"Ingraffea’s own research has found that a small percentage of wells are responsible for the bulk of methane emissions either through leaks or deliberate venting."
Sounds like something that can be solved quickly, and without even bothering to debate fracking - hardly anyone could oppose regulating the wells involved.
Especially since most of the big industry players complained about said loosening of rules which don’t benefit them.
Cui Bono?
Shifting the blame - even unintentionally - from the politicians to the regulatory agencies helps further the narrative that government doesn't work, and (the ultimate, freely-acknowledged goal) that it should therefore be made small enough that it can be choked in the bathtub.
This issue has been going on for a long time, even without fracking.
The issue always is access to natural gas pipelines. The natural gas comes up with oil production no matter what. Absent access to a pipeline, the well is "flared" and the natural gas is burned off.
This has been happening in Nigeria and other countries internationally for decades to due to gas rights disputes.
The question people should ask themselves is why oil & gas companies would voluntarily leave money on the table, and the answer is "they wouldn't." However, if you look at New York right now, and natural gas policy over the last 10 years, it has been actively hostile to building the pipelines that would prevent this resource from being wasted. The reality is the people "opposed" to fixing this problem are the people who force the oil production to happen without allowing the resource to be consumed.
Pipelines running across the mountains forests might look unsightly, but if they help utilize existing resources more efficiently, they should be allowed. Otherwise, wastage is even worse than the pipeline's costs.
The option where the oil remains unextracted in the ground won't/can't exist, no matter how much these people who refuse pipelines want.
Gas is a natural byproduct of drilling, and currently it is the U.S. government preventing this byproduct from being used and exported due to pipeline bans. Gazprom--the Russian gas giant--has no such desire to set perfectly good resources on fire (literally), and has captured the European market because of it.
Edit: for those who have not quite made this connection yet, the "natural" in "natural gas" is because there's nothing you can actually do to prevent the gaseous mixture from escaping from the ground (due to depressurization) with liquefied oil drilling. It is just "naturally" there. If it can't be contained under pressure in a pipeline, it either has to be released or set on fire.
Pipeline opponents are not 'forcing oil production to happen'.
Then how do you think they could compensate the damage done and extract the methane back out of the air?
My definition of "solving" may be a bit different from yours. And most probably, not even your definition of a solution will be implemented. Tragedy of the commons at work.