Curtailing Methane Emissions from Fossil Fuel Operations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Methane Emissions

scholarly journals Increasing anthropogenic methane emissions arise equally from agricultural and fossil fuel sources

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (7) ◽  
pp. 071002 ◽  
Author(s):  
R B Jackson ◽  
M Saunois ◽  
P Bousquet ◽  
J G Canadell ◽  
B Poulter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Methane Emissions

scholarly journals Estimating methane emissions from biological and fossil-fuel sources in the San Francisco Bay Area

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 486-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seongeun Jeong ◽  
Xinguang Cui ◽  
Donald R. Blake ◽  
Ben Miller ◽  
Stephen A. Montzka ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
San Francisco Bay ◽  
San Francisco Bay Area ◽  
Methane Emissions ◽  
Bay Area

Quantifying the contribution of regional methane emissions to the global methane budget between 2008 and 2018 using the TOMCAT chemical transport model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Dowd ◽  
Christopher Wilson ◽  
Martyn Chipperfield ◽  
Manuel Gloor
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Transport Model ◽  
Chemical Transport ◽  
Methane Emissions ◽  
Anthropogenic Sources ◽  
Chemical Transport Model ◽  
Methane Budget

<p>Methane (CH<sub>4</sub>) is the second most important atmospheric greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. Global concentrations of CH<sub>4</sub> have been rising in the last decade and our understanding of what is driving the increase remains incomplete. Natural sources, such as wetlands, contribute to the uncertainty of the methane budget. However, anthropogenic sources, such as fossil fuels, present an opportunity to mitigate the human contribution to climate change on a relatively short timescale, since CH<sub>4</sub> has a much shorter lifetime than carbon dioxide. Therefore, it is important to know the relative contributions of these sources in different regions.</p><p>We have investigated the inter-annual variation (IAV) and rising trend of CH<sub>4</sub> concentrations using a global 3-D chemical transport model, TOMCAT. We independently tagged several regional natural and anthropogenic CH<sub>4</sub> tracers in TOMCAT to identify their contribution to the atmospheric CH<sub>4</sub> concentrations over the period 2009 – 2018. The tagged regions were selected based on the land surface types and the predominant flux sector within each region and include subcontinental regions, such as tropical South America, boreal regions and anthropogenic regions such as Europe. We used surface CH<sub>4</sub> fluxes derived from a previous TOMCAT-based atmospheric inversion study (Wilson et al., 2020). These atmospheric inversions were constrained by satellite and surface flask observations of CH<sub>4</sub>, giving optimised monthly estimates for fossil fuel and non-fossil fuel emissions on a 5.6° horizontal grid. During the study period, the total optimised CH<sub>4</sub> flux grew from 552 Tg/yr to 593 Tg/yr. This increase in emissions, particularly in the tropics, contributed to the increase in atmospheric CH<sub>4 </sub>concentrations and added to the imbalance in the CH<sub>4</sub> budget. We will use the results of the regional tagged tracers to quantify the contribution of regional methane emissions at surface observation sites, and to quantify the contributions of the natural and anthropogenic emissions from the tagged regions to the IAV and the rising methane concentrations.</p><p>Wilson, C., Chipperfield, M. P., Gloor, M., Parker, R. J., Boesch, H., McNorton, J., Gatti, L. V., Miller, J. B., Basso, L. S., and Monks, S. A.: Large and increasing methane emissions from Eastern Amazonia derived from satellite data, 2010–2018, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2020-1136, in review, 2020.</p>

Upward revision of global fossil fuel methane emissions based on isotope database

Nature ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 538 (7623) ◽  
pp. 88-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Schwietzke ◽  
Owen A. Sherwood ◽  
Lori M. P. Bruhwiler ◽  
John B. Miller ◽  
Giuseppe Etiope ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Methane Emissions

Quantifying methane emissions from fossil fuel sources using a Bayesian inverse model and observations of ethane with an uncertain emissions ratio

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Ramsden ◽  
Anita Ganesan ◽  
Luke Western ◽  
Alistair Manning ◽  
Matthew Rigby ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Transport Model ◽  
Atmospheric Transport ◽  
Synthetic Data ◽  
Methane Emissions ◽  
Inverse Model ◽  
Anthropogenic Sources ◽  
Atmospheric Methane ◽  
Livestock Farming ◽  
Emission Ratio

<p>Methane is an important greenhouse gas with a range of anthropogenic sources, including livestock farming and fossil fuel production. It is important that methane emissions can be correctly attributed to their source, to aid climate change policy and emissions mitigation efforts. For source attribution, many ‘top-down’ models of atmospheric methane use spatial maps of sources from emissions inventory data coupled with an atmospheric transport model. However, this can cause difficulties if sources are co-located or if there is uncertainty in the sources’ spatial distributions.</p><p>To help with this issue and reduce overall uncertainty in estimates of methane emissions, recent methods have used observations of a secondary trace gas and its correlation with methane to infer methane emissions from a target sector. Most previous work has assumed a fixed emissions ratio between the two gases, which often does not reflect the true range of possible emission ratios. In this work, measurements of atmospheric ethane and its emissions ratio relative to methane are used to infer emissions of methane from fossil fuel sources. Instead of assuming a fixed emission ratio, our method allows for uncertainty in the emission ratio to be statistically propagated through the inverse model and incorporated into the sectoral estimates of methane emissions. We further demonstrate the inaccuracies that can result in an assessment of fossil fuel methane emissions if this uncertainty is not considered.</p><p>We present this novel method for modelling sectoral methane emissions with examples from a synthetic data experiment and give results from a case study of UK methane emissions. Methane and ethane observations from a tall tower network across the UK were used with this model to produce monthly estimates of UK fossil fuel methane emissions with improved uncertainty characterisation.</p>

ICT development, governance quality and the environmental performance: avoidable thresholds from the lower and lower-middle-income countries

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mouna Amari ◽  
Khaireddine Mouakhar ◽  
Anis Jarboui
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Methane Emissions ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Basic Services ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Fossil Fuel Energy ◽  
Fossil Fuel Energy Consumption

PurposeThis paper aims to study the relationship between information and communication technology (ICT) readiness, use, and intensity and environmental sustainability factors in the lower and middle lower-income countries from 2012 to 2018.Design/methodology/approachICT readiness, use and intensity are measured with the impact of ICT on access to basic services, phone penetration and Internet penetration, while CO2 emissions per capita, fossil fuel energy consumption and methane emissions are used as indicators for air pollution. To achieve this goal, a two-step generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation was performed which thresholds are computed contingent on the validity of tested hypotheses.FindingsThe results demonstrate that increasing ICT readiness, use and intensity in lower and lower-middle-income countries enhance environmental sustainability by decreasing CO2 emissions and energy consumption.Research limitations/implicationsOne of the limitations of this study is that the conclusions and policy recommendations do not take into account the specificities of each country. Indeed there are some differences in the growth pattern of ICT in the lower and middle-lower-income countries. Taken together, the authors conclude that increasing ICT has a positive net effect on CO2 and methane emissions per capita, while increasing the impact of ICT access in basic services has a net negative effect on CO2 fossil fuel energy consumption and methane emissions.Practical implicationsThe world needs immediate emissions reduction to avoid the long-term danger of climate change. Second, government authorities should give additional efforts in the more pollutant sector such as transport and industry to monitor their energy consumption.Originality/valueTo explore this issue further, the negative net effects suggest that ICT needs to be further developed beyond the determined thresholds, to attain the required negative net effect on fossil fuel energy consumption.

Isotopic characterisation of methane emissions from oil and gas operation in Romania

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malika Menoud ◽  
Carina van der Veen ◽  
Hossein Maazallahi ◽  
Julianne Fernandez ◽  
Piotr Korben ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Measurement Data ◽  
Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry ◽  
Ground Level ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Methane Emissions ◽  
Emission Rates

<p>Reducing methane emissions is an important goal of climate change mitigation policies. Recent studies focused on emissions from oil and gas industry, because fixing gas leaks presents a "no-regret" mitigation solution. Yet, uncertainties regarding the fossil fuel emission rates and locations, as well as temporal and spatial variability, are still large for individual source processes, in particular in regions without regular measurements. The Romanian Methane Emissions from Oil and gas (ROMEO) project brought 13 research teams to Romania in order to quantify emissions from this sector. Methane stable isotopes are widely used for source characterisation, but measurement data is lacking from many important geographical locations, such as Eastern Europe. </p><p>A total of 380 air samples were collected in urban areas and around oil and gas extraction sites, from ground level vehicles and from an aircraft. There were measured for δ<sup>13</sup>C-CH<sub>4</sub> and δD-CH<sub>4</sub> using a continuous flow isotope ratio mass spectrometry (CF-IRMS) system. The results were analysed using the Keeling plot approach to derive source signatures at each sampled site. The source signatures obtained for 76 individual oil and gas operation sites range from -70.5 to -22.4 ‰ V-PDB, and from -252 to -144‰ V-SMOW, for δ<sup>13</sup>C and δD respectively. They show a large heterogeneity in δ<sup>13</sup>C, and more regularity in δD values. Variations are affected by the maturity of hydrocarbon deposits, and by different contributions from microbial and thermogenic gas. We will present how the signatures measured at the surface relate to the signatures found for larger plumes sampled from the aircraft. The results of the campaign in Bucharest city reveal a larger contribution from the waste system than fossil fuel fugitive emissions. </p><p>The isotopic characterisation of methane emissions in this region will help to constrain the methane budget on a regional scale, and to improve national inventories.</p>

scholarly journals Erratum: Corrigendum: Upward revision of global fossil fuel methane emissions based on isotope database

Nature ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 543 (7645) ◽  
pp. 452-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Schwietzke ◽  
Owen A. Sherwood ◽  
Lori M. P. Bruhwiler ◽  
John B. Miller ◽  
Giuseppe Etiope ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Methane Emissions
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document