Can mitigating abandoned and marginal wells reduce national methane emissions? Lessons learned from a field campaign on federal land in Appalachia
Abstract
Oil and gas production is a major national source of methane emissions. There are hundreds of thousands of marginal (producing less than 15 barrels of oil equivalent per day) and potentially millions of abandoned oil and gas wells in the United States. These wells do not contribute a large proportion of national energy supply, but may be a significant source of methane emissions. Here I will present the methane emissions profile of abandoned and marginal wells in the Wayne National Forest of Ohio, using data collected from a field campaign over the last several years. Because they produce little or no oil and gas, these wells are an ideal target for remediation, but the skewed distribution of methane emissions, the remote location of many sites, and the lack of location information for many wells presents a challenge.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMA116.0002T
- Keywords:
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- 3315 Data assimilation;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES;
- 3322 Land/atmosphere interactions;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES;
- 3360 Remote sensing;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES;
- 1610 Atmosphere;
- GLOBAL CHANGE