technology: vapour tracker goes to sea

Rick Gould said that air pollution loaded by tankers at sea can now be monitored by radar-like technology, which uses laser beams instead of radio waves.
The system was developed by a scientist from a British company called Spectrasyne, which uses lidar (which represents laser interference detection and ranging) to measure gas hydrocarbons discharged during tank filling
The technology has been improved from the tomonitor emissions for one use at a land refinery.
Development should allow oil companies to control the evaporation of hydrocarbons more effectively than previous methods, which rely on estimates derived from mathematical formulas.
Lidartechnology can measure the total emissions at the time the tanker is loaded and has proven to be cost-
Effective: in the first use, on the land
Getreki refinery-
In 1989, Sweden\'s enburg found more than five times the number of steam leaks predicted.
Subsequently, emissions fell by several thousand tons per year.
Spectrasyne, based in Basingstoke, uses a technology called differential absorption lidar or dial.
The ordinary lidar estimates the distance by scanning the distance of a single laser beam on the monitored area and detects the interference effect of the laser wave front reflected back by a distant object.
Using DIAL, two double beams of different frequencies are scanned into one area, and particles and aerosol in the atmosphere reflect the beam back to the detector.
Monitor contaminants by tuning a beam to the absorption frequency of the target pollutant: If the pollutant exists, it absorbs the beam, so the laser energy reflecting back to the detector is reduced.
Integrating the results of the entire region can produce three
Size emission profile of air pollutants.
This is the first time the dial is used to monitor sea emissions.
In January, Moncrieff, technical director of Spectrasyne, said that in order to make this technology work, you need to know exactly where the laser beam points.
So far, DIAL needs a fixed platform for laser projectors and detectors;
Otherwise, wind and fluctuations affect the direction and return signal of the output laser beam.
To solve this problem, scientists have developed a positioning sensor that detects motion and tilt and installs the entire system on a barge.
The sensor is connected to the data acquisition system of the laser beam, enabling it to compensate for the change in the position of the barge.
This new technology will be ideal for monitoring tankers with multiple tanks and vents.
Oil companies can already monitor emissions by measuring the loss of each vent, but this is only an estimate at best, because there are a lot of places to leak in addition to the vent.
It can also take 24 hours to load a marine tanker, so monitoring is complex and requires close coordination.
Seaborne DIAL quecan measures the total loss as it integrates all measurements during the loading of the tanker.