Up a bumpy road in the northeast corner of Pennsylvania, a team of researchers park their van, turn on a half-million dollars of equipment, and start another round of trying to solve a climate riddle. They are in rural Susquehanna County looking for methane—the powerful greenhouse gas and the main component of natural gas. Lead researcher Naomi Zimmerman, a post-doctoral research associate at Carnegie Mellon University, turns on a gas monitor to see how much methane is in the air. The monitor starts to pick up a reading of 1.2 parts per million. That’s about 12 times what they would expect to see from a gas well. Judging by the wind direction, Zimmerman and fellow Carnegie Mellon scientists Mark Omara and Aja Ellis think the gas is coming from a nearby pipeline. “I think we have a pipeline leak,” Ellis says. The monitor climbs to nine parts per million, prompting a few “whoas” and “wows” from the trio of scientists, who are decked out in navy blue fire-resistant overalls. Their work is
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