US energy industry gas leaks are triple the official figures, study finds

Leaks of heat-trapping methane - about 3% of gas produced in US - cost $9.3bn yearly in climate damage, but the problem is fixable

US oil and natural gas wells, pipelines and compressors are spewing three times the amount of the potent heat-trapping gas methane as the government has determined, causing $9.3bn in yearly climate damage, a new comprehensive study calculates.

But because more than half of these methane emissions are coming from a tiny number of oil and gas sites, 1% or less, this means the problem is both worse than the government has determined but also fairly fixable, said the lead author of a study in the journal Nature.