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Quantifying atmospheric methane emissions from the Haynesville, Fayetteville, and northeastern Marcellus shale gas production regions
- Source :
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. 120:2119-2139
- Publication Year :
- 2015
- Publisher :
- American Geophysical Union (AGU), 2015.
-
Abstract
- We present measurements of methane (CH4) taken aboard a NOAA WP-3D research aircraft in 2013 over the Haynesville shale region in eastern Texas/northwestern Louisiana, the Fayetteville shale region in Arkansas, and the northeastern Pennsylvania portion of the Marcellus shale region, which accounted for the majority of Marcellus shale gas production that year. We calculate emission rates from the horizontal CH4 flux in the planetary boundary layer downwind of each region after subtracting the CH4 flux entering the region upwind. We find 1 day CH4 emissions of (8.0 ± 2.7) × 107 g/h from the Haynesville region, (3.9 ± 1.8) × 107 g/h from the Fayetteville region, and (1.5 ± 0.6) × 107 g/h from the Marcellus region in northeastern Pennsylvania. Finally, we compare the CH4 emissions to the total volume of natural gas extracted from each region to derive a loss rate from production operations of 1.0–2.1% from the Haynesville region, 1.0–2.8% from the Fayetteville region, and 0.18–0.41% from the Marcellus region in northeastern Pennsylvania. The climate impact of CH4 loss from shale gas production depends upon the total leakage from all production regions. The regions investigated in this work represented over half of the U.S. shale gas production in 2013, and we find generally lower loss rates than those reported in earlier studies of regions that made smaller contributions to total production. Hence, the national average CH4 loss rate from shale gas production may be lower than values extrapolated from the earlier studies.
- Subjects :
- Hydrology
Atmospheric Science
business.industry
Planetary boundary layer
Atmospheric methane
Marcellus shale
Flux
Atmospheric sciences
Methane
chemistry.chemical_compound
Geophysics
chemistry
Volume (thermodynamics)
Space and Planetary Science
Natural gas
Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous)
business
Oil shale
Geology
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 21698996 and 2169897X
- Volume :
- 120
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........f736f1112e4564a0e776da5ba6df0eb8