English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

North American leaders recently committed to reducing methane emissions fromthe oil and gas sector, but information on current emissions from upstreamoil and gas developments in Canada are lacking. This study examined theoccurrence of methane plumes in an area of unconventional natural gasdevelopment in northwestern Canada. In August to September 2015 we completedalmost 8000 km of vehicle-based survey campaigns on public roads dissectingoil and gas infrastructure, such as well pads and processing facilities. Wesurveyed six routes 3–6 times each, which brought us past over 1600 uniquewell pads and facilities managed by more than 50 different operators. Toattribute on-road plumes to oil- and gas-related sources we used gassignatures of residual excess concentrations (anomalies above background)less than 500 m downwind from potential oil and gas emission sources. Allresults represent emissions greater than our minimum detection limit of0.59 g s<sup>−1</sup> at our average detection distance (319 m). Unlike manyother oil and gas developments in the US for which methane measurements havebeen reported recently, the methane concentrations we measured were close tonormal atmospheric levels, except inside natural gas plumes. Roughly 47 %of active wells emitted methane-rich plumes above our minimum detectionlimit. Multiple sites that pre-date the recent unconventional natural gasdevelopment were found to be emitting, and we observed that the majority ofthese older wells were associated with emissions on all survey repeats. Wealso observed emissions from gas processing facilities that were highlyrepeatable. Emission patterns in this area were best explained byinfrastructure age and type. Extrapolating our results across all oil and gasinfrastructure in the Montney area, we estimate that the emission sources welocated (emitting at a rate > 0.59 g s<sup>−1</sup>) contribute morethan 111 800 t of methane annually to the atmosphere. This valueexceeds reported bottom-up estimates of 78 000 t of methane for all oiland gas sector sources in British Columbia. Current bottom-up methods forestimating methane emissions do not normally calculate the fraction ofemitting oil and gas infrastructure with thorough on-ground measurements.However, this study demonstrates that mobile surveys could provide a moreaccurate representation of the number of emission sources in an oil and gasdevelopment. This study presents the first mobile collection of methaneemissions from oil and gas infrastructure in British Columbia, and theseresults can be used to inform policy development in an era of methaneemission reduction efforts

Mobile measurement of methane emissions from natural gas developments in northeastern British Columbia, Canada