According to a new study, a procedure designed to remove methane from oil and gas production may be significantly less successful than previously estimated
The oil and gas industry's greenhouse gas emissions may be significantly understated. A process used to burn off methane during production may be removing less of the greenhouse gas than previously assumed, according to a recent study. This might imply that emissions from flaring are up to five times greater than previously estimated.
A study published Thursday in Science examines the efficiency of a process known as flaring in three of the largest oil and gas producing basins in the United States: the Eagle Ford and Permian basins in Texas, and the Bakken basin in North Dakota, which account for roughly 80% of the oil and gas produced in the country. According to the report, while the industry says that flaring eliminates 98% of methane emissions, the figure is really closer to 91%. While the numerical difference may appear little, it really represents a 10% increase in overall US methane emissions.
Methane is far more volatile than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but it delivers a big punch while it's there: it's around 80 times more potent than CO2 during a 20-year period. Methane emissions have increased so quickly throughout the world, and there is so little time to reverse climate change, that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated last year that reducing methane emissions in the short term will be critical to preventing catastrophic warming. The oil and gas sector is one of the world's largest producers of human-caused methane emissions, and several studies reveal that the industry is significantly underestimating its contribution to this specific greenhouse gas.
Surplus gas from oil and gas extraction cannot be caught for sale or use; if left unchecked, this excess gas, which is high in methane, can escape into the atmosphere and cause significant warming in the near term. The industry uses flaring—burning off the gas—to get rid of the methane, with fossil fuel companies stating that flaring eliminates 98% of the emissions from that surplus gas.
That notion, it turns out, was based on some fairly obsolete data. The figures used to derive the 98% were based on only two studies from the 1980s, neither of which employed real field observations.
"Most flare studies have been undertaken in laboratory or testing facility settings so that sensitivity to different characteristics (e.g. flare tip design, fuel composition, etc.) may be studied under controlled conditions," the study's lead author, Genevieve Plant, told Earther in an email. "Because of the scarcity of studies of'real-world' flares, it was unknown if these controlled tests reflected flare performance in field operating circumstances and over the lifetime of a flare."
Plant and her colleagues performed field observations in an airplane equipped with methane sensors to gain a more precise picture of how successful flaring may truly be at removing methane. They then coupled those data with unlit flare ground surveys. When the researchers crunched the figures, they discovered that, in addition to the questionable performance of lighted flares, unlit flares—which just shoot gas directly into the atmosphere—were far more common than previously thought, contributing to drive down the efficacy percentage.
Methane is seen as a low-hanging fruit of climate policy because polluting companies such as oil and gas can make real improvements to reduce emissions fast. The oil and gas business has long pretended to be concerned about methane emissions while seeking to obstruct laws that might really reduce them. This research provides yet another opportunity for the industry to right its methane ship; it remains to be seen if producers will act on this new piece of knowledge, or simply continue polluting business as usual.
"Flares in the United States account for a bigger share of the methane oil and gas budget than we previously anticipated," Plant explained. "Addressing flares, by lowering flare gas quantities and/or ensuring flares work correctly, would have a significant and hitherto underappreciated climatic benefit."
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SOURCE: gizmodo
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