New regulations and modifications to existing environmental regulations are currently underway. The natural gas industry has consistently attempted to mitigate the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Blowdown mitigation represents an opportunity to directly reduce the extent of methane emissions released to the atmosphere and can have an immediate positive impact on reducing the effects of global warming. This work presents the current techniques available to minimize blowdowns by the pipeline industry during repair and replacements based on research and interviews. Industry best ...
New regulations and modifications to existing environmental regulations are currently underway. The natural gas industry has consistently attempted to mitigate the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Blowdown mitigation represents an opportunity to directly reduce the extent of methane emissions released to the atmosphere and can have an immediate positive impact on reducing the effects of global warming. This work presents the current techniques available to minimize blowdowns by the pipeline industry during repair and replacements based on research and interviews. Industry best practices are presented and future work is proposed to further improve the blowdown mitigation techniques presented in this work.