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Excess methane emissions from shallow water platforms elevate the carbon intensity of US Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production
The Gulf of Mexico is the largest offshore fossil fuel production basin in the United States. Decisions on expanding production in the region legally depend on assessments of the climate impact of new growth. Here, we collect airborne observations and combine them with previous surveys and inventori...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
National Academy of Sciences
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10104567/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37011214 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2215275120 |
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author | Gorchov Negron, Alan M. Kort, Eric A. Chen, Yuanlei Brandt, Adam R. Smith, Mackenzie L. Plant, Genevieve Ayasse, Alana K. Schwietzke, Stefan Zavala-Araiza, Daniel Hausman, Catherine Adames-Corraliza, Ángel F. |
author_facet | Gorchov Negron, Alan M. Kort, Eric A. Chen, Yuanlei Brandt, Adam R. Smith, Mackenzie L. Plant, Genevieve Ayasse, Alana K. Schwietzke, Stefan Zavala-Araiza, Daniel Hausman, Catherine Adames-Corraliza, Ángel F. |
author_sort | Gorchov Negron, Alan M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The Gulf of Mexico is the largest offshore fossil fuel production basin in the United States. Decisions on expanding production in the region legally depend on assessments of the climate impact of new growth. Here, we collect airborne observations and combine them with previous surveys and inventories to estimate the climate impact of current field operations. We evaluate all major on-site greenhouse gas emissions, carbon dioxide (CO(2)) from combustion, and methane from losses and venting. Using these findings, we estimate the climate impact per unit of energy of produced oil and gas (the carbon intensity). We find high methane emissions (0.60 Tg/y [0.41 to 0.81, 95% confidence interval]) exceeding inventories. This elevates the average CI of the basin to 5.3 g CO(2)e/MJ [4.1 to 6.7] (100-y horizon) over twice the inventories. The CI across the Gulf varies, with deep water production exhibiting a low CI dominated by combustion emissions (1.1 g CO(2)e/MJ), while shallow federal and state waters exhibit an extraordinarily high CI (16 and 43 g CO(2)e/MJ) primarily driven by methane emissions from central hub facilities (intermediaries for gathering and processing). This shows that production in shallow waters, as currently operated, has outsized climate impact. To mitigate these climate impacts, methane emissions in shallow waters must be addressed through efficient flaring instead of venting and repair, refurbishment, or abandonment of poorly maintained infrastructure. We demonstrate an approach to evaluate the CI of fossil fuel production using observations, considering all direct production emissions while allocating to all fossil products. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10104567 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | National Academy of Sciences |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-101045672023-04-15 Excess methane emissions from shallow water platforms elevate the carbon intensity of US Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production Gorchov Negron, Alan M. Kort, Eric A. Chen, Yuanlei Brandt, Adam R. Smith, Mackenzie L. Plant, Genevieve Ayasse, Alana K. Schwietzke, Stefan Zavala-Araiza, Daniel Hausman, Catherine Adames-Corraliza, Ángel F. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Physical Sciences The Gulf of Mexico is the largest offshore fossil fuel production basin in the United States. Decisions on expanding production in the region legally depend on assessments of the climate impact of new growth. Here, we collect airborne observations and combine them with previous surveys and inventories to estimate the climate impact of current field operations. We evaluate all major on-site greenhouse gas emissions, carbon dioxide (CO(2)) from combustion, and methane from losses and venting. Using these findings, we estimate the climate impact per unit of energy of produced oil and gas (the carbon intensity). We find high methane emissions (0.60 Tg/y [0.41 to 0.81, 95% confidence interval]) exceeding inventories. This elevates the average CI of the basin to 5.3 g CO(2)e/MJ [4.1 to 6.7] (100-y horizon) over twice the inventories. The CI across the Gulf varies, with deep water production exhibiting a low CI dominated by combustion emissions (1.1 g CO(2)e/MJ), while shallow federal and state waters exhibit an extraordinarily high CI (16 and 43 g CO(2)e/MJ) primarily driven by methane emissions from central hub facilities (intermediaries for gathering and processing). This shows that production in shallow waters, as currently operated, has outsized climate impact. To mitigate these climate impacts, methane emissions in shallow waters must be addressed through efficient flaring instead of venting and repair, refurbishment, or abandonment of poorly maintained infrastructure. We demonstrate an approach to evaluate the CI of fossil fuel production using observations, considering all direct production emissions while allocating to all fossil products. National Academy of Sciences 2023-04-03 2023-04-11 /pmc/articles/PMC10104567/ /pubmed/37011214 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2215275120 Text en Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Physical Sciences Gorchov Negron, Alan M. Kort, Eric A. Chen, Yuanlei Brandt, Adam R. Smith, Mackenzie L. Plant, Genevieve Ayasse, Alana K. Schwietzke, Stefan Zavala-Araiza, Daniel Hausman, Catherine Adames-Corraliza, Ángel F. Excess methane emissions from shallow water platforms elevate the carbon intensity of US Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production |
title | Excess methane emissions from shallow water platforms elevate the carbon intensity of US Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production |
title_full | Excess methane emissions from shallow water platforms elevate the carbon intensity of US Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production |
title_fullStr | Excess methane emissions from shallow water platforms elevate the carbon intensity of US Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production |
title_full_unstemmed | Excess methane emissions from shallow water platforms elevate the carbon intensity of US Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production |
title_short | Excess methane emissions from shallow water platforms elevate the carbon intensity of US Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production |
title_sort | excess methane emissions from shallow water platforms elevate the carbon intensity of us gulf of mexico oil and gas production |
topic | Physical Sciences |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10104567/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37011214 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2215275120 |
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