Insouciant New Yorkers—here is another pending disaster to shrug off with characteristic brio! There is a huge, ongoing gas leak beneath your very feet. A team of natural gas experts recently commissioned to survey the New York system has found vastly elevated levels of methane in locations all over Manhattan, a clear indication that Con Ed’s 4,320-mile network of pipes, dating back to the 1800s, is corroded, full of holes, and spewing methane into the atmosphere. The main danger here is to planetary, not personal, safety: though it has received relatively little attention, methane, the primary component of natural gas, is second only to carbon dioxide on the list of greenhouse gases that are inducing climate change.
This unhappy news actually comes as little surprise to those who have been following the issue of gas leakages in recent months. Similar revelations actually began to emerge some years ago, when a Boston University professor named Nathan Phillips began trying to figure out how much gas was leaking from pipes in Boston. He fell in with a former local gas company contractor named Bob Ackley, who had been hired by gas companies throughout New England to find leaks, which he discovered were pervasive.
See full Article: http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/apr/01/gas-leaks-methane-beneath-our-feet/
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