Stop those leaks! In this series on the modern boom in unconventional natural gas production (aka na

Stop those leaks!In this series on the modern boom in unconventional natural gas production (aka natural gas from fracking) I’ve introduced its technique and history, but this will be my second post exploring major problems that really must be dealt with. The first of those problems was the exploding water post; natural gas actually has leaked from improperly-lined wells into people’s drinking water (http://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js1jxEfx4), but that’s not the only thing gas can do.Natural Gas (methane = CH4) is lighter than oxygen and nitrogen so if it leaks it will rise uncontrollably and be gone. This is a major problem for a couple reasons: methane is a very strong greenhouse gas so methane leaks are terrible for the environment and other chemicals, including carcinogens, come out of the ground with the gas and can be leaked into the air as well.This isn’t just a hypothetical problem. The image at the lower-right is an infrared camera image of a natural gas storage tank at a site that is actually leaking gas to the atmosphere. Here’s video of another leak shared at our blog: http://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js1k6BhqK.The trucks in this photo are equipment specially designed to understand how much natural gas is entering our atmosphere from the fracking boom. They are built to sample the atmosphere as they drive, measuring atmospheric contaminants including methane as they go.If you drive one of these trucks through an area with active natural gas fracking, you’ll see more methane in the air than you will if you drive through an average rural street. However, like many parts of this story on natural gas, that measurement is much more complicated than it appears. Most notably, many of the areas now being fracked for gas have a century-long legacy of conventional natural gas exploration, including wells that haven’t been sealed properly and equipment that has been in place for decades. How, therefore, would a careful scientist actually determine what portion of the methane in the air is a legacy of previous work and what portion is new?This is a problem that has occupied scientists for years. The easiest way to sum up the total methane release is to measure it from the air using airplanes and satellites. A recent study in the state of Maryland found that methane contents in its air have increased by 30% with few new wells drilled in the state – entirely from sources upwind in Pennsylvania and Ohio. But, changes can be influenced by wind direction, older sources could be leaking more as equipment decays, and there could even be other issues with pipelines and power plants that impact that air as well. So far, measurements of methane taken from the air always measure more methane than can be found in leaks on the ground, so where is it coming from?Tracking down the leaks is important both for the air and for the companies involved. For natural gas to be even a remotely clean fuel relative to coal, it can’t leak too much. Methane is such a potent greenhouse gas that large leaks offset most of the environmental benefits of using gas instead of coal as a major electricity source. On top of that…if a tank is leaking, that’s natural gas that the company can’t sell. Cutting down leaks from natural gas sites is a major initiative of the current president and its one everyone, including gas companies, should be on board with.The first step is identifying the leaks. There are lots of potential sources – every valve, connection, or piece of pipeline could be a source of a leak if not tightened properly, and some leaks may even be temporary releases due to pressure surges.Locating these leaks has been a major project. These images come from a paper where leaks were identified through tracers – a known, inert gas was released on site, creating a plume of gas that the van could drive through and measure. If the van also detected a methane plume, the scientists could figure out how much gas was leaking and what fraction of the produced gas was escaping.In the photographed study, dozens of wells were tested and only a few leaked, but a small fraction leaked a lot. This effect is nicknamed a “fat tail” and it’s the biggest problem; if most wells don’t leak at all, but a single well leaks 20% of its produced gas, unless you measure that specific well you can’t find and shut off the main source of leaking gas.A group led by the Environmental Defense Fund recently attempted to do a complete analysis of these leaks on Texas’s Barnett Shale. They combined aircraft measurements with a large sampling of sites on the ground and for once actually were able to almost entirely account for the gas measured from the air. They found the same fat tail – a number of wells had small leaks but a few major leaks dominated the signal – a handful of wells actually leaked more than they produced!Cutting off those leaks we can not only help the environment, the businesses that are letting the gas leak out can save huge amounts of money!As a result of the EDF study, a call has been put out to develop on-site methane detectors that can be used by natural gas companies. We can detect carbon monoxide and smoke in people’s homes – if a gas company can get an alert that it has a leak, it can save money and keep that gas out of the air. Several companies today are developing detectors capable of monitoring gas plumes at these sites; hopefully the payoff of “more gas to sell” is motivation enough that the next step in natural gas drilling is deploying detectors to cut down on leaks everywhere. If it came down to it, we need those everywhere so regulation might be necessary, but this is one that benefits everyone. Fewer leaks = better air = more gas to sell, and that’s a win for everyone.-JBBImage credit:http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es5052809References used:http://n.pr/1Jp2GMHhttp://bit.ly/1Jp2HAahttp://bit.ly/1GXug3lhttp://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1306722/Video with presentation on study:http://bit.ly/1ACJNB5http://onforb.es/1OGurSiPrevious articles in series:http://on.fb.me/1yhKcYuhttp://on.fb.me/1IFOJd9http://on.fb.me/1CDW5Nyhttp://on.fb.me/1Gaibdghttp://on.fb.me/1CPPFd3http://fb.me/7huKhsqWrhttp://on.fb.me/1NC8Z5Khttp://on.fb.me/1GD2pVVhttp://on.fb.me/1Iey3fW -- source link

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