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Assessment of methane emissions from the U.S. oil and gas supply chain

2018; American Association for the Advancement of Science; Volume: 361; Issue: 6398 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1126/science.aar7204

1095-9203

Ramón A. Alvarez, Daniel Zavala‐Araiza, David Lyon, David T. Allen, Zachary Barkley, Adam R. Brandt, K. J. Davis, S. C. Herndon, Daniel J. Jacob, A. Karion, E. A. Kort, Brian Lamb, Thomas Lauvaux, Joannes D. Maasakkers, Anthony J. Marchese, Mark Omara, Stephen W. Pacala, Jeff Peischl, Allen L. Robinson, P. B. Shepson, Colm Sweeney, Amy Townsend‐Small, Steven C. Wofsy, Steven P. Hamburg,

Carbon Dioxide Capture Technologies

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.