Newspaper "Poisk": scientists from Altai State University help solve ecological problems of the planet

The oil production at each field is known to be accompanied by the release of associated petroleum gas, part of which is burned in flare facilities at the oil production sites, as well as at other stages of its processing.

According to the estimates of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States in 2015, 13605 flare facilities operated in 88 countries of the world, where about 140 billion cubic meters of gas were burned annually, which led to the emission of about 300 million tons of CO2.

It should be noted that the flaring of associated petroleum gas leads to emission into the atmosphere of methane, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, soot, and other toxic substances in addition to CO2, as well as to thermal effects on the land surface in the area of flare facilities. These emissions have an impact on climate, environment, and human health, both regionally and globally.

Scientists from the University in Altai Krai are tackling these problems using data received from satellites and processed at the Center for Space Monitoring of AltSU. They conduct regular monitoring of flares and greenhouse gas emissions over a large area of Western Siberia due to the satellite technology, which they have developed for estimating the volume of flared associated petroleum gas in flares.

The implemented satellite technology makes it possible to remotely determine a number of characteristics of flare units: temperature of the combusted mixture, area of the flare, power of the thermal radiation source and the volume of associated petroleum gas flared.

Monitoring is carried out at night in the visible and near / thermal infrared ranges. Director of the Center for Space Monitoring of Altai State University, Professor Anatoly Lagutin explained the advantage of the new technology - its easy applicability for comparative analysis of a large number of emission sources simultaneously in large areas, including in remote areas.

According to the researchers, this technology is of interest to both oil and gas companies in Russia and government authorities, whose competence includes issues of state regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

Currently, the technology developed by the specialists from the Altai State University Space Monitoring Center is used to implement a project to assess greenhouse gas emissions by oil industry enterprises in Western Siberia.

The data from this project will help to understand how and to what extent greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced, and will also become an information base for the Center's chemical transport model, which makes it possible to predict the content of greenhouse gases in the region's atmosphere in the next two decades under several scenarios of the evolution of the global climate system.