Comparing facility-level methane emission rate estimates at natural gas gathering and boosting stations

Vaughn, Timothy; Bell, Clay S.; Yacovitch, Tara I.; Roscioli, Joseph R.; Herndon, S. C.; Conley, Stephen; Schwietzke, Stefan; Heath, Garvin; Pétron, Gabrielle; Zimmerle, Daniel

doi:10.1525/elementa.257

Cited by 35 publications

(46 citation statements)

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“…All 4 of these wellpads undergoing unloading were excluded from statistical analyses. Additional details about the annual count and average duration of these routine scheduled episodic events are included in the work of Bell et al (2017), where emissions from unloadings are incorporated into final results.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The tracer flux ratio experiment captures snapshots of the sites emissions, and so the duration and frequency of these plunger unloadings and their overlap in time with each individual downwind measurement will impact the final average emission rate. While these unloading sites were not included in any of the statistical analysis in this paper, such sites are important in understanding the overall emissions of the production sector and have been included in the results of Bell et al (2017).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additional results from these coordinated campaigns are published separately (Robertson et al, 2017;Schwietzke et al, 2017) including synthesis and reconciliation of diverse methodologies for the FV production sector (Bell et al, 2017) and the FV gathering sector (Vaughn et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Natural gas facility methane emissions: measurements by tracer flux ratio in two US natural gas producing basins

Yacovitch

Vaughn

Bell

et al. 2017

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

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Methane (CH 4 ) emission rates from a sample of natural gas facilities across industry sectors were quantified using the dual tracer flux ratio methodology. Measurements were conducted in study areas within the Fayetteville shale play, Arkansas (FV, Sept-Oct 2015, 53 facilities), and the Denver-Julesburg basin, Colorado, (DJ, Nov 2014, 21 facilities). Distributions of methane emission rates at facilities by type are computed and statistically compared with results that cover broader geographic regions in the US (Allen et al., 2013. DJ gathering station emission rates (kg CH 4 hr -1 ) are lower, while FV gathering and production sites are statistically indistinguishable as compared to these multi-basin results. However, FV gathering station throughput-normalized emissions are statistically lower than multi-basin results (0.19% vs. 0.44%). This implies that the FV gathering sector is emitting less per unit of gas throughput than would be expected from the multi-basin distribution alone. The most common emission rate (i.e. mode of the distribution) for facilities in this study is 40 kg CH 4 hr -1 for FV gathering stations, 1.0 kg CH 4 hr -1 for FV production pads, and 11 kg CH 4 hr -1 for DJ gathering stations. The importance of study design is discussed, including the benefits of site access and data sharing with industry and of a scientist dedicated to measurement coordination and site choice under evolving wind conditions.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Natural gas facility methane emissions: measurements by tracer flux ratio in two US natural gas producing basins

Yacovitch

Vaughn

Bell

et al. 2017

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

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“…Typical examples in gasfields (Vaughn et al, ; Vaughn et al, ) would include methane emitted not only from readily discovered leaks around gaswells but also from deliberate operations such as flaring, venting, and pipe maintenance; unburned gas entrained in compressor exhausts during operation; and also emissions from known processes such as water handling, which can be redesigned or better contained. Episodic venting (Vaughn et al, ), which is deliberate, is particularly addressable.…”

Section: Practical Emission Reduction and Removal—tractable Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methane Mitigation: Methods to Reduce Emissions, on the Path to the Paris Agreement

Nisbet

Fisher

Lowry

et al. 2020

Reviews of Geophysics

235

131

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The atmospheric methane burden is increasing rapidly, contrary to pathways compatible with the goals of the 2015 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Paris Agreement. Urgent action is required to bring methane back to a pathway more in line with the Paris goals. Emission reduction from “tractable” (easier to mitigate) anthropogenic sources such as the fossil fuel industries and landfills is being much facilitated by technical advances in the past decade, which have radically improved our ability to locate, identify, quantify, and reduce emissions. Measures to reduce emissions from “intractable” (harder to mitigate) anthropogenic sources such as agriculture and biomass burning have received less attention and are also becoming more feasible, including removal from elevated‐methane ambient air near to sources. The wider effort to use microbiological and dietary intervention to reduce emissions from cattle (and humans) is not addressed in detail in this essentially geophysical review. Though they cannot replace the need to reach “net‐zero” emissions of CO2, significant reductions in the methane burden will ease the timescales needed to reach required CO2 reduction targets for any particular future temperature limit. There is no single magic bullet, but implementation of a wide array of mitigation and emission reduction strategies could substantially cut the global methane burden, at a cost that is relatively low compared to the parallel and necessary measures to reduce CO2, and thereby reduce the atmospheric methane burden back toward pathways consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

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“…

Zimmerle, DJ, et al 2017 Gathering pipeline methane emissions in Fayetteville shale pipelines and scoping guidelines for future pipeline measurement campaigns. Elem Sci Anth, 5: 70.

…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Gathering pipeline methane emissions in Fayetteville shale pipelines and scoping guidelines for future pipeline measurement campaigns

Zimmerle

Pickering

Bell

et al. 2017

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

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Zimmerle, DJ, et al. 2017 Gathering pipeline methane emissions in Fayetteville shale pipelines and scoping guidelines for future pipeline measurement campaigns. Elem Sci Anth, 5: 70. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.258 Introduction U.S. dry natural gas production increased from 18 to 27 trillion ft 3 between 2005 (EIA, 2016b. Use of natural gas offers potential climate benefits compared to coal or oil (EIA, 2016a), but those benefits depend upon the emissions of methane, the primary component of natural gas and a potent greenhouse gas. This study is part of a larger study designed to compare, and possibly reconcile, estimates of methane emissions developed from aircraft "top-down" measurements (Schwietzke et al., 2017) and inventory-based "bottom up" estimates, including the results presented here and studies of production facilities , gathering compressor stations , and measurements made by downwind techniques (Robertson et al., 2017;Yacovitch et al., 2017) at a variety of facilities.Gathering pipelines refer to the pipelines that connect wells to gathering compressor stations or processing plants, and connect those facilities to transmission pipelines or distribution systems. Inlet pressures of gathering systems range from 30 to 7,720 kPa (Mitchell et al., 2015), but most gathering pipelines operate at the low end of that pressure range. Gathering pipeline systems consist of pipelines and auxiliary components for operation of the pipelines including pig launchers and receivers, blocking valves, and a variety of other, less common, components (e.g. "knock out bottles" used to remove liquids from pipelines on older systems). Pig launchers/receivers are used to insert/remove cleaning plugs, called "pigs", into gathering lines to remove water and debris from the pipeline. Block valves are used to isolate sections of pipeline, or reroute the flow of natural gas (SM-S1).Gathering pipeline network methane emissions originate from three sources: RESEARCH ARTICLEGathering pipeline methane emissions in Fayetteville shale pipelines and scoping guidelines for future pipeline measurement campaigns Gathering pipelines, which transport gas from well pads to downstream processing, are a sector of the natural gas supply chain for which little measured methane emissions data are available. This study performed leak detection and measurement on 96 km of gathering pipeline and the associated 56 pigging facilities and 39 block valves. The study found one underground leak accounting for 83% (4.0 kg CH 4 /hr) of total measured emissions. Methane emissions for the 4684 km of gathering pipeline in the study area were estimated at 402 kg CH 4 /hr [95 to 1065 kg CH 4 /hr, 95% CI], or 1% [0.2% to 2.6%] of all methane emissions measured during a prior aircraft study of the same area. Emissions estimated by this study fall within the uncertainty range of emissions estimated using emission factors from EPA's 2015 Greenhouse Inventory and study activity estimates. While EPA's current inventory is based upon emission factors from distr...

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Comparing facility-level methane emission rate estimates at natural gas gathering and boosting stations

Cited by 35 publications

References 28 publications

Natural gas facility methane emissions: measurements by tracer flux ratio in two US natural gas producing basins

Natural gas facility methane emissions: measurements by tracer flux ratio in two US natural gas producing basins

Methane Mitigation: Methods to Reduce Emissions, on the Path to the Paris Agreement

Gathering pipeline methane emissions in Fayetteville shale pipelines and scoping guidelines for future pipeline measurement campaigns

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