Spencer Zhang representing the EAO group at AGU24

Spencer Zhang is presenting her work at this year's AGU24 conference in Washington D.C. The session details and her abstract can be found below.
- Final Abstract Number & Title: GC53L-04: The United States Natural Gas Production and Transmission Carbon Intensity
- Session Number & Title: GC53L: New Technologies and Frameworks to Detect and Analyze Methane Emissions from the Oil and Gas Supply Chain: Methods, Data, and Insights II Oral
- Date & Time: Friday, 13 December 2024, 14:10 – 15:40 EST (Slot: 14:55 – 15:10 EST)
- Location: Convention Center, Salon B
Understanding the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from natural gas systems is essential for transitioning to a low-carbon economy. This work estimates the well-through-transmission GHG emissions of the US natural gas from one million active wells covering 94% of 2022 US production. This is conducted by creating a high-resolution US oil and gas production area map to harmonize oil and natural gas (O&NG) supply chain data. We systematically integrate methane measurement data from the latest aerial campaigns into natural gas life cycle GHG emission estimates, capturing both methane fugitive (unintentional leakage and loss) and venting (intentional release) as well as a better characterization of super-emitter activities. Over ten public and commercial industry-leading datasets are integrated with an engineering-based unit process life cycle assessment (LCA) model. The estimated total GHG emissions is 631 MMT CO2-eq., more than twice of the US Environmental Protection Agency estimates. The average well-through-transmission carbon intensity (CI) for US natural gas is 15.46 gCO2eq/MJ, with an upstream (exploration to processing) CI of 12.35 gCO2eq/MJ and a midstream (transmission) CI of 3.10 gCO2eq/MJ. The GHG emissions from upstream methane fugitives and venting account for 73% and 16% of the upstream CIs, respectively, an order of magnitude higher than flaring emissions (1.6%). Reducing the methane venting and fugitive loss rates by 75% would lower the upstream CI by half.