Characterizing the greenhouse gas impacts of natural gas resources : a life-cycle assessment and evaluation of new aerial technologies
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Greenhouse gas emissions from oil and natural gas production will need to be reduced as society transitions to a renewable energy economy and production declines. However, the energy system has significant inertia: even in a world meeting 1.5 ºC of warming targets, natural gas consumption is estimated to be 50% of 2020 levels in 2050. Previous research has shown that significant differences can exist in production emissions between different fossil fuel resources, and thus it is critical to develop metrics to minimize emissions during the energy transition. Based on an updated synthesis of measurements from component-level field studies, in Chapter 2 we develop a new inventory-based model for CH4 emissions, for the production-segment only, that agrees within error with recent syntheses of site-level field studies and allows for isolation of equipment-level contributions. We find that unintentional emissions from liquid storage tanks and other equipment leaks are the largest contributors to divergence with the US EPA Greenhouse Gas Inventory. If our proposed method were adopted in the United States and other jurisdictions, inventory estimates could better guide CH4 mitigation policy priorities. In Chapter 3, we calculate life-cycle emissions for natural gas production in the United States at the producing-county level. Results are aggregated and reported by basin. The bottom-up model from Chapter 2 is combined with an open-source life-cycle emissions calculator. We find that in both gas and oil rich basins, carbon intensity of the produced gas is dominated by methane emissions in all cases except when there is exceptionally high flaring. For dry gas fields (such as the Appalachian basin), carbon intensity is dominated by equipment leaks and pneumatic device venting. For mixed and oil dominant fields (such as the Williston basin), carbon intensity of the produced gas is dominated by tank emissions and flaring. We demonstrate that allocation choices (i.e., whether particular emission sources are assigned to oil and/or gas) have a large impact on the resulting carbon intensity. In Chapter 4, we perform a single-blind evaluation of the quantification capabilities of three aerial, airplane-based technologies (Bridger's Gas Mapping LiDAR, Carbon Mapper's Global Airborne Observatory, and GHGSat-AV) in blinded, controlled release trials with a focus on large emitters (10-2,000+ kg hr-1 CH4). In two 2021 campaigns, metered natural gas was released concurrently with overpasses by the tested technologies. Results were submitted by operators in a three-stage unblinding process. Detection rates of non-zero releases were 100%, 85%, and 86% for Bridger, Carbon Mapper, and GHGSat, respectively. The teams report parity slopes of 0.35 to 1.06, with R2 values of 0.35-0.78. We discuss implications for measurement methods and practical emissions reductions.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2022; ©2022 |
| Publication date | 2022; 2022 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Rutherford, Jeffrey Scott |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Brandt, Adam (Adam R.) |
| Thesis advisor | Brandt, Adam (Adam R.) |
| Thesis advisor | Jackson, Rob, 1961- |
| Thesis advisor | Ravikumar, Arvind |
| Degree committee member | Jackson, Rob, 1961- |
| Degree committee member | Ravikumar, Arvind |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Energy Resources Engineering |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Jeffrey Scott Rutherford. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Energy Resources Engineering. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2022. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/qz093pr2585 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2022 by Jeffrey Scott Rutherford
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY).
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