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What instead of oil?
Published in Rauli Partanen, Harri Paloheimo, Heikki Waris, The World After Cheap Oil, 2014
Rauli Partanen, Harri Paloheimo, Heikki Waris
Shale oil is light and easier to refine than heavy oils or bitumen. This would indicate that its greenhouse gas emissions would be comparable to conventional oil. Since a significant part of the production is natural gas, there will be methane leaks. There is an ongoing debate on how much of the gas leaks, with the higher estimates being between 4 and 8 percent. Even if the total leaks from production, transportation, storage and end use amounted to just 1 or 2 percent, it would mean that its emissions would be comparable to coal use. This is because methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. If there is no nearby market for the associated gas, as in Bakken, it is flared. While natural gas only has around half the CO2 intensity compared with coal per energy unit, flaring does not offer any benefit to society. Leaks from production and transport can be minimized, but this requires tough regulation and enforcement, and the use of best practices.
Energy Production and Associated Policies
Published in Barry L. Johnson, Maureen Y. Lichtveld, Environmental Policy and Public Health, 2017
Barry L. Johnson, Maureen Y. Lichtveld
Natural gas has surged in recent years, now serving as the fuel of choice for producing 30% of U.S. electricity [12]. Much of this growth is likely attributable to the price difference with coal. Unlike other electric power plants (coal and nuclear, in particular) natural gas plants are often smaller, less expensive to build, and as a result, better designed to scale up or down depending on market prices. Natural gas is also considered environmentally friendlier than coal. When compared with coal, it tends to emit fewer particulates into ambient air, less smog, and less CO2. On the other hand, the process of hydraulic fracturing has been associated with unique by-products. Additionally, the methane leaks are a contributor to climate change.
Pollution, Risks and Problems Related to Energy Sources
Published in Bertrand Cassoret, Energy Transition, 2021
Natural gas is composed of 95% methane (CH4). Its combustion emits CO2 – hence contributing to global warming – and fine dust particles, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulphur oxide etc. These substances are obviously harmful to health. Gas may also provoke fire, explosions, asphyxia in case of leaks etc. Methane leaks contribute to global warming, as methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. The exploitation of non-conventional gases – shale gas, for example – is a water-polluting factor and causes many more methane leaks than conventional gases. Natural gas is not the most dangerous of all fossil energy, but it is far from harmless. Yet, its worldwide consumption increased by 34% between 2009 and 2019 (see Figure 4.5).
A novel method for sensitivity modelling of optical gas imaging thermal cameras with warm filters
Published in Quantitative InfraRed Thermography Journal, 2022
Let us exchange the filter to 3.2–3.4 µm and reduce the background temperature to 100°C. For the same methane leak as considered above, the simulated value of GEBDLDF now equals to 10 IU, what is not far from the noise level of the camera used for measurements (NEDLD = 5 IU). In this case, one can expect the leak to be barely visible, due to very high noise level, what is confirmed by Fig. 12a in [4]. This result, together with previous ones, can be taken as a validation of the proposed method.
Design of a test bench for gas leaks using CFD simulation and IR-thermography detection
Published in Environmental Technology, 2021
Xiaolong Fu, Jizhen Li, Guofang Zhang, Chongmin Zhang, Xuezhong Fan
The concentration of the methane leak at (0, y) is shown in Figure 10. From Figure 10, the concentration is increased as the gas velocity increases. From Table 5, the CH4 mass fraction is 0.08453 in 2 m/s and 0.01375 in 0.1 m/s, respectively.