Meeting the moment: Reducing methane emissions and the need for better diagnostics

Abstract

Methane has over 80 times the greenhouse gas warming potential of carbon dioxide in the short term (i.e., 20-year timeframe). As a consequence, reducing methane emissions can have significant and rapid impact towards reducing climate change. Several categories of anthropogenic sources contribute to methane emissions including the oil and gas industry, coal and other extractive mining, agricultural production, and landfills. Recent atmospheric mapping efforts are identifying and quantifying sources of methane – highlighting the need for improved technologies and processes to reduce methane emissions, and national policies are incentivizing mitigating methane emissions. The urgent and timely need to address the challenge of methane emissions motivates the development of improved diagnostics for laboratory and field applications. This paper describes the context of methane emissions (e.g., sources, concentrations and key transients) with an emphasis on flares and the opportunity for next-generation diagnostics to address the challenges and global need for accurate methane measurements in diverse applications. In particular, trends in prior field-scale flare measurements are presented including effects of cross-wind and heating value on flare combustion efficiency and hydrocarbon removal efficiency. Prior results show the effectiveness of flares at many operating conditions, and conditions where flare performance can be improved. The challenges and need to improve and expand flare emissions measurements are particularly highlighted.