Flare emissions quantification using hyperspectral and multispectral imaging.

#methane #released # #climate #change

The impact of methane released from upstream oil and gas processing on climate change is mitigated through flaring, which converts the methane into carbon dioxide. Under ideal conditions this process is highly effective, but cross-winds and smoke suppression through air and steam injection may significantly reduce flare combustion efficiency. Understanding how these phenomena impact flare emissions is challenging, however, due to the highly transient and diffuse nature of gaseous emissions.  Hyperspectral and multispectral imaging offers a unique capability to provide reliable, temporally-resolved field measurements of flare combustion efficiency through fenceline monitoring. The technique combines species column densities inferred from emission spectroscopy with intensity-weighted velocities found from an optical flow algorithm to obtain the mass fluxes needed to define combustion efficiency. This talk reviews recent progress and some of the remaining challenges that must be resolved to develop a robust tool for monitoring flare combustion efficiency.