Not just the "refinery plant" but the "plant-plant" ...
The startling news that trees and other plants give off large
quantities of methane, which is the most worrisome greenhouse gas:
more so than CO2 - took biologists and atmospheric chemists by
surprise in January.
The biggest worry of many environmental scientists is still a
massive methane release from thawing of arctic permafrost due to
global warming - but it appears that even the jungle and the
forest are bigger polluters than you mat have realized ...
(unless you have been to the Smoky Mountains in the Southeastern
USA in the summer). Note: this does not diminish the blame we
should assign to human pollution.
Following the January announcement, scientists had criticized the
way that the results, obtained from small laboratory-based
experiments, were scaled up to produce an estimate of global
methane emissions from plants.
Scientists involved with the original research have fine-tuned
their calculations and set an upper limit on green-plants' total
methane emissions that almost halves their original estimate, but
it is still about a quarter of the net methane...
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2006/August/16080601.asp
The problem remains that methane from Permafrost melting could
create a "runaway" scenario, which computer models have shown to
be a real possibility within 25-30 years.
Jones
