CSU to lead methane-emissions study for Department of Energy

FORT COLLINS — Colorado State University researchers will lead a two-year, $1.8 million study funded by the U.S. Department of Energy that will examine methane emissions from natural-gas compressor stations.

The project is aimed at helping scientists develop a more-complete picture of overall emissions from natural-gas facilities.

Natural gas is a clean-burning fuel that is viewed by many as a “bridge” to more sustainable energy sources. But methane, the primary component of natural gas, is a powerful greenhouse gas with much greater global-warming potential than carbon dioxide. And methane is known to be emitted in significant quantities from pipelines, wells and other storage and distribution facilities.

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Daniel Zimmerle, senior researcher at CSU’s Energy Institute, will lead the study, with engineering firm AECOM and other industry partners set to conduct a 20- to 26-week field campaign focusing on natural-gas gathering compressor stations.

CSU mechanical-engineering professor Anthony Marchese, co-principal investigator on the study, previously led an Environmental Defense Fund study measuring methane emissions from gathering and processing facilities in 13 states. That work, co-authored by Zimmerle, concluded that the gathering and processing sector of the natural-gas system was under-represented by a factor of eight in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Greenhouse Gas Inventory. It led to the inventory being updated this year to reflect gathering operations representing 27 percent of all methane emissions.

“This new study fills in the blanks of our previous study,” Marchese said in a news release. “We’ll get a better view of what types of emissions sources influence the facility-level emissions, component by component.”