 100 times higher than the fertilizer industry’s self-reported estimate. To evaluate methane emissions from downstream industrial sources, the researchers focused on the fertilizer industry, which uses natural gas both as the fuel and one of the main ingredients for ammonia and urea products. Scaling this emission rate from the six plants to the entire industry suggests total annual methane emissions of 28 gigagrams — 100 times higher than the fertilizer industry’s self-reported estimate of 0.2 gigagrams per year.

Source: www.sciencedaily.com