The leak of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of methane into the atmosphere makes several experts fear an “environmental disaster”.
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Photos and videos have toured the media and social networks. They show bubbling on the surface of the Baltic Sea, with a diameter ranging from 200 meters to 1 kilometer. In question: massive leaks on the North Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines detected off Denmark, possibly due to sabotage. They fear a “climate and environmental disaster,” said Stefano Grassi, chief of staff to the European Energy Commissioner on Tuesday, September 27. “There are a number of uncertainties but, if these pipelines give in, the impact on the climate will be disastrous and could even be unprecedented,” said a press release David McCabe, scientist for the Think Tank Tank Clean Air Task Force.
If the concerns are large, it is because the pipelines, even if they were not operational, contain for technical reasons natural gas mainly composed of methane, a very powerful greenhouse gas. Its warming potential is much higher than that of carbon dioxide (co 2 é>): 82 times more on a horizon of twenty years, 29 times more over a hundred years. Methane is thus responsible for a quarter of global warming from the pre -industrial era, and its emissions have increased sharply in recent years.
What quantities of methane have been released in the atmosphere? This estimate is difficult to achieve, because it depends on the pressure or temperature of the gas in the pipelines and what quantity has dissolved in the water. “A clear majority of gas [from Nord Stream 1 and 2] has already left the pipes, said the director of the Danish Energy Authority, Kristoffer Böttzauw, at a press conference on Wednesday. We are expecting ourselves in What the rest escapes by Sunday. “The German Environment Federal Agency estimated, for its part, that 300,000 tonnes of methane were released in the air.
According to different scientists, the gas pipelines contain between 300 and 500 million m 3 of gas, between 200,000 and 300,000 tonnes of methane. This quantity has the same warming power, over a period of twenty years, as 17 to 25 million tonnes of co 2 . If all the gas escaped, the emissions would then be equivalent to the third party or even half of the annual emissions from Denmark or 4 to 7 % of French emissions. “The impact would be similar to that of a million cars for a year, it’s colossal,” adds Thomas Lauvaux, researcher at the climate and environmental science laboratory.
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