E-Learning

Be it turbines, heavy equipment, or any other kind of machinery - monitoring hydraulic and lube oils is critical for performance and to prevent premature wear. In this eLearning session we focus on titration, near-infrared spectroscopy and voltammetry and their potential to increase efficiency of oil condition monitoring. Utilizing these methods, critical chemical and physical parameters can be determined in large sample series completely unattended for faster analysis, higher throughput and...

Laser Dispersion Spectroscopy (LDS), is a new gas sensing technique that applies a novel approach to tuneable diode laser spectroscopy. Established laser absorption techniques depend on measuring detected intensity to derive concentration. This significantly impacts measurements in "dirty" environments where detected intensity of the transmitted light is bound to fluctuate. MIRICO's LDS-based instrument derives concentration using the phase of light. This makes it highly immune to intensity f...

In 2014 the US Department of Energy's ARPA-E program initiated MONITOR, a 45M US$ investment in methane detection technologies. The eleven technologies funded under the program are reaching the end of their second development year and beginning field testing. Initial testing has been performed at the Methane Emissions Test and Evaluation Center (METEC) at Colorado State University, which reproduces emissions behavior at oil & gas (O&G) wells, small compressor stations, and underground gas gat...

We present a case study of a validation experiment to characterise the precision and uncertainty constraints of a newly developed mass balancing flux calculation method, using in situ measurements of methane concentration sampled by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platform.  This case study (funded by the UK Environment Agency) was conducted by the University of Manchester and National Physical Laboratory with assistance from the UK Met Office at its Cardington research facility. The aim...

With the ongoing integration of biogas and other biofuels into existing energy infrastructure, there is a focus on the need to establish rigorous technical specifications for biogas and biomethane. Such regulatory framework requires the determination of the biogenic content of gases consisting of both biogenic and natural gas. One potential tool for making this determination is stable isotope analysis. The isotopic composition of natural gas and biogas varies significantly, with the isotopic...

National Grid Plc is incentivised by the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) to conduct research into new techniques to enable National Grid Gas (NGG) to improve understanding and transparency, and allow for cost-effective mitigation, of greenhouse gas (GHG) venting on the National Transmission System (NTS). The mechanism by which this is done is special condition 8J of the Gas Transporters Licence, the Greenhouse Gas Investigation Mechanism (GHGIM). Since 2008 NGG has conducted...

Adam Brandt from Stanford University opens up the Industrial Methane Measurement Conference with an opening keynote: State of knowledge on emissions: current and future. Natural gas systems methane emissions: State of the science and remaining questions.  

In June 2016, GHGSat launched the world's first and only satellite capable of measuring greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 and methane) from targeted industrial facilities around the world. The objective of this paper is to report on the early results in using our patented technology to accurately and quickly detect methane leaks around oil and gas installations which are costly, dangerous and have an environmental impact.  The technology on our satellite was designed to be capable of detectin...

Different methods based on atmospheric measurements and atmospheric transport modeling have been developed and used for the quantification of methane emissions from industrial sites. The principle is to use a tracer or a local scale transport model as a proxy of the atmospheric transport which gives the link between the methane emissions and the measured concentrations, and which can thus be used to derive (through an inversion of the transport) of the estimate of the emissions that is consis...

Atmospheric methane (CH4) has a powerful short-term global warming impact, and comes from a variety of natural and anthropogenic sources. Methane sources include wetlands, landfills, oil / gas / coal extraction activities, and urban emissions from traffic and the natural gas distribution system. Characterizing the magnitude and the origin of these fugitive emissions spatially and temporally is critical to understand their present and future climate impacts.  There are two tracer molecules...

Carbon 13/12 ratios of methane are controlled by the processes and temperature of formation of methane, such that methane produced by cool biogenic processes contains less 13C than methane produced by higher temperature thermogenic (fossil fuels) and pyrogenic (combustion sources). This ratio can be used to characterise individual source categories, such as those designated within emission inventories (such as NAEI in the UK, or EDGAR globally) like landfill or natural gas distribution, but a...