Flyover study suggests Alberta’s emissions estimates way off target

New research suggests industry and government are badly underestimating Alberta’s emissions of one of the most potent greenhouse gases.

The difference between official estimates and the measured results suggests the province’s energy industry could have to double its planned methane emission cuts if Alberta is to meet its promised 45 per cent reduction.

“A lot of eyes are going to be really wide when they see the comparison,” said Carleton University’s Matt Johnson, author of the study published in Environmental Science and Technology. “If we thought it was bad, it’s worse.”

Currently, industry is only required to report how much methane is released during flaring and venting.

So-called fugitive emissions from equipment such as leaky valves have only been estimated.

Johnson’s study is the first to use aerial flyovers of oil and gas fields to actually measure released methane, a greenhouse gas about 30 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. The planes made seven passes over a region of conventional oil and gas around Red Deer and four passes over the heavy oil centre of Lloydminster.

The planes flew over thousands of wells in both areas to reduce the odds that results were distorted by unusually high releases from a few sites, said Johnson.

Researchers were able to distinguish between industrial and agricultural methane emissions by tracking trace amounts of ethane — a gas released by oil and gas wells, but not by cattle.

“That allows us to attribute it,” Johnson said.

The total measurements were compared with methane releases reported by industry and methane emissions estimated in the most recent National Pollutant Release Inventory.

In Lloydminster, results from the airborne tests found the type of heavy oil recovery used in that area released 3.6 times more methane than previously thought.

That same heavy oil technique is widely used elsewhere in Alberta, including the Peace River, Cold Lake and Athabasca regions.

If methane emissions from those other regions are equally underreported, Johnson said, Alberta could be underestimating releases of the gas by as much as 50 per cent.

In Red Deer, Johnson’s measured results were roughly equal to the total of reported releases and estimates of fugitive releases.

But the study confirmed that fugitive emissions — which are currently unregulated — account for 94 per cent of released methane. That has major implications as governments consider new regulations on the gas, said Johnson.

“Those leaks really are a big deal.”