Festa-Bianchet Simon A, Mohammadikharkeshi Milad, Tyner David R, Johnson Matthew R
Energy & Emissions Research Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada.
Environ Sci Technol Lett. 2024 Aug 12;11(9):948-953. doi: 10.1021/acs.estlett.4c00453. eCollection 2024 Sep 10.
Successful reduction of oil and gas sector methane emissions to meet near-zero intensity targets requires the identification and mitigation of all possible sources. One potentially important source is catalytic heaters, which have largely escaped attention in regulatory and mitigation efforts despite being ubiquitous at upstream production sites in cold climate regions. This study reports direct in situ measurements of the exhaust streams of 38 natural gas-fired catalytic heaters at upstream production sites in British Columbia, Canada. All heaters in the sample showed consistently poor methane conversion with mean destruction efficiencies of 61 ± 5% while releasing 235 [+31/-28] g of methane per cubic meter of fuel. Although individual units are generally small methane sources (mean of 0.28 ± 0.04 kg/h), their prevalence means they could represent 6% of the total provincial upstream methane inventory and as an aggregate methane source could be 5× more significant than abandoned wells. Notably, these heaters are seasonal sources whose emissions would be missed in measurement campaigns occurring solely in summer months. However, additional measurements from a small number of heat medium burners demonstrate that, where feasible, methane emissions can be reduced by approximately 425× by replacing catalytic heaters with centralized heat systems.
成功减少石油和天然气行业的甲烷排放以实现接近零强度目标，需要识别并减轻所有可能的排放源。一个潜在的重要排放源是催化加热器，尽管它在寒冷气候地区的上游生产现场普遍存在，但在监管和减排工作中基本未受到关注。本研究报告了对加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省上游生产现场38台天然气催化加热器废气排放的直接现场测量结果。样本中的所有加热器甲烷转化率一直很低，平均销毁效率为61±5%，同时每立方米燃料释放235[+31/-28]克甲烷。尽管单个装置通常是较小的甲烷排放源（平均为0.28±0.04千克/小时），但其普遍性意味着它们可能占该省上游甲烷总量的6%，作为一个总甲烷排放源，其重要性可能比废弃油井高5倍。值得注意的是，这些加热器是季节性排放源，仅在夏季进行的测量活动中会遗漏其排放。然而，对少量热介质燃烧器的额外测量表明，在可行的情况下，用集中供热系统取代催化加热器可将甲烷排放量减少约425倍。
