Identifying Fugitive Flare Flow Using Radioisotope Tracers

The regulation of greenhouse gas emissions by the EPA has become more stringent with increasing requirements to collect data to demonstrate compliance with environmental rules. Therefore, additional focus is being placed on flares and flare emissions. Accurate flare gas flow measurement is a critical requirement to the refining and petrochemical industries to ensure regulatory compliance and reduce or eliminate the loss of valuable process material. Tracerco offers flow rate, leak testing applications, and meter proving services that are routinely applied to plant piping systems. These are fast, accurate, and cost effective methods to determine the flow of vapor in piping, and for the calibration of flow meters. Specific case studies will be discussed that show how these flow studies can provide information on where excess gas is entering a flare system, either on a unit or equipment level.