The study, which is one of only a few to use a so-called "top down" approach that measures methane gas levels in the air above wells, identified seven individual well pads with high emission levels and established their stage in the shale-gas development process.
The high-emitting wells made up less than 1 percent of the total
number of wells in the area and were all found to be in the drilling
stage, a preproduction stage not previously associated with significant
emissions.
"These findings present a possible weakness in the current methods to
inventory methane emissions and the top-down approach clearly
represents an important complementary method that could be added to
better define the impacts of shale gas development," said Paul Shepson, a
professor of chemistry and earth atmospheric and planetary sciences at
Purdue who co-led the study with Jed Sparks, a professor of ecology and
evolutionary biology at Cornell. "This small fraction of the total
number of wells was contributing a much larger large portion of the
total emissions in the area, and the emissions for this stage were not
represented in the current inventories."
The researchers flew above the Marcellus shale formation in
southwestern Pennsylvania in the Purdue Airborne Laboratory for
Atmospheric Research, a specially equipped airplane. The aircraft-based
approach allowed researchers to identify plumes of methane gas from
single well pads, groups of well pads and larger regional scales and to
examine the production state of the wells.Read More... http://www.sciencecodex.com/problem_wells_source_of_greenhouse_gas_at_unexpected_stage_of_natural_gas_production-131741
