Methane emissions estimate from airborne measurements over a western United States natural gas field

Karion, A.; Sweeney, Colm; Pétron, Gabrielle; Frost, G. J.; Hardesty, R. Michael; Kofler, J.; Miller, Ben; Newberger, T.; Wolter, S.; Banta, Robert M.; Brewer, Alan; Dlugokencky, E. J.; Lang, P. M.; Montzka, S. A.; Schnell, R. C.; Tans, Pieter P.; Trainer, M.; Zamora, R. J.; Conley, Stephen

doi:10.1002/grl.50811

Cited by 473 publications

(579 citation statements)

References 11 publications

(23 reference statements)

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“…As an example of variability in emissions between basins, using aircraft measurements, Peischl et al (2015) have reported very different methane emission rates in different natural gas production regions, ranging from a low of 0.18-0.41% of gas production in the northeast Marcellus Shale (Pennsylvania) to rates of 1.0-2.1% in the Haynesville Shale (East Texas) and 1.0-2.8% in the Fayetteville Shale (Arkansas). Using the same type of aircraft-based measurements, emission rates as high as 6.2-11.7% of natural gas production have been reported in the Uintah production region in Utah (Karion et al, 2013). Similarly, Zavala et al (2015a), using measurements of emissions from individual pieces of equipment at hundreds of sites throughout the United States, reported methane emission rates, normalized by rates of natural gas and oil production, that differed by more than an order of magnitude across regions.…”

Section: Spatial Variability In Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 83%

Emissions from oil and gas operations in the United States and their air quality implications

Allen

2016

Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association

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The energy supply infrastructure in the United States has been changing dramatically over the past decade. Increased production of oil and natural gas, particularly from shale resources using horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, made the United States the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas in 2014. This review examines air quality impacts, specifically, changes in greenhouse gas, criteria air pollutant, and air toxics emissions from oil and gas production activities that are a result of these changes in energy supplies and use. National emission inventories indicate that volatile organic compound (VOC) and nitrogen oxide (NO x ) emissions from oil and gas supply chains in the United States have been increasing significantly, whereas emission inventories for greenhouse gases have seen slight declines over the past decade. These emission inventories are based on counts of equipment and operational activities (activity factors), multiplied by average emission factors, and therefore are subject to uncertainties in these factors. Although uncertainties associated with activity data and missing emission source types can be significant, multiple recent measurement studies indicate that the greatest uncertainties are associated with emission factors. In many source categories, small groups of devices or sites, referred to as super-emitters, contribute a large fraction of emissions. When super-emitters are accounted for, multiple measurement approaches, at multiple scales, produce similar results for estimated emissions. Challenges moving forward include identifying super-emitters and reducing their emission magnitudes. Work done to date suggests that both equipment malfunction and operational practices can be important. Finally, although most of this review focuses on emissions from energy supply infrastructures, the regional air quality implications of some coupled energy production and use scenarios are examined. These case studies suggest that both energy production and use should be considered in assessing air quality implications of changes in energy infrastructures, and that impacts are likely to vary among regions. Implications: The energy supply infrastructure in the United States has been changing dramatically over the past decade, leading to changes in emissions from oil and natural gas supply chain sources. In many source categories along these supply chains, small groups of devices or sites, referred to as super-emitters, contribute a large fraction of emissions. Effective emission reductions will require technologies for both identifying super-emitters and reducing their emission magnitudes. PAPER HISTORY

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Section: Spatial Variability In Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 83%

Emissions from oil and gas operations in the United States and their air quality implications

Allen

2016

Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association

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“…Indeed, the practice of high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for oil and gas extraction is a growing sector of methane and other hydrocarbon production, especially in the US. Most recent studies M. Saunois et al: The global methane budget 2000709 al., 2014Olivier and Janssens-Maenhout, 2014;Jackson et al, 2014b;Howarth et al, 2011;Pétron et al, 2014;Karion et al, 2013) albeit not all Cathles et al, 2012;Peischl et al, 2015) suggest that methane emissions are underestimated by inventories and agencies, including the USEPA. For instance, emissions in the Barnett Shale region of Texas from both bottom-up and top-down measurements showed that methane emissions from upstream oil and gas infrastructure were 90 % larger than estimates based on the USEPA's inventory and corresponded to 1.5 % of natural gas production (Zavala-Araiza et al, 2015).…”

Section: Shale Gasmentioning

confidence: 99%

The global methane budget 2000–2012

Saunois

Bousquet

Poulter

et al. 2016

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

945

733

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Abstract. The global methane (CH 4 ) budget is becoming an increasingly important component for managing realistic pathways to mitigate climate change. This relevance, due to a shorter atmospheric lifetime and a stronger warming potential than carbon dioxide, is challenged by the still unexplained changes of atmospheric CH 4 over the past decade. Emissions and concentrations of CH 4 are continuing to increase, making CH 4 the second most important human-induced greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. Two major difficulties in reducing uncertainties come from the large variety of diffusive CH 4 sources that overlap geographically, and from the destruction of CH 4 by the very short-lived hydroxyl radical (OH). To address these difficulties, we have established a consortium of multi-disciplinary scientists under the umbrella of the Global Carbon Project to synthesize and stimulate research on the methane cycle, and producing regular (∼ biennial) updates of the global methane budget. This consortium includes atmospheric physicists and chemists, biogeochemists of surface and marine emissions, and socio-economists who study anthropogenic emissions. Following Kirschke et al. (2013), we propose here the first version of a living review paper that integrates results of top-down studies (exploiting atmospheric observations within an atmospheric inverse-modelling framework) and bottom-up models, inventories and data-driven approaches (including process-based models for estimating land surface emissions and atmospheric chemistry, and inventories for anthropogenic emissions, data-driven extrapolations). . Top-down inversions consistently infer lower emissions in China (∼ 58 Tg CH 4 yr −1 , range 51-72, −14 %) and higher emissions in Africa (86 Tg CH 4 yr −1 , range 73-108, +19 %) than bottom-up values used as prior estimates. Overall, uncertainties for anthropogenic emissions appear smaller than those from natural sources, and the uncertainties on source categories appear larger for top-down inversions than for bottom-up inventories and models.The most important source of uncertainty on the methane budget is attributable to emissions from wetland and other inland waters. We show that the wetland extent could contribute 30-40 % on the estimated range for wetland emissions. Other priorities for improving the methane budget include the following: (i) the development of process-based models for inland-water emissions, (ii) the intensification of methane observations at local scale (flux measurements) to constrain bottom-up land surface models, and at regional scale (surface networks and satellites) to constrain top-down inversions, (iii) improvements in the estimation of atmospheric loss by OH, and (iv) improvements of the transport models integrated in top-down inversions.

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“…These studies also identified three possible mechanisms for explaining this relationship, and concluded that the most likely of these is subsurface migration from leaking gas wells. Other researchers have observed thermogenic and other subsurface-sourced methane in atmospheric concentrations high above background levels near conventional and unconventional gas development (4)(5)(6), suggesting that leaking wells may also contribute to fugitive methane and other associated gas emissions, with clear climatic and air quality consequences (7).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment and risk analysis of casing and cement impairment in oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania, 2000–2012

Ingraffea¹,

Wells

Santoro³

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

227

157

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Casing and cement impairment in oil and gas wells can lead to methane migration into the atmosphere and/or into underground sources of drinking water. An analysis of 75,505 compliance reports for 41,381 conventional and unconventional oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania drilled from January 1, 2000-December 31, 2012, was performed with the objective of determining complete and accurate statistics of casing and cement impairment. Statewide data show a sixfold higher incidence of cement and/or casing issues for shale gas wells relative to conventional wells. The Cox proportional hazards model was used to estimate risk of impairment based on existing data. The model identified both temporal and geographic differences in risk. For post-2009 drilled wells, risk of a cement/casing impairment is 1.57-fold [95% confidence interval (CI) (1.45, 1.67); P < 0.0001] higher in an unconventional gas well relative to a conventional well drilled within the same time period. Temporal differences between well types were also observed and may reflect more thorough inspections and greater emphasis on finding well leaks, more detailed note taking in the available inspection reports, or real changes in rates of structural integrity loss due to rushed development or other unknown factors. Unconventional gas wells in northeastern (NE) Pennsylvania are at a 2.7-fold higher risk relative to the conventional wells in the same area. The predicted cumulative risk for all wells (unconventional and conventional) in the NE region is 8.5-fold [95% CI (7.16, 10.18); P < 0.0001] greater than that of wells drilled in the rest of the state.shale oil and gas | casing integrity | cement integrity | onshore wells | wellbore integrity

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Methane emissions estimate from airborne measurements over a western United States natural gas field

Cited by 473 publications

References 11 publications

Emissions from oil and gas operations in the United States and their air quality implications

Emissions from oil and gas operations in the United States and their air quality implications

The global methane budget 2000–2012

Assessment and risk analysis of casing and cement impairment in oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania, 2000–2012

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