Tausi Insider

Oil and gas producers Canada and Nigeria have become the latest countries to tackle the potent greenhouse gas methane with laws to rein in emissions in the fossil fuel energy sector. The announcements came as the United States on Friday said it would expand its own rules to require oil and gas drillers to find and fix leaks of methane at all of the country’s well sites. Methane has more than 80 times the planet-warming potency of CO2 in its first 20 years, but breaks down faster in the atmosphere, making it a high value target for near-term efforts to slow climate change. Canada said its new rules would target a 75% cut in methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 2030, including through a proposed monthly requirement for oil and gas companies to find and fix methane leaks in their infrastructure. “It’s kind of a big deal for us, we are the fourth biggest producer of oil and gas. So we have a big responsibility, but it’s also a big challenge,” Canadian Environment Minister Ste...

Richmond Lam /Tausi Insider The rocket launch from Cape Canaveral is scheduled for 2:35 p.m., and anyone with a vested interest—heck, anyone geeky enough to get excited about space—would be forgiven for being a tad nervous. Besides the weather, which can thwart a launch mere moments before liftoff, extraterrestrial travel, even when unmanned, is risky business. But at T-50 minutes, you’d never suspect that the Montreal party that’s gathered on this sunny late-May day to watch the SpaceX event in real time via video conference might be worried. Instead of nail-biting, the 70 or so staff from GHGSat and some of its suppliers—including astrophysicists, data analysts, quantum optics specialists and aerospace engineers in plaid shirts, jeans and sneakers—are busy chatting and laughing over beer and wine from the open bar. There’s a palpable sense of excitement. No wonder: When that rocket reaches orbit, it’ll deploy three satellites that these people have poured their minds and hearts int...

On Monday, Bloomberg reported the Consumer Product Safety Commission would consider a ban on gas stoves , causing everyone from Republican politicians to cooks on Twitter to promptly lose their minds and begin insulting electric stoves.   If you were among them, don’t panic: A gas stove ban is unlikely, especially in the immediate future. Here’s the thing, though: Maybe we should ban gas stoves. A growing body of research suggests gas stoves can be dangerous to live and breathe around, while electric stoves aren’t. Plus, electric stoves are pretty great, actually, and wholly undeserving of their crappy reputation. Here are four reasons why. Electric stoves don’t leak methane or nitrogen dioxide into your house A huge benefit to electric stoves is that they don’t use gas and therefore can’t leak it into your house. More and more research shows that gas stoves do exactly this: In 2022, researchers from Stanford University found that gas stoves emit methane gas via “post-meter lea...