Direct Measurement of Coal Seam Gas and Agricultural Methane Emissions in the Surat Basin, Australia

• Main Authors: Kelly, Bryce, Lu, Xinyi, Harris, Stephen, Fisher, Rebecca, Lowry, Dave, France, James, Hacker, Jorg, Neininger, Bruno, Röckmann, Thomas, Schwietzke, Stefan
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Antarctic; Flinders; Hausen; Holloway; Lowry; Queensland; Salisbury; Antarc*; British Antarctic Survey
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/unsworks_60189

Direct Measurement of Coal Seam Gas and Agricultural Methane Emissions in the Surat Basin, Australia Bryce F.J. Kelly (1), Xinyi Lu (1), Stephen J. Harris (1), Rebecca E. Fisher (2), Dave Lowry (2), James L. France (2,3), Jorg Hacker (4), Bruno Neininger (5), Thomas Röckmann (6), and Stefan Schwietzke (7) (1) UNSW Sydney, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney, Australia ([e-mail]), (2) Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham Hill, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, United Kingdom, (3) British Antarctic Survey, High Cross, Madingley Rd, Cambridge CB3 0ET, United Kingdom, (4) Airborne Research Australia and Flinders University, PO Box 335, Salisbury South, 5106, Australia, (5) METAIR AG, Airfield Hausen am Albis, 8915 Hausen am Albis, Switzerland, (6) Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, Utrecht University, Netherlands, (7) Environmental Defense Fund, Germany The Surat Basin, Queensland, Australia, is a hot-spot of methane emissions for Australia. Within the Surat Basin there are over 6000 coal seam gas wells with extensive supporting pipeline networks and processing plants. The region also supports a multi-billion-dollar agricultural industry, and at times accounts for over half of Australia’s beef production, with over 500,000 cattle; both grazing and housed in feedlots. Individual feedlots may hold 10,000 or more cattle at any one time. The top 6 emitters in the region and their bottom-up estimated percentage contribution towards regional methane emissions include: cattle (78.1%), CSG processing (8.4%), coal extraction (8.3%), piggeries (1.4%), CSG production (1.1%), and landfill (1.0%) (Luhar et al. 2018). Because there are many methane sources within the Surat Basin it can be difficult to make a top-down assessment of methane emissions that can be attributed to an individual source. Source attribution is particularly challenging because many of the cattle feedlots are co-located with both CSG production wells and processing plants. This presentation will discuss ...