Methane Emission Estimation Tool (MEET)

At a Glance

Researchers at Colorado State University and University of Texas- Austin, have developed software that gives a much higher resolution of methane emissions at oil and gas sites. These estimations offer a more detailed view of sampling and annual rates of flow at a site, and offers a detailed view of methane rates and the efficacy of methane remediation strategies.

Background

Conventional approaches to estimating emissions from oil and gas facilities usually involve annual average emission rate estimations. Point measurements, designed to assess the accuracy of the emission estimates, are generally done for short periods of time (seconds to minutes). Because many of the emissions from these sites are intermittent, there is often a marked mismatch between the averaging time for emission estimates (annual) and the time resolution of measurements (seconds to minutes), and this makes accurate reconciliation of emission estimates with observations very difficult. The information flow for the software can be seen in Figure 1. Figure 2 demonstrates the results of Monte Carlo iterations used to simulate emissions.

Overview

The newly developed software estimates emissions of light alkanes such as methane, ethane, propane and butanes, over time, from oil and gas production and gathering sites. The software consists of two parts: (i) a part that produces time series of the total volumes of emissions released, and (ii) a part that estimates the compositions of the emissions. The software thus captures data that is sometimes lost in traditional estimations of annual emissions rate, and makes reconciliation of the annual and pointwise data simpler.

Benefits

Current methane emissions models provide a gross, average value of emissions over time (e.g. 20 kg/year).
MEET provides significantly more detail, both at a time granularity and a geographic granularity.
Events in MEET are resolved to the second, but can be queried at time resolutions from seconds to years.
Software can be used to evaluate the efficacy of leak mitigation and other emission management strategies.