A Survey of Methane Emissions from California’s Natural Gas Infrastructure

Abstract:

Methane emissions from natural gas infrastructure are estimated to contribute small but uncertain fractions of total natural gas consumed in California and of California’s total GHG budget. Because natural gas (NG) methane is an energy resource, an economic commodity, a potential health hazard, and a potent greenhouse gas, it is important to identify and quantify and control both intentional venting, and un-intentional leakages. Here, we report results of an observational survey, measuring NG methane emissions across examples from subsectors of California’s natural gas infrastructure, ranging from production and processing, to transmission and distribution, and notably including examples from the consumption subsector. At regional scales, a combination of tower and aircraft measurements are used to estimate emissions of NG methane for the San Francisco Bay Area. At facility scales, aircraft mass balance measurements are applied to estimate NG methane emissions from associated with individual petroleum production fields, NG storage facilities, and petroleum refineries. At local scales, ground-based roadway surveys are applied to place lower limits on NG emissions from aggregate leakage sources in selected urban and suburban areas, a sample of NG fueling stations, and a small number of capped gas wells. For a subset of the consumption subsector, mass balance and CH₄:CO₂ emission ratio measurements are used to estimate leakage from a sample of quiescent residential buildings and example operating gas appliances. In general, CH₄ emissions are found to grow with the NG throughput in a given area or facility, though the observed ratio of leakage to throughput varies by more than an order of magnitude for some cases (e.g., urban areas), presumably in response to varied infrastructure type, vintage, and maintenance. Taken in sum, preliminary results of this initial survey are consistent with the commonly held assumption that total NG methane emissions from California NG infrastructure are likely less than 1% of total gas consumption, though this study cannot place an all-encompassing upper-limit at this time. In any case, we expect that the techniques described here will provide useful for prioritizing future NG leakage mitigation activities.