Nature
PUBLISHED
From October 23, 2015, until February 11, 2016, a ruptured pipe at a SoCalGas storage site in Aliso Canyon, Los Angeles, let out a continuous flurry of methane gas – the largest natural gas leak in U.S. history.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.But it's now been halted, and the California Air Resources Board managed to capture on film the moment the flurry of gas was stopped and sealed with concrete – at least for now.
The 24 seconds of footage, shot on an infrared camera at around 7:40 a.m. on February 11, is a time-lapse and represents around seven minutes of real time.
An estimated 87,000 tonnes (96,000 tons) of methane was spurted out from the underground leak. These last 16 weeks of leakage alone are thought to have pumped out the equivalent of 4.5 million car emissions every day.
