Publications by authors named "Scott P Seymour"
Methane emissions from the global oil and gas value chain are a major contributor to climate change, and their mitigation could avoid 0.1 °C of warming by 2050. Here, we synthesize nearly a decade of research encompassing thousands of multiscale methane measurements along the oil and gas value chain (production to end use) to better constrain estimates of methane emissions from Canada's energy sector and to identify research gaps contributing to uncertainty in current estimates.
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- Leakage from oil and gas wells contributes to methane emissions and can contaminate groundwater, making well integrity crucial for environmental protection.
- Incomplete industry reporting in Canada leads to discrepancies in government emissions inventories, affecting estimates of wellbore methane emissions in British Columbia and Alberta, which range from 23 to 176 kilotons.
- The study highlights the underreporting of leaks, recommends better data tracking and testing methods, and suggests using optical gas imaging cameras to enhance monitoring efforts.
The Canadian government aims to achieve a 40-45 % reduction of oil and gas (O&G) methane (CH) emissions by 2025, and 75 % by 2030, although recent studies consistently show that Canada's federal inventory underestimates emissions by a factor of 1.4 to 2.0.
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- A study analyzed methane venting from CHOP(S) facilities in Saskatchewan, using both airborne LiDAR and on-site measurements, highlighting a strong correlation between the two methods.
- Findings revealed that actual methane emissions were nearly four times higher than reported, with 80% attributed to casing gas venting, indicating possible shortcomings in current regulations.
- The research underscored the need for improved tracking of emissions, pointing out that about one-third of methane comes from environmentally marginal wells, which may undermine the economic viability of oil production due to carbon pricing implications.
Accurately quantifying unsteady methane venting from key oil and gas sector sources such as storage tanks and well casing vents is a critical challenge. Recently, we presented an optical sensor to meet this need that combines volume fraction and Doppler shift measurements using wavelength modulation spectroscopy with 2 harmonic detection to quantify mass flux of methane through a vent line. This paper extends the previous effort through a methodical component-by-component investigation of potential sources of thermally-induced measurement drift to guide the design of an updated sensor.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn optical sensor employing tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy with wavelength modulation and 2f harmonic detection was designed, prototyped, and tested for applications in quantifying methane emissions from vent sources in the oil and gas sector. The methane absorption line at 6026.23 cm−1 (1659.
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