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Assessing Detection Efficiencies for Continuous Methane Emission Monitoring Systems at Oil and Gas Production Sites

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Download Hi-Res ImageDownload to MS-PowerPointCite This:Environ. Sci. Technol. 2023, 57, 4, 1788-1796
    Energy and Climate

    Assessing Detection Efficiencies for Continuous Methane Emission Monitoring Systems at Oil and Gas Production Sites
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    • Qining Chen
      Qining Chen
      Center for Energy and Environmental Resources, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78758, United States
      More by Qining Chen
      Orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-1690-8091
    • Colette Schissel
      Colette Schissel
      Center for Energy and Environmental Resources, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78758, United States
      More by Colette Schissel
      Orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-9299-7845
    • Yosuke Kimura
      Yosuke Kimura
      Center for Energy and Environmental Resources, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78758, United States
      More by Yosuke Kimura
    • Gary McGaughey
      Gary McGaughey
      Center for Energy and Environmental Resources, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78758, United States
      More by Gary McGaughey
    • Elena McDonald-Buller
      Elena McDonald-Buller
      Center for Energy and Environmental Resources, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78758, United States
      More by Elena McDonald-Buller
    • David T. Allen*
      David T. Allen
      Center for Energy and Environmental Resources, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78758, United States
      *Email: [email protected]
      More by David T. Allen
      Orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-6646-8755
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    Environmental Science & Technology

    Cite this: Environ. Sci. Technol. 2023, 57, 4, 1788–1796
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    https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c06990
    Published January 18, 2023
    Copyright © 2023 American Chemical Society
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    Abstract

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    Continuous monitoring systems, consisting of multiple fixed sensors, are increasingly being deployed at oil and gas production sites to detect methane emissions. While these monitoring systems operate continuously, their efficiency in detecting emissions will depend on meteorological conditions, sensor detection limits, the number of sensors deployed, and sensor placement strategies. This work demonstrates an approach to assess the effectiveness of continuous sensor networks in detecting infinite-duration and fixed-duration emission events. The case studies examine a single idealized source and a group of nine different sources at varying heights and locations on a single pad. Using site-specific meteorological data and dispersion modeling, the emission detection performance is characterized. For these case studies, infinite-duration emission events are detected within 1 h to multiple days, depending on the number of sensors deployed. The percentage of fixed-duration emission events that are detected ranged from less than 10% to more than 90%, depending on the number of sources, emission release height, emission event duration, and the number of sensors deployed. While these results are specific to these case studies, the analysis framework described in this work can be broadly applied in the evaluation of continuous emission monitoring network designs.

    Copyright © 2023 American Chemical Society

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    Supporting Information

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    The Supporting Information is available free of charge at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.2c06990.

    • Meteorological conditions during the simulation period, detection time series and distributions, predictions of percentages of emissions detected, sensitivity analyses on the counts of Monte Carlo events, multisource site analyses, and meteorological analyses (PDF)

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    This article is cited by 12 publications.

    1. Olga Khaliukova, Yuanrui Zhu, William S. Daniels, Arvind P. Ravikumar, Gregory B. Ross, Selina A. Roman-White, Fiji C. George, Dorit M. Hammerling. Investigating Aerial Data Preanalysis Schemes and Site-Level Methane Emission Aggregation Methods at Liquefied Natural Gas Facilities. ACS ES&T Air 2025, Article ASAP.
    2. Shuting Lydia Yang, Arvind P. Ravikumar. Assessing the Performance of Point Sensor Continuous Monitoring Systems at Midstream Natural Gas Compressor Stations. ACS ES&T Air 2025, 2 (4) , 466-475. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsestair.4c00227
    3. William S. Daniels, Spencer G. Kidd, Shuting Lydia Yang, Shannon Stokes, Arvind P. Ravikumar, Dorit M. Hammerling. Intercomparison of Three Continuous Monitoring Systems on Operating Oil and Gas Sites. ACS ES&T Air 2025, 2 (4) , 564-577. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsestair.4c00298
    4. Arvind P. Ravikumar, Hugh Li, Shuting Lydia Yang, Mackenzie L. Smith. Developing Measurement-Informed Methane Emissions Inventory Estimates at Midstream Compressor Stations. ACS ES&T Air 2025, 2 (3) , 358-367. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsestair.4c00237
    5. Meng Jia, Troy Robert Sorensen, Dorit Martina Hammerling. Optimizing Point-in-Space Continuous Monitoring System Sensor Placement on Oil and Gas Sites. ACS Sustainable Resource Management 2025, 2 (1) , 72-81. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssusresmgt.4c00333
    6. William S. Daniels, Meng Jia, Dorit M. Hammerling. Estimating Methane Emission Durations Using Continuous Monitoring Systems. Environmental Science & Technology Letters 2024, 11 (11) , 1187-1192. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.estlett.4c00687
    7. Colette Schissel, David Allen, Howard Dieter. Methods for Spatial Extrapolation of Methane Measurements in Constructing Regional Estimates from Sample Populations. Environmental Science & Technology 2024, 58 (6) , 2739-2749. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.3c08185
    8. Dr. Alberto Boretti. Advances in sustainable turquoise hydrogen production via methane pyrolysis in molten metals. Cleaner Chemical Engineering 2025, 11 , 100139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clce.2024.100139
    9. David Ball, Nathan Eichenlaub, Ali Lashgari. Performance Evaluation of Fixed-Point Continuous Monitoring Systems: Influence of Averaging Time in Complex Emission Environments. Sensors 2025, 25 (9) , 2801. https://doi.org/10.3390/s25092801
    10. Federico Rossi, Robert C. Anderson, Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay, Erik Brandon, Ashish Goel, Joshua Vander Hook, Michael Mischna, Michaela Villarreal, Mark Wronkiewicz. In situ, Surface-deployed Distributed Instruments for Planetary Science: Scientific Opportunities and Technology Feasibility. The Planetary Science Journal 2025, 6 (3) , 66. https://doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/ada9ec
    11. Rana Umair Asad, Marriam Masood, Laraib Maryam, Huma Waqas, Eman Raza, Iftikhar Ahmad. Application of Microbial Technology for Treatment of Heavy Metals Contaminated Wastewater. 2025, 343-377. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-8673-2_17
    12. Qining Chen, Yosuke Kimura, David T. Allen. Defining Detection Limits for Continuous Monitoring Systems for Methane Emissions at Oil and Gas Facilities. Atmosphere 2024, 15 (3) , 383. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos15030383
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    Environmental Science & Technology

    Cite this: Environ. Sci. Technol. 2023, 57, 4, 1788–1796
    Click to copy citationCitation copied!
    https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c06990
    Published January 18, 2023
    Copyright © 2023 American Chemical Society
    Request reuse permissions

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