
Air contaminants emitted from a gas well made visible. (Graphic taken from Collett 2016)
Key findings:
- Methane emissions during flowback are typically much larger than during fracking and drilling emissions.
- VOC emissions vary widely by compound and for a given compound.
- Methane emissions are most abundant followed by light alkanes (ethane and propane) and toluene.
- Flowback has highest median BTEX emissions.
- Robust set of activity-specific emissions are key to future assessment of health and air quality impacts of natural gas development.
Bibliography:
Jeff Collett, Jay Ham, Jeff Pierce, Arsineh Hecobian, Andrea Clements, Kira Shonkwiler, Yong Zhou, Yury Desyaterik, Landan MacDonald, Brad Wells, Noel Hilliard, and Air Resource Specialists, Inc. (research team)
Characterizing Air Emissions from Natural Gas Drilling and Well Completion Operations in Garfield County, Colorado
Articles in preparation
Presentation by Jeff Collett, June 14, 2016
See also:
Press release by CSU, June 14, 2016





