Identification

Title

Evaluating the Mobile Flux Plane (MFP) Method to estimate methane emissions using Large Eddy Simulations (LES)

Abstract

This study evaluates the efficacy of the mobile flux plane (MFP) method to derive methane emissions from oil and gas production fields using a first-of-its-kind high-resolution methane concentration data set. Transport and dispersion of methane emissions from seven hypothetical well pads generated with an oil field emission simulator is simulated every second at 10 m resolution using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in large eddy simulation mode. The time varying WRF-generated methane concentration data set is sampled by a simulated MFP system downwind of the seven well pads at five sampling distances of 50, 75, 100, 125, and 150 m. Several key findings highlight the significant variability in MFP emission rate estimates induced by atmospheric turbulence and variable source emission rates. Natural atmospheric turbulence alone was found to generate significant variability (33%-75%) in the MFP emission estimates with constant emission rates at the source location. It was also found that turbulent wind speed fluctuations over the duration of a transect can also affect MFP estimates up to about +/- 50% through convergence (divergence) that increases (decreases) methane concentrations, and by its effect on the assumption of steady winds over the duration of the transect. It was further found that the MFP method typically estimated about 19%-33% and 51%-75% of known site emission rates using the trapezoidal and Gaussian fit integration methods, respectively. Thus, methane concentrations would need to be measured to a much higher elevation to generate robust and accurate methane emission rate estimates.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7tb1b84

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2021-03-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact