Regional Air Quality Impact of Natural Gas Production Operations

1438400 Ehrman天然气生产运营对区域空气质量的影响美国天然气（NG）生产运营的快速扩张不可逆转地改变了能源格局。优点包括低成本的燃料和化学工业原料，从而促进经济发展，并扩大新的工厂产能。不利之处包括担心地下水的环境退化，担心空气有毒物质和氮氧化物和活性挥发性有机化合物等臭氧形成前体的空气排放的影响，以及由此对公共健康的直接影响，以及甲烷的空气排放，这是一种强大的温室气体。该项目将产生可供各种成分使用的工具集，以改善对空气污染物归宿和运输的预测，并确定有效的监管政策措施，以减少天然气运营的影响。这项研究的成果将包括提高对垂直混合参数化的理解，以提高预测区域尺度面源排放量运输的准确性，模型准备更新的排放量估计，以及可用于评估政策变化影响的有据可查的情景。关于区域源排放物的运输的担忧超出了天然气操作，延伸到非发电氮氧化物源和车辆排放物以及生物源排放物的排放。模型就绪的排放量估计可供各种组成部分使用，包括监管和社区组织以及石油和天然气行业。高中和本科生的动手研究活动将支持人员的发展。这项工作的重点是Marcellus页岩区带，但开发的方法和产品将对美国和世界其他地区有用。该提案将调查天然气生产作业（包括现代水平钻井和水力压裂）排放的区域性质。主要的可检验假设是，即使是寿命短的物种的地面空气排放也可以通过垂直迁移和平流成为重要的区域污染源。将对地面和高空飞行器测量的甲烷、挥发性有机化合物、氮氧化物和PM2.5进行严格分析，包括NASA DISCOVER-AQ活动期间进行的分析。将对大西洋中部地区的多个地点进行基于受体的源解析。为了提高我们的能力，以模拟区域运输，现有的垂直运输参数化计划内的社区规模的建模和空气质量（CMAQ）平台将评估几个事件在美国大西洋中部地区的2007年和2011年。区域地面监测数据将从几个州汇总，并结合一个简短的飞机现场活动，使用逆风和顺风螺旋和羽流横断面，以评估我们的垂直运输和顺风扩散和测量模型预测之间的一致程度。在与州（马里兰州、康涅狄格州、特拉华州、新罕布什尔州）和区域（OTC/MANE-VU）空气质量管理者长期合作的基础上，PI将合作开发和评估未来可能的案例场景。

1438400EhrmanRegional Air Quality Impact of Natural Gas Production OperationsRapid expansion of natural gas (NG) production operations in the United States has irreversibly altered the energy landscape. Upsides include low cost fuel and chemical industry feedstocks, resulting in a boost to the economy and in new and expanded plant capacity. Downsides include concern about environmental degradation of groundwater, and about the impact of air emissions of air toxics and ozone forming precursors such as nitrogen oxides and reactive volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and the resulting immediate impact on public health, as well as air emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. This project will lead to toolsets that can be used by a variety of constituents to improve predictions of fate and transport of air pollutants, and to identify effective regulatory policy measures to reduce impact of NG operations. Products of this research will include improved understanding of vertical mixing parameterization for improved accuracy in predicting regional scale transport of area source emissions, model-ready updated emissions estimates, and well documented scenarios available for evaluating impacts of policy changes. Concerns regarding transport of area source emissions extend beyond NG operations to emissions from non-electricity generating NOx sources and vehicle emissions as well as biogenic emissions. Model-ready emissions estimates can be used by a variety of constituents including regulatory and community organizations and the oil and natural gas industry. Hands on research activities for high school and undergraduate students will support personnel development. The emphasis of this work is the Marcellus shale play but approaches and products developed will be useful for other regions of the US and world.This proposal will investigate the regional nature of emissions from NG production operations including modern horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. The primary testable hypothesis is that ground level air emissions of even short-lived species can be significant regional sources of pollution through vertical transport and advection. Rigorous analysis of ground level and aloft aircraft measurements of methane, VOCs, NOx, and PM2.5, including those made during the NASA DISCOVER-AQ campaign will be performed. Receptor based source apportionment will be conducted for multiple sites in the mid-Atlantic region. To improve our ability to simulate regional transport, existing vertical transport parameterization schemes available within the Community-scale Modeling and Air Quality (CMAQ) platform will be evaluated for several episodes in the mid-Atlantic region of the US for 2007 and 2011. Regional ground level monitoring data will be aggregated from several states and combined with a short aircraft field campaign, using upwind and downwind spirals and plume transects to evaluate degree of agreement between our model predictions of vertical transport and downwind dispersion and measurements. Building on a long-standing cooperation with State (MD, CT, DE, NH) and regional (OTC/MANE-VU) Air Quality managers the PIs will partner to develop and evaluate possible future case scenarios.