Fugitive Methane & Carbon 1

[Sublimination64]

I am not sure if this is the right forum to put this question but here it goes...
Would like to hear from everyone regarding what technologies or solutions are available for the purpose of detecting, measuring or mitigating Methane emissions, or for Carbon Capture.

 

[moltenmetal]

Google will be your friend.

Detecting methane is easy. Quantifying how much is being released from, say, a well site or coal mine, is a different matter entirely.

The best technology to mitigate fossil CO2 going into the atmosphere is to not burn fossil carbon.

The next best thing is to not burn fossil carbon.

Burning methane that would otherwise go into the atmosphere is a huge help, because methane is a very powerful GHG. It does eventually convert to CO2 in the upper atmosphere, but it hangs around long enough to produce more warming.

There is no alternative that can be made to work at the scale of fossil CO2 emissions we're currently working with. To put it in perspective, we've cleared a lot of land for agriculture and cities in the last 10,000 years- the estimate is that it amounts to about 1000 gigatonnes of equivalent carbon dioxide, between the amount of biomass tied up on earth 10,000 years ago, and how much we have now.

We released 33 gigatonnes of fossil CO2 to the atmosphere in 2010 alone.

There is no hole deep enough to stuff that much CO2 into.

Technologies which use energy to convert CO2 back to products can do no more than fritter around the edges of the problem. A simple mass balance will demonstrate that. Earth and the surface layers of the oceans are already doing as much of that, using the enormous amount of solar energy we receive, and the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is still rising- fast.

No, the only thing we can do is to stop wasting so much of our precious, finite fossil carbon resources as fuels. And we will absolutely NOT even begin to do that until and unless we put in place a tax and regulation regime which ensures that fossil CO2 emissions have a significant cost to those benefitting from those emissions. The current system favours fossil fuels use by allowing us to treat our atmosphere as if it were a free and limitless public sewer.

Once we do this, the market will do what it's good at- it will allocate capital to technologies and projects which make money for the investors in them. We'll use renewable energy with storage, and nuclear, because we'll still need energy, and they will now be cheaper than wasting fossils for the purpose. And we'll also use energy more efficiently because energy itself will be more expensive.

Until we're willing to do that, talking about fossil methane and CO2 emissions and global warming is all just hot air, and not enough hot air to even spin a wind turbine.

 

[georgeverghese]

Anyone interested in generating power from the Agulhas current running through the Mozambique channel?

 

[rotw]

In the context of centrifugal applications, dry gas seals induce emissions (e.g. process natural gas to flare and inert gas with possible traces of hydrocarbons to vent). In this case, a recovery system can be installed so this typically a packaged item that include a small boosting unit; instead of the gas being flared it is collected, routed to the recovery unit and then directed to process facility for further use.
Use of inert gas as buffer helps also mitigate leakages to atmosphere.
Other thing, proper plant design including sealing system, driver capability, proper isolation, valving etc. could be made so that during shutdown there is no machine depressurization which could incur massive release of process methane to flare.
Regarding metering of flare/vent within package units, guess flow meters could be installed with proper design so in any event it would not obstruct the lines.
Also think of the choice of the type of driver. An oversized gas turbine could run at partial load which increases emissions. Sometimes for reference purpose, owners exigence is to use a certain make and when the loading vs. operation is inadequate it impacts emissions.
Also flare gas recovery systems/facilities for process gas should be invested in by plant operators/owners (this often means considerable re/engineering efforts) especially in emerging countries where regulatory framework is too permissive with respect to emissions in particular.