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Assessment of methane emissions from the U.S. oil and gas supply chain
- Source :
- Science (New York, N.Y.). 361(6398)
- Publication Year :
- 2017
-
Abstract
- Methane emissions from the U.S. oil and natural gas supply chain were estimated by using ground-based, facility-scale measurements and validated with aircraft observations in areas accounting for ~30% of U.S. gas production. When scaled up nationally, our facility-based estimate of 2015 supply chain emissions is 13 ± 2 teragrams per year, equivalent to 2.3% of gross U.S. gas production. This value is ~60% higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency inventory estimate, likely because existing inventory methods miss emissions released during abnormal operating conditions. Methane emissions of this magnitude, per unit of natural gas consumed, produce radiative forcing over a 20-year time horizon comparable to the CO2 from natural gas combustion. Substantial emission reductions are feasible through rapid detection of the root causes of high emissions and deployment of less failure-prone systems.
- Subjects :
- Multidisciplinary
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
business.industry
Supply chain
Fossil fuel
Environmental engineering
Time horizon
010501 environmental sciences
Radiative forcing
Combustion
01 natural sciences
Article
Inventory valuation
Natural gas
Production (economics)
Environmental science
business
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 10959203
- Volume :
- 361
- Issue :
- 6398
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Science (New York, N.Y.)
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....aa8d3bd8ce4d19c22019054eafa6b4e5