Arolytics Co-Founders Involved in Canada-Wide Methane Emissions Research
The Arolytics co-founders were involved in Canada-wide emissions research recently published in Nature Scientific Reports, summarized below.
*Link to study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-87610-3
There is a popular truism in business that “what gets measured, gets managed”, however in the business of methane emissions reduction, the fear is that “what gets measured incorrectly, gets managed incorrectly.” Field measurement studies in Canada and the US have previously shown that methane emissions are higher than industry-reported emissions. This makes it difficult for both the Federal and Provincial governments to draft effective legislation to mitigate the potent greenhouse gas, which has a warming potential of 84 times higher than that of carbon dioxide in a 20-year timeframe.
Up until recently, it has not been possible to gain a comprehensive overview of the methane emissions landscape across the Canadian oil and gas industry. This is because most measurement studies have been region-specific and use different technologies and methods to quantify methane leak rates. Wide variability in methane measurement methods makes accurate comparisons between different oil and gas producing regions difficult. As a result, a group of scientists (including the co-founders of Arolytics - Emmaline Atherton, Liz O’Connell, and David Risk) conducted nine extensive vehicle-based measurement campaigns across six prominent Canadian oil and gas regions in British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. The goal was to better understand the measurement discrepancies between regional emission intensities and to compare their findings to the federal inventory. Note: The Arolytics Co-Founders contributed to this study while working at St.Francis Xavier University.
Between 2015 and 2018, the team travelled to 6,650 sites across the six oil and gas regions and aggregated the site-level emissions data to come up with one of the most comprehensive studies of upstream Canadian oil and gas fugitive and vented methane emissions to date. The study revealed two important findings: first, it confirmed why variability in methane emissions existed between regions, and second, it approximated the difference between actual methane emissions from the upstream oil and gas sector and the Canadian inventory, summarized below.
Why Do Emissions Vary?
The team observed that the variability of emissions were a result of several determinants: fluid type, geographic region, and regulation. Sites producing oil had a higher average emission rate compared to gas-producing sites (approximately 3.6 times higher). Generally, higher emission intensities were found in oil-producing regions, where methane conservation is often deemed “economically unfavourable”. Heavy oil-production operations in Lloydminster Alberta were found to be losing roughly 7% of energy produced to fugitive and vented methane emissions. Evidently, regions that were subject to stricter methane or air emissions regulations saw lower methane emissions, suggesting the effectiveness of regulation.
How Much Do They Vary?
In order to determine the variability between actual methane emissions and those reported in the Canadian inventory, the team used the measurements collected to estimate a methane inventory for Alberta and compared it to the national inventory. They found that actual emissions are approximately 1.5 times greater than what is reported in the Canadian inventory for Alberta. This finding is consistent with previous methane emissions studies within Canada, including a recent one from Environment and Climate Change Canada.
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This underestimation is largely due to how the government reporting structure has been set up. Last year, outside of the "large emitters", the provincial and federal governments did not require industry to measure or estimate and report all activities that resulted in emissions (natural gas combusted, vented to atmosphere including fugitives, or flared/incinerated). In 2020 the regulations changed (AER Directive 017) requiring all gas streams to either be metered or estimated and reported. The first complete set of this data will be available in June 2021 for the 2020 operating year. Historical national inventory reports include a large amount of the inventory noted as "unreported venting" with more recent efforts to address this reporting knowledge gap and resultant underestimation.
The study concludes that effective methane mitigation will depend on an understanding of the determinants of variability (fuel type, geographic regions, and regulation), and that new government regulation should help address these emission sources. More frequent measurement and reporting requirements as a result of new regulations will also alleviate the variability between actual and inventory emissions data, and will ensure more accurate management of annual emissions reductions.