Tony Ingraffea authored a groundbreaking study in 2011 that determined methane emissions from fracking accelerate global warming more than carbon dioxide emissions from either coal or conventional oil and gas. Pennsylvania is the second largest producer of natural gas in the country after Texas. Ingraffea’s study comes on the heels of a study published this week by Harvard researchers that found methane emissions in the Permian basin in Texas and New Mexico are more than two times higher than federal estimates.
A series of studies conducted by the Environmental Defense Fund previously estimated that around 10 teragrams (or 10 trillion grams) of methane are leaking from the oil and gas sector across the country each year.
