New Ways to Measure Oilfield Gas Emissions
By Terence Martin
July 2011
Gas flaring at an oil refinery. Photo : Kristian Dela Cour
There’s a lot of smoke, but how bad is it? A collaboration between Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and Carleton University in Ottawa has led to the first-ever quantitative measurement of soot emissions from gas flares at oilfields. The researchers, who have just published their results, are now refining their new technique, which if it comes into widespread use, could help decision-makers better allocate resources to fight global emissions, leading to improved air quality.
Gas Flaring — An Environmental Problem
Gas flaring is the burning off of waste gas that cannot be easily transported or recovered for storage from oil and gas wells, refineries, chemical and natural gas plants and landfills. Flare stacks also provide a way to release gas if processing equipment becomes overpressurized. But flaring can release harmful chemicals, along with soot.
It’s a major problem. “Flaring amounts to five percent of global natural gas use,” says Matthew Johnson, an engineering professor at Carleton University. “That's an incredible amount that can have serious effects if soot accumulates on snowpack, where it can absorb the sun's radiation and speed up Arctic melting.”
Gas flares as seen from space.
New Technique Uses Cameras to Measure Soot Emission
The data for the project was collected at a gas flare in a remote area of Uzbekistan. Specialized digital cameras connected to a laptop computer were used to photograph the plume of smoke from the flare. Back at the lab, the images were studied and the relationships between airborne particles and light were analyzed to determine the concentration of airborne particles.
The results were significant. “Not all flares produce as much soot as the one in Uzbekistan,” says Matthew, “but we estimated that it was releasing enough particulate matter to equal 500 city buses running 24/7.”
Refining the Process
Research is continuing, with further fieldwork planned for this coming summer to sample more flares under conditions that are controlled as much as possible. “The equipment is relatively easy to deploy in the field, and work is underway to make it more robust,” says Michael Layer, a program manager with NRCan’s Innovation and Energy Technology Sector.
Putting Research into the Hands of Decision-makers
This type of research is of the highest practical value, since governments and industry decision-makers can use it to identify the most cost-effective ways to fight air pollution and meet emissions targets in key sectors like transportation and energy production.
The results of the collaboration will be used to help shape evidence-based government policy and industrial practices.
“Without an accurate way to measure the magnitude of flaring emissions, we can't know how to invest,” says Mike. “For example, if you knew that one flare was producing emissions equal to 500 city buses, and you wanted to reduce that amount of emissions, you could either direct resources to retrofitting or exchanging an entire bus fleet, or you could devote resources to fixing that one flare. Research such as this provides a significant opportunity for science-based policy and regulatory development to be done in an economically sustainable way.”
For more information, visit CanmetENERGY’s Clean Fossil Fuels website.
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