Methane, the main component of natural gas, is also a byproduct of oil drilling.
Eric Gay / AP
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Eric Gay / AP
Methane, the main component of natural gas, is also a byproduct of oil drilling.
Eric Gay / AP
Flares, or flames burned at oil and gas wells to burn off excess gas that cannot be transported and sold, are a common sight in oil fields around the world. Some can even see from space.
But one new research published in a magazine Science Thursday found that the process doesn’t remove nearly as many times as methane, a greenhouse gas. stronger than carbon dioxideas hypothesized.
“Our findings indicate that the outbreak is responsible for much more methane entering the atmosphere,” said Genevieve Plant, lead author and assistant research scientist at the University of Michigan. 5 times more than we think.
Methane, the main component of natural gas, is also a byproduct of oil drilling. Explosions are a way to convert unsoldable gases into compounds like carbon dioxide, which still cause global warming but are less harmful in the near term. Flare is designed to eliminate at least 98% of the methane passes through them, and that’s default amount used when estimating the emissions they produce.
But that assumption hasn’t been rigorously tested in the real world, Plant said, “so that’s why we went to study it.”
Aircraft measure methane entering the atmosphere
During 2020 and 2021, she and other researchers conducted more than 12 flights to examine the emissions generated from combustion over three major U.S. oil and gas-producing regions: the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and Montana; and the Permian and Eagle Ford Shale basins in Texas and New Mexico. The team sampled more than 300 individual flares and took more than 600 reads, showing a significant increase in the amount of real word data from these sources.
They found that the fires that broke out at these sites converted only about 91 percent of the methane emitted from the ground into other compounds. Part of that was because a small percentage of flares were not lit and thus released methane directly into the atmosphere. The rest is due to ineffective flares, although the study did not investigate why some flares release excess methane.
But getting to the bottom of that, and making it more efficient, could reduce climate-warming emissions by the equivalent of pulling nearly three million cars off the road, according to the report. Science research.
“It’s not shocking to see these results,” said Rob Jackson, professor of Earth System Science at Stanford University. He also studied the climate impacts of methane but was not involved in the new study. He says the findings show, “We can’t just rely on what the best-case scenario for emissions is.”
The oil and gas industry says it has studied methane pollution
In response to this study, industry groups pointed to their own commitments to trying to cut methane emissions, including combustion.
“Members are prioritizing emissions reductions and are taking action,” Cole Ramsey, vice president for upstream policy at the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement. The group recently reported that participating companies, representing about 70% of the industry, have voluntarily reduced their outbreak levels as a function of levels produced, a measure known as intensity. outbreak, by Almost half.
Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, wrote in a statement that his team was unable to verify the information in the peer-reviewed study because “each well in Bakken has unique characteristics, but added, “We are incredibly proud of our successful gas exploration in North Dakota. “
These changes come as a growing body of work targets methane, which is responsible for at least 25% of current global warming, according to the report. Environmental Protection Fund, a non-profit environmental organization also participated in the study. The new study builds on the group’s previous work to try quantification and documentation methane gas leak.
“There will always be some flare-ups, and calls this practice a ‘necessary evil,” said Jon Goldstein, senior director, Regulatory & Legislative Division at the Environmental Defense Fund. .
But he said he hopes this new information will encourage the Biden Administration to adopt more regulation of the activity, as it carries weight. new rules forcing oil and gas companies to clean up their methane pollution. The US is in the top 5 countries in the world in terms of the outbreak of the fossil fuel industry, according to World Bank.
