LOLIPOP: LOcked Lasers for Integrated Path Optical Probing

对清洁能源资源和能源安全政策的推动，正在推动在非常偏远的地区开发更广泛的石油和天然气储备，比如水力压裂法。然而，与这些能源相关的甲烷气体的损失对环境的温室效应远比二氧化碳严重，这一点近年来受到了广泛关注。为了减少石油和天然气开采中使用的设备向环境中的甲烷损失，有必要建立一个有效的泄漏监测系统，使操作人员能够在泄漏发生时发现泄漏，并迅速采取措施进行修复，以最大限度地减少甲烷释放到大气中。目前的泄漏监测方法依赖于一个繁琐的、资源密集的人工过程，即派一名工程师带着手持式气体泄漏检测器到现场。当监测一个非常偏远的位置时，这尤其成问题，对于新开发的石油和天然气储量来说，这种情况越来越多。使用来自自主系统的激光束扫描大面积区域已被证明是检测油气设施中气体泄漏的有效方法，因为它具有检测小泄漏并精确定位所需的灵敏度。与目前的人工测量方法相比，这种“开放路径”激光仪器提供连续的24/7监测，使修复气体泄漏的反应比其他方法更快、更有效。如果这些没有被发现，它们可能会持续到下一次调查，这可能与某些地点每年进行一次调查一样罕见。它还允许持续监测甲烷质量排放率，这对于支持实施监管此类石油和天然气场所温室气体排放的立法是必要的。同样的激光技术可以应用于其他温室气体排放源，如垃圾填埋场和农业用地。尽管这种激光技术具有巨大的潜力，但它还不适合在偏远地区长期无人监督的部署。商用开放路径激光仪器的障碍是高电力需求、仪器尺寸和激光束对准的可靠性。MIRICO的LOLIPOP项目旨在通过开发技术来解决这些限制，使低功耗，易于部署的仪器能够在这些应用中开发用于商业用途

The drive towards cleaner energy resources and energy security policies is promoting the development of a wider range of oil and gas reserves, such as fracking, in very remote locations. However, the loss of methane gas which is associated with these energy resources has a potent greenhouse impact on the environment that is far worse than carbon dioxide, which has been given much attention in recent years. To reduce the loss of methane into the environment from the equipment used in oil and gas extraction it is necessary to have an effective leak monitoring system to enable operators to spot leaks as they arise and take rapid action to fix them to minimise the release of methane into the atmosphere. Present methods of leak monitoring rely on a tedious, resource intensive manual process of sending an engineer to site with a hand held gas leak detector. This is particularly problematic when monitoring a very remote location, which is increasingly the case for newly developed oil and gas reserves.The use of laser beams from an autonomous system to scan a wide area has proven be an effective method for detecting gas leaks in oil and gas facilities, as it has the required sensitivity to detect small leaks and locate them precisely. Compared to current methods of manual surveying such "open path" laser instruments provide continuous 24/7 monitoring which enables much faster and efficient response to repairing gas leaks than would otherwise be possible. If these are not detected they could continue unabated until the next survey, which may be as infrequent as an annual basis for some sites. It also allows the methane mass emission rates to be continuously monitored, which is necessary to support the implementation of legislation to regulate greenhouse emissions from such oil and gas sites. The same laser technology can be applied to other sources of greenhouse gas emissions such as landfill and agricultural sites.Despite the great potential of this laser technology it is not yet suitable for long term unsupervised deployment in remote locations. The barriers to this for commercially available open path laser instruments are the high electrical power requirement, instrument size, and reliability of the laser beam alignment. MIRICO's LOLIPOP project is designed to address these limitations by developing the technology to enable a low power, easier to deploy instrument to be developed for commercial use in these applications