Cover me: With methane emissions, solutions can be as hard to identify as the problem itself

By now, almost everyone is aware of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and especially methane as a way to meet global climate goals, but that doesn’t mean everyone is on board. same page The energy industry is a leading source of methane emissions in the US, but with nearly 1 million active wells across the country and little common ground on the true extent of methane emissions and the best way to reduce them, finding a way forward without overburdening the sector and its customers is more than a little complicated. On today’s RBN blog, we preview our latest Detailed report on efforts to reduce methane emissions.

Discussions of the ongoing energy transition often focus on the need to control and then reduce the volume of GHGs emitted into the atmosphere. And while carbon dioxide (CO₂), the most prevalent GHG, often gets the most attention, methane being particularly problematic. It is the main constituent of pipeline natural gas and also a particularly potent GHG, with a global warming potential (GWP) that is 25 to 36 times that of CO₂ if normalized to a 100 year timeline. But methane emissions are neutralized in the atmosphere at a much faster rate, meaning its initial GWP is much higher, more like 86 times that of CO₂ if normalized to a 20-year timeline. This means that making even modest reductions in unburned methane emissions is an important step in plans to mitigate the long-term effects of human-caused climate change.

The US oil and gas sector accounted for the equivalent of 211 million metric tons of CO2₂ (based on the 100-year period given above; MMtCO₂e) in 2020, according to the most recent sector-specific data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These emissions are linked to several sources, with the production of natural gas (41%, 87 MMtCO₂e) and oil production (19%, 41 MMtCO₂e) responsible for the majority. Going a step further to analyze production emissions, the majority are linked to pneumatic devices (35%) — which control equipment flows, levels, temperature and pressure — or collection and impulse stations (29%) . With 60% of energy sector emissions tied directly to oil and gas production, it makes sense to target emissions from the types of wells that are assumed to leak at the highest rates: low-performing wells that they can function for decades after their high level. there are years of action.