Methane emission from sewers

Liu, Yiwen; Ni, Bing‐Jie; Sharma, Keshab; Yuan, Zhiguo

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.04.029

Cited by 92 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Sewage systems host anaerobic methanogens and thus emit methane at all stages, from house drains to wastewater treatment plants (Liu, Ni, et al, 2015;Guisasola et al, 2008Guisasola et al, , 2009Fries et al, 2018). Where biogas is extracted, it may be incompletely combusted.…”

Section: Urban Wastewater and Sewagementioning

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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Section: Urban Wastewater and Sewagementioning

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

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…A more recent concern than the corrosion and other hydrogen sulphide‐related problems is the contribution from sewers to climate change. Greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and methane have been known to form in sewers . Methane has a direct global warming potential 25× that of carbon dioxide, and for nitrous oxide, this is 298× that of carbon dioxide .…”

Section: Contribution To Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

The importance of sewer biofilms

2016

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In spite of being under ground and out of sight, sewers are important parts of the urban infrastructure for transporting used, contaminated water for safe treatment. Within sewers, during the transport of waste water, processes take place, transforming the chemical components of the waste water. These processes are largely carried out by bacteria, a significant part of which live in biofilms. These microbial processes impact the sewers by causing odor and corrosion of the sewer pipes, leading to the need costly repair and control strategies. The biofilms may also impact the environment by contributing to greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and pollution in natural aquatic environments. However, improved understanding of the function of biofilms and the novel techniques and approaches for manipulating biofilms may provide us with strategies for controlling these problems. Moreover, such advances may allow us to design in-sewer biofilms for beneficial purposes such as in-pipe treatment of waste water, potentially leading to decreased environmental impact. © 2016 The Authors. WIREs Water published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. How to cite this article:WIREs Water 2016Water , 3:487-494. doi: 10.1002Water /wat2.1144 INTRODUCTION S ewers are extremely important components of urban infrastructure that helps keep the urban environment safe from flooding and prevents the spread of water-borne diseases by safely transporting waste water to the waste water treatment works and through the transport of rain water from urban surfaces.1 Naturally, the focus on sewer design and construction has been on the function of the sewer networks with respect to safe transport of water to fulfill this vital role within urban infrastructure. However, over the years, the understanding of sewer function has been expanded, so that expectations of the urban drainage systems is now also to help minimize the impact of urban activities on the natural environment 2,3 and to prevent odor from waste water in the urban environment. 4 In light of increasing expectations, it is necessary now, more than ever, to design robust sewer networks to fulfil the expected design life of 50-100 years. Existing sewer networks are under increasing strain mainly due to population growth, increasing urbanization, and climate change. The increasing strain on the sewers manifests itself as operational failures leading to flooding events, increased loads on treatment facilities leading to poor quality of water discharge, and leaks linked to enhanced structural deterioration due to concrete corrosion. Early on in the history of the modern sewer networks, it was discovered that the degradation of the materials that the sewers are built from, i.e., mostly concrete, is a consequence of the environment within the sewers. 5 This has led to an increased focus on the processes taking place inside the sewers during the transport of the waste water. 6 It is now generally recognized that the chemical transformations of the waste water and the environmental conditions in the sewers...

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“…A couple of years later, Yacovitch et al (2018) investigated the Groningen natural gas field, one of Europe's major gas fields, using their mobile laboratory in combination with airborne measurements. Luther et al (2019) deployed a mobile sun-viewing Fourier transform spectrometer to quantify CH 4 emissions from hard coal mines. Other studies laid a special focus on city and regional emissions of fossil fuel CH 4 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methane emissions from the Munich Oktoberfest

et al. 2020

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Abstract. This study presents the first investigation of the methane (CH4) emissions of a large festival. Munich Oktoberfest, the world's largest folk festival, is a potential source of CH4 as a large amount of natural gas for cooking and heating is used. In 2018 we measured the CH4 emissions of Oktoberfest using in situ measurements combined with a Gaussian plume dispersion model. Measurements were taken while walking and biking around the perimeter of the Oktoberfest premises (Theresienwiese) at different times of the day, during the week and at the weekend. The measurements showed enhancements of up to 100 ppb compared to background values and measurements after Oktoberfest. The average emission flux of Oktoberfest is determined as (6.7±0.6) µg (m2 s)−1. Additional analyses, including the daily emission cycle and comparisons between emissions and the number of visitors, suggest that CH4 emissions of Oktoberfest are not due solely to the human biogenic emissions. Instead, fossil fuel CH4 emissions, such as incomplete combustion or loss in the gas appliances, appear to be the major contributors to Oktoberfest emissions. Our results can help to develop CH4 reduction policies and measures to reduce emissions at festivals and other major events in cities. Furthermore, events with a limited duration have not yet been included in the state-of-the-art emission inventories, such as TNO-MACC, EDGAR or IER. Our investigations show that these emissions are not negligible. Therefore, these events should be included in future emission inventories.

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Methane emission from sewers

Cited by 92 publications

References 61 publications

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

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

The importance of sewer biofilms

Methane emissions from the Munich Oktoberfest

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