Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory under the U.S.Department of Energy has been awarded $6 million USD to find methane ‘super emitters’ to help quantify and potentially mitigate methane emissions.
The project is named SUMMATION, or SUper eMitters of Methane detection using Aircraft, Towers and Intensive Observational Network.The prime target of SUMMATION is big emitters.
Berkeley Lab is working in collaboration with Stanford University, UC Riverside, the Central California Asthma Collaborative, Scientific Aviation and Bluefield on the project. With funding from the California Energy Commission, it will focus on the southern San Joaquin Valley, a region where oil & gas industries are a dominant source of methane.
Researchers will monitor and quantify methane emissions at multiple scales, from regional to facility and component scales. Detection methods include collecting air samples from a network of fixed towers and aircraft, running field campaigns to test new technologies including low-cost sensors, inspecting the region using on-road vehicles and surveying commercial buildings.
Image Courtesy of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.