Developing a Methodology to Determine Chemical and Isotopic Composition of Natural Gas Consumed in California
Developing a novel method to improve emissions estimates of imported natural gas
University of California, Irvine
Recipient
Irvine, CA
Recipient Location
37th
Senate District
73rd
Assembly District
$537,368
Amount Spent
Completed
Project Status
Project Result
The project has ended. The research team is working to publish results in the peer-reviewed literature and (pending peer review of key results) complete the final report.
The Issue
California currently relies on fossil gas for electricity generation, heating, residential/commercial/industrial use, and transportation. Fugitive emissions from the gas supply chain are one of the largest methane sources regionally and nationally, and studies have shown that some fossil gas production basins have higher rates of methane emissions than others. Because most fossil gas consumed in California is imported from outside the state, and because the provenance of that gas is largely unknown, it is difficult to calculate the full life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of fossil gas, as required by California Assembly Bill 1496.
Project Innovation
This project investigated trace gas emissions from oil and gas production to develop methodologies to characterize chemical and isotopic signatures that might be used to identify basin of origin of gas consumed in California. Fieldwork revealed significant compositional variation between different areas within a single oil field, and also between different oil basins. While fine-scale variability of trace gas emissions prevented development of a definitive methodology for fingerprinting emissions based on basin of origin, the field methodology developed and tested by this effort delineated important future research needs and new research opportunities. Among the new research opportunities identified by this effort are using relatively low-cost field measurements to: 1) validate greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) measured by satellite platforms toward assignment and continued, cost-effective monitoring of GHG emissions scores of fossil gas production fields; and 2) scale satellite methane emissions to health-damaging pollutants that are co-emitted with methane to assign and monitor an Environmental Justice Score reflecting a population-based health risk assessment for the respective production field.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
This project has provided a rich database of trace gas composition and in situ survey data that can be used to derive emissions for many oil and gas fields. This can then be used to scale to overall emissions from California and compared with top down and modeling inversion estimates of the oil and gas contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, emissions can be derived from key oil fields in the Western US.
Environmental Sustainability
This project demonstrated a survey approach to characterize trace gas profiles and value of isotope analysis, an approach to consider leakage in the true cost of fossil gas, and an approach to consider environmental justice in the true cost of fossil gas.
Key Project Members
Donald Blake
Subrecipients
Bubbleology Research International
Match Partners
University of California, Irvine
Bubbleology Research International
