Tracking Ethane From Space Over a Large US Oil and Gas Region

Le résumé fourni par la source

Abstract Ethane (C 2 H 6 ) is a volatile organic compound (VOC) that has few anthropogenic sources, and is primarily emitted from oil and natural gas (NG) (O&G) activities. This makes it a useful tracer for distinguishing O&G activities from other sources of methane (CH 4 ) and non‐methane VOCs. Here we use the Cross‐track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) to develop a simple physical approach that quantifies the change in C 2 H 6 absorption over the Permian basin. However, aircraft observations and the magnitude of the gradient in absorption across the basin suggests our model underestimates C 2 H 6 emissions by a factor of ∼2. The 2014–2020 trend in C 2 H 6 absorption is found to be increasing 5.6% ± 3.8% yr −1 , which suggests that the amount of VOCs emitted per amount of NG production has decreased by 23% yr −1 .

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