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Buckle up: Methane monitoring is going mobile

By Isabel Mogstad / Published: September 10, 2019

A “better, faster, cheaper” methane leak detection solution used to be an elusive unicorn of the oil and gas industry. Yet, since EDF commenced its methane innovation work in 2014, there has been a mass proliferation of innovative methane detection companies, big and small. With new ideas and new technologies, innovators are challenging old assumptions and pushing the frontier of what is possible.

The Stanford and Environmental Defense Fund Mobile Monitoring Challenge launched in 2018 to independently and rigorously assess a selection of the most promising technologies available today to help oil and gas companies detect, pinpoint and estimate methane leaks from upstream production facilities.

The results of this challenge were published today in the journal Elementa — and the findings offer a glimpse towards a promising new era of higher frequency monitoring. Even as the Trump administration attempts to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency’s common-sense methane regulations, some companies are looking to innovative technology to go above and beyond what is currently required. The results are significant beyond U.S. borders as well. Numerous international oil companies, including the members of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, will require higher frequency, accurate methane monitoring to help achieve their methane reduction commitments.

Here are the three main takeaways from the Mobile Monitoring Challenge study.

Also posted in Methane, Natural Gas / Comments are closed

What the world’s largest provider of oilfield services has to say about innovation and regulation

By Aileen Nowlan / Published: April 5, 2019

Here is something you don’t hear every day: oil and gas methane regulations can reinforce innovation and leadership. Numerous new methods to reduce oil and gas methane emissions are being developed; and regulators, environmentalists, oil companies and innovators are working together to craft a new way for innovation to be recognized and rewarded.

I interviewed Drew Pomerantz of Schlumberger, the world’s largest provider of oilfield services, about what new methods and technologies are available to reduce oil and gas methane emissions, what their impact might be, and what is needed to realize that potential.

Also posted in Methane, Methane regulatons / Comments are closed

Industry momentum builds for nationwide methane regulation

By Ben Ratner / Published: March 15, 2019

Oil and gas companies in the United States are the latest to add their voices to the broad set of stakeholders supporting federal regulation of methane emissions from the oil and natural gas sector. These companies have a major responsibility to reduce methane emissions, a key step in the energy transition. This week in Houston, at CERAWeek, Shell, ExxonMobil and BP took important steps to support nationwide direct methane regulation, with Shell urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to not deregulate methane emissions and to even tighten standards.

There is more opportunity than ever before to regulate and reduce emissions in ways that work for industry and the environment. As ExxonMobil wrote, federal methane regulation “helps build stakeholder confidence, and provides long-term certainty for industry planning and investment while achieving climate related goals.”

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Fixing regulatory pitfalls could reduce methane emissions

By Aileen Nowlan / Published: March 5, 2019

A version of this piece originally ran in Scientific American.

Methane has long been recognized as a potent greenhouse gas, but preventing its escape from industrial facilities has only recently become a prominent goal. The oil and gas industry, for example, is a large emitter, and research (including some by scientists at the Environmental Defense Fund) has documented that far more methane seeps out of wells, pipelines, valves and other points in the supply chain than energy companies and official emissions inventories report.

This revelation has people worried—people like me, who are concerned about the health and future of humanity. And people like the CEOs of global oil and gas companies, including BP and ExxonMobil, who have voluntarily pledged to reduce methane emissions. Increasingly, investors, public officials and neighbors living near oil and gas infrastructure have become worried, too.

Also posted in Methane, Methane regulatons / Tagged oil and gas | Read 1 Response

The oilfield digitalization opportunity executives can’t afford to miss

By Isabel Mogstad / Published: January 30, 2019

At the Baker Hughes GE Annual Meeting this week in Florence, Italy, a CEO began his presentation with this bold adage: “Digital strategy equals business strategy.” Executives on nearly every panel pointed to the digital opportunity.

As the oil and gas industry invests in the digital transformation to improve competitiveness, companies should seize the opportunity to integrate methane emissions management into their broader digital agendas, as a key way to maximize value and stay competitive in the low carbon energy transition.

Leveraging the transformation to tackle methane

The oil and gas industry is embarking on a holistic digital transformation, one that is disrupting virtually every facet of the business. Digitalization of the oilfield , which includes innovations such as automated asset management, predictive maintenance, and industrial internet of things (IIoT), has the potential to unlock tremendous value – up to $1.6 trillion.

Also posted in Methane, Natural Gas / Comments are closed

What if gadgets talked to the grid to cut carbon? With this new technology, they can.

By Andy Bilich / Published: November 8, 2018

Having breakfast at a local restaurant last weekend, I was sitting next to parents who were desperately trying to get their toddler to eat the pancakes he had ordered a few minutes earlier. Watching the high-stakes drama, it occurred to me that toddlers are a bit like our electric grid: They can change drastically at a moment’s notice.

The better we are at reacting to the sudden outburst of “I hate pancakes” – or in the case of the grid, rapid changes in demand, price and emissions – the better off we’ll be.

For emissions at least, we can. Automated Emissions Reductions, or AER, is a new technology helping us to more precisely measure and proactively reduce the carbon emissions impact from our electricity use, in real time. A growing number of grid operators, businesses and energy managers nationwide are lining up to invest in this technology as an efficient way to cut their carbon footprint.

Also posted in Electricity Pricing, Energy Innovation / Comments are closed