In a new appearing in the prestigious journal Remote Sensing of Environment, the Energy & Emissions Research Lab (EERL) has quantitatively and transparently tested a new airborne LiDAR technology developed by Bridger Photonics Inc., which has the potential to transform how oil and gas sector methane sources are detected, quantified, and mitigated.听 Airborne measurements using Bridger鈥檚 Gas Mapping LiDAR™ (GML) technology were performed at active oil and gas facilities in Northern British Columbia, Canada, while a ground team moved beneath the plane deploying and redeploying wind sensors at a subset of sites as part of evaluating measurement uncertainties due to uncertain wind data.听 However, unbeknownst to Bridger, the EERL ground crew was also able to perform controlled methane releases at several sites, providing a true, blinded assessment of the sensitivity of the Bridger technology and its ability to find sources without knowing where to look or even that an evaluation was underway.听 Overall the EERL team was able to catch up with the plane at 48 unique sites completing 65 wind measurements (some sites were visited again by the aircraft on subsequent days) as well as 29 controlled methane releases at 22 distinct sites during the 5-day aerial survey.

These data give unique insight into the current real-world performance of the Bridger technology and provide invaluable data for understanding the potential utility of this or similar airborne measurement technology in meeting regulatory requirements and in interpreting field measurement data to develop better inventories and drive mitigation of emissions.

Results were used to derive a detection sensitivity limit as a function of wind speed and demonstrate that Bridger鈥檚 GML technology it is capable of detecting, locating, and quantifying individual sources at or below the magnitudes of recent regulated venting limits. 听Most importantly, this publication lays the groundwork for upcoming analyses by EERL using airborne survey data to help re-derive methane inventories for oil and gas activity in British Columbia and beyond.

Publication

M.R. Johnson, D.R. Tyner, A.J. Szekeres (2021), Blinded evaluation of airborne methane source detection using Bridger Photonics LiDAR, Remote Sensing of Environment, Volume 259, 112418. (doi: )

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Scott Seymour, Flaring Lab, 杏吧原创 University

Scott Seymour successfully defended his thesis (May 2^nd, 2019), entitled, Spectroscopic Measurements of Path-Averaged Species Correlations in Turbulent Flare Plumes. Scott鈥檚 research examined the strength of species correlation in turbulent flare plumes in an effort to understand potential accuracy limitations of different field measurement approaches.听 Many such
approaches assume that different species in the turbulent flare plume are always present in fixed, steady ratios.听 Scott鈥檚 direct optical measurements of instantaneous soot and water vapour in flare plumes demonstrates this common assumption is not correct.听 Results of Scott鈥檚 work lay a path to defining different measurement protocols and minimum sampling times to minimize bias and uncertainty and ensure short bursts of high emissions are captured by the measurement system.

Jasvardan Sethi, Flaring Lab, 杏吧原创 University

Jasvardan Sethi successfully defended his thesis (May 7th, 2019) entitled, Application of an Optical Diagnostic (LII/ELS) to Measure Soot Formation Trends within Turbulent Buoyant Non-Premixed Flames. Jasvardan’s research used a laser based diagnostic (combined LII/ELS) system to examine the effects of in-flow turbulence on combustion in flare type flames by measuring soot formation trends with high spatial accuracy in a flame. Flare combustion at the exit of a long stack is categorized as turbulent non-premixed type combustion. Incomplete combustion of the flared gas results in emission of soot black carbon (a fine particulate matter), which is a known climate change forcer and a health hazard.听 Jasvardan鈥檚 research aims to provide further information to better link in-flow turbulence to the formation of soot in these flare-type flames. This type of research will help create better-informed emission models, which will help government regulatory bodies in managing emissions from flaring.