F3UEL: Flaring & Fossil Fuels: Uncovering Emissions & Losses

Fossil energy production, processing, flaring, and transmission all can harm climate and air quality by emitting greenhouse gases and air pollutants. Studies now show that onshore oil and gas production emit much more methane than what is inventoried, and that local air quality impacts can be significant, however, natural gas flaring and offshore systems have been largely overlooked.

The F3UEL (Flaring & Fossil Fuels: Uncovering Emissions & Losses) project aims to address these gaps by improving our understanding of offshore emissions, characterizing how flares behave in the real world, identifying what portion of the offshore system is responsible for emissions, and determining how such systems can be monitored.

Spanning three years (2020-2022), the project employed an aircraft platform to measure including both greenhouse gas and air quality measurements. To sample the largest regions of current and potential future offshore production and flaring, airborne measurements targeted the Gulf of Mexico, offshore California and Alaska, the Bakken Formation (North Dakota) and the Permian and Eagle Ford Basins (Texas).

Data provided here includes the airborne measurements collected using Scientific Aviation’s Mooney aircraft platform, equipped with spectroscopic instrumentation to measure methane, carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrous oxide, and nitrogen oxide, in addition to meteorological variables such as wind speed and direction. Data products from our analysis of these airborne measurements are also provided, including estimated flare destruction removal efficiency for the Bakken, Eagle Ford, and Permian basins.

Each data file is in .csv format and is accompanied by a readme file with further information and descriptors of the variables included. All users should cite the papers and datasets provided in the readme files for each individual dataset.

Website: https://graham.umich.edu/f3uel

This project is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation with additional support from the Environmental Defense Fund, Scientific Aviation, and University of Michigan (College of Engineering, Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering; Graham Sustainability Institute).