[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DETECTING AND QUANTIFYING
METHANE EMISSIONS
FROM THE OIL AND GAS SECTOR
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
AND TECHNOLOGY
OF THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 8, 2022
__________
Serial No. 117-60
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
47-691 PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma,
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California MO BROOKS, Alabama
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan, BILL POSEY, Florida
Vice Chair RANDY WEBER, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey BRIAN BABIN, Texas
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
MELANIE A. STANSBURY, New Mexico MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
BRAD SHERMAN, California JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
JERRY McNERNEY, California MIKE GARCIA, California
PAUL TONKO, New York STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
BILL FOSTER, Illinois YOUNG KIM, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
DON BEYER, Virginia JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois JAY OBERNOLTE, California
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina JAKE ELLZEY, TEXAS
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin MIKE CAREY, OHIO
DAN KILDEE, Michigan
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
C O N T E N T S
June 8, 2022
Page
Hearing Charter.................................................. 2
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Chairwoman,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 8
Written Statement............................................ 8
Statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 9
Written Statement............................................ 11
Written statement by Representative Haley Stevens, Presiding
Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 12
Witnesses:
Dr. David Lyon, Senior Scientist, Environmental Defense Fund
Oral Statement............................................... 13
Written Statement............................................ 16
Mr. Riley Duren, Chief Executive Officer, Carbon Mapper
Oral Statement............................................... 26
Written Statement............................................ 28
Dr. Brian Anderson, Director, National Energy Technology
Laboratory
Oral Statement............................................... 44
Written Statement............................................ 46
Dr. Greg Rieker, Co-Founder and CTO, LongPath Technologies, Inc.
Oral Statement............................................... 52
Written Statement............................................ 54
Discussion....................................................... 63
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Mr. Riley Duren, Chief Executive Officer, Carbon Mapper.......... 100
Dr. Brian Anderson, Director, National Energy Technology
Laboratory..................................................... 106
Dr. Greg Rieker, Co-Founder and CTO, LongPath Technologies, Inc.. 107
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
Report submitted by Representative Haley Stevens, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives
``Seeing CH4 Clearly: Science-Based Approaches to Methane
Monitoring in the Oil and Gas Sector,'' Majority Staff..... 114
Letter submitted by Representative Haley Stevens, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives
``Detecting and Quantifying Methane Emissions from the Oil
and Gas Sector,'' Stephane Germain, CEO, GHGSat............ 175
Letter submitted by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives
Anne Bradbury, CEO, American Exploration and Production
Council.................................................... 177
Letter submitted by Representative Don Beyer, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives
``To the Honorable Michael S. Regan, Administrator,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),'' Representative Don
Beyer, et al............................................... 183
DETECTING AND QUANTIFYING METHANE
EMISSIONS FROM THE OIL AND GAS SECTOR
----------
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 2022
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:11 a.m., in
room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Eddie Bernice
Johnson [Chairwoman of the Committee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Johnson. Let me say good morning and thanks to
everyone for joining us today to discuss a topic with enormous
implications for the future of our planet. We are here to
consider methane leaks, the oil--from the oil and gas sector.
Specifically, we're going to talk about the science of methane
leaks and how that science can be applied to characterize oil
and gas methane emissions on a large scale and inform
mitigation efforts.
The importance of doing so cannot be overstated. Methane is
a powerful greenhouse gas. Reducing atmospheric methane levels
is an important way to slow the rate of climate change in the
short term but buy ourselves more time to implement long-term
climate policies.
There is broad agreement among scientists that reducing
methane emissions from oil and gas operations is the simplest,
most cost-effective, and most technically feasible methane
emissions reduction option at this time. Oil and gas sector
emissions are the low-hanging fruit of methane mitigation. We
can take action today to solve the problem.
Unfortunately, the oil and gas sector has a long way to go
to rein in methane leaks. An investigation conducted by the
Democratic staff of the Committee has concluded that oil and
gas companies are not taking the actions that are needed to
achieve large-scale reductions. The staff investigation found
that the companies are failing to address super-emitting
methane leaks, neglecting the use of methane quantification
data, and deploying innovative methane detection technologies
too slowly and too inconsistently.
In America--if America is to reach the methane reduction
targets and live up to the climate promises such as Global
Methane Pledge, oil and gas sector methane mitigation must be
informed by science. The oil and gas sector must do a better
job of adopting science-based approaches to solve the methane
leak problem.
Science lies at the heart of everything this Committee
does, and today will be no exception. Our witness panel
features some of the country's leading experts on methane
emissions from oil and gas sector, and I am grateful for their
participation. They can help us understand the threat posed by
methane leaks and how to effectively confront them, where our
knowledge gaps are, and the potential for innovative
technologies to be a part of the solution.
We must also consider how the government's scientific
enterprise, the Federal scientific enterprise can play a more
active role in improving our understanding and strengthening
our capabilities for dealing with methane leaks. Research
programs across the Federal Government have the potential to
engage constructively with industry and with the scientific
community. Together, we can advance knowledge and develop tools
for oil and gas sector methane emissions. Today, we will
explore where Federal research investments are most needed.
There are many dimensions to the issue of oil and gas
sector methane leaks. If we listen to science and if we allow
ourselves to be guided by it, we will equip ourselves with
everything we need to make informed decisions. I look forward
to a vigorous discussion.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]
Thank you to everyone for joining us today to discuss a
topic with enormous implications for the future of our planet.
We are here to consider methane leaks from the oil and gas
sector. Specifically, we are going to talk about the science of
methane leaks, and how that science can be applied to
characterize oil and gas methane emissions on a large scale and
inform mitigation efforts.
The importance of doing so cannot be overstated. Methane is
a powerful greenhouse gas. Reducing atmospheric methane levels
is an important way to slow the rate of climate change in the
short-term and buy ourselves more time to implement long-term
climate policies.
There is broad agreement among scientists that reducing
methane emissions from oil and gas operations is the simplest,
most cost-effective, and most technically feasible methane
emissions reduction option at this time. Oil and gas sector
emissions are the low-hanging fruit of methane mitigation. We
can take action today to solve this problem.
Unfortunately, the oil and gas sector has a long way to go
to rein in methane leaks. An investigation conducted by the
Democratic staff of the Committee has concluded that oil and
gas companies are not taking the actions that are needed to
achieve large-scale methane reductions. The staff investigation
found that the companies are failing to address super-emitting
methane leaks, neglecting the use of methane quantification
data, and deploying innovative methane detection technologies
too slowly and too inconsistently.
If America is to reach its methane reduction targets and
live up to its climate promises such as the Global Methane
Pledge, oil and gas sector methane mitigation must be informed
by science. The oil and gas sector must do a better job of
adopting science-based approaches to solve its methane leak
problem.
Science lies at the heart of everything this Committee
does, and today will be no exception. Our witness panel
features some of the country's leading experts on methane
emissions from the oil and gas sector, and I am grateful for
their participation. They can help us understand the threat
posed by methane leaks, how to effectively confront them, where
our knowledge gaps are, and the potential for innovative
technologies to be a part of the solution.
We must also consider how the Federal scientific enterprise
can play a more active role in improving our understanding and
strengthening our capabilities for dealing with methane leaks.
Research programs across the Federal government have the
potential to engage constructively with industry and with the
scientific community. Together they can advance knowledge and
develop tools for oil and gas sector methane emissions. Today
we will explore where Federal research investments are most
needed.
There are many dimensions to the issue of oil and gas
sector methane leaks. If we listen to the science, and if we
allow ourselves to be guided by it, we will equip ourselves
with everything we need to make informed decisions. I look
forward to a vigorous discussion.
I now yield to Ranking Member Lucas.
Chairwoman Johnson. And now, I yield to Ranking Member
Lucas.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson.
And we're here today to discuss methane emissions and how
to measure and address them. This is a complex problem, largely
due to technological limitations and regulatory barriers.
Compared to our ability to quantify carbon dioxide emissions,
we lack knowledge and tools to measure methane in an accurate,
timely, and cost-effective way. That in turn makes it hard to
address sources of emissions.
But that's starting to change, and we are beginning to
recognize methane is what I would call a low-hanging fruit.
It's a short-lived climate pollutant, so as we work to remove
the emission of carbon from critical industries, the ability to
identify and plug methane leaks is a quick and effective way to
slow the rising global temperature.
The good news is that our energy industry has already made
significant progress to reduce emissions in oil and gas
operations. To give you an idea of their success to this date,
methane emissions in the United States have decreased by 17
percent since 1990. That's all the more impressive given that
during the same time period, U.S. natural gas marketed
production has increased by 99 percent.
We're producing more energy with fewer emissions. Much like
our reductions in carbon dioxide, innovation has and will
continue to be the better driver of action than regulations or
prohibitions. Simply put, we don't need to tax or ban methane
in any way. We simply need to cut red tape and allow the
energy, agricultural, and waste industries to use the
breakthrough technologies being developed and refined every
day.
And that leads us to a major roadblock when it comes to
methane research and development (R&D): regulatory burdens. For
far too long, EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) regulations
have stood squarely in the way of technology deployment. As it
stands right now, any operator that wants to use a technology
other than a handheld optical gas imaging sensor must complete
and submit an application for alternative means of emission
limitation (AMEL). But a massive problem arises when you ask
how many AMEL applications have been approved for methane
monitoring technologies. The answer is zero. None. In fact,
it's such a tedious process, only one applicant has ever--
application has ever been submitted. And if you are lucky
enough to be the first to use this coveted approval, it doesn't
make you--make your future prospects any easier. If granted
approval to use a new methane monitoring in the Permian Basin,
an operator would have to reapply and go through the entire
process again to use that exact same technology at a different
site, even if it may be just down the road. This, my friends,
is the very definition of bureaucratic ignorance.
Energy prices are at regular--record, yeah, record highs.
Now is not the time for more virtue-signaling regulations. We
need to support cleaner American energy by empowering industry
and encouraging innovative technologies. And yet, President
Biden and the EPA recently proposed a new methane rule that
creates additional unnecessary government mandates and fails to
streamline the process for private companies to deploy
innovative technologies. This is--heavy-handed, regulatory
approach will be even more of a burden on domestic producers.
And all the while, these policies are doing nothing to
alleviate sky-high energy prices, even as the price of natural
gas is projected to increase by 30 percent for the average
household this winter.
Despite my frustration with the Administration's failure to
address energy prices and flawed approach to emission
reductions, there is still reason to be optimistic. One of them
is with us today, Dr. Greg Rieker and LongPath Technologies.
While working at NIST, Dr. Rieker completed the proof-of-
concept research that takes Noble Prize-winning laser
technology and applies it to a long-term, scalable emissions
control. LongPath has since gone on to receive two different
ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency--Energy) awards from
the Department of Energy (DOE). LongPath's work has been blind-
tested, verified, and commercialized. It's a very real success
story of utilizing the proper channels of Federal resources and
then letting the market determine the fate. I look forward to
hearing from Dr. Rieker about LongPath's story, technology
applications, and how we can better enable more successes like
this in the future.
But before I close, I'd like to note--and I always offer my
notes in a very respectful fashion--that for the record, the
staff report under consideration--discussion today, I should
say, wasn't made available to the minority until 24 hours ago.
Now, I understand the majority controls the proceedings here,
and they had the prerogative to conduct business as they wish,
but on issues of this importance, I'm disappointed to see that
we're not acting in the collegial spirit that Chairwoman
Johnson and I have worked so hard to establish. I suggest to
everyone that if we want to make a difference and address
important issues like the one before us, this isn't the right
way to go about it.
With that, I yield back, Madam Chair.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]
Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson.
We're here today to discuss methane emissions and how to
measure and address them. This is a complex problem, largely
due to technological limitations and regulatory barriers.
Compared to our ability to quantify carbon dioxide
emissions, we lack knowledge and tools to measure methane in an
accurate, timely, and cost-effective way. That in turn makes it
hard to address sources of emissions.
But that is starting to change, and we are beginning to
recognize methane is what I call a low-hanging fruit.
It's a short-lived climate pollutant, so as we work to
remove the emission of carbon from crucial industries, the
ability to identify and plug methane leaks is a quick and
effective way to slow the rising global temperature.
The good news is that our energy industry has already made
significant progress to reduce emissions in oil and gas
operations. To give you an idea of their success to date,
methane emissions in the United States have decreased by 17
percent since 1990. That's all the more impressive given that
during that same time period, U.S. Natural Gas Marketed
Production has increased by 99 percent.
We're producing more energy with fewer emissions. Much like
our reductions in carbon dioxide, innovation has and will
continue to be the better driver of action than regulations and
prohibitions.
Simply put: we don't need to tax or ban methane in any way.
We simply need to cut red tape and allow the energy,
agriculture, and waste industries to use the breakthrough
technologies being developed and refined every day.
And that leads us to a major roadblock when it comes to
methane research and development: regulatory burdens. For far
too long, EPA regulations have stood squarely in the way of
technology deployment.
As it stands right now, any operator that wants to use a
technology other than a handheld Optical Gas Imaging sensor
must complete and submit an application for Alternative Means
of Emission Limitation (AMEL).
But a massive problem arises when you ask how many AMEL
applications have been approved for menthane monitoring
technologies. The answer is zero. None.
In fact, it's such a tedious process, only one application
has ever been submitted.
And if you are lucky enough to be the first to get this
coveted approval, it doesn't make your future prospects any
easier. If granted approval to use a new methane monitoring in
the Permian Basin, an operator would have to reapply and go
through the entire process again to use that exact same
technology at a different site, even if it was just down the
road.
This, my friends, is the very definition of bureaucratic
ignorance.
Energy prices are at record highs. Now is not the time for
more virtue-signaling regulations. We need to support cleaner
American energy by empowering industry and encouraging
innovative technologies.
And yet, President Biden and the EPA recently proposed a
new methane rule that creates additional unnecessary government
mandates and fails to streamline the process for private
companies to deploy innovative technologies.
This heavy-handed, regulatory approach will be even more of
a burden on domestic producers. All the while, these policies
are doing nothing to alleviate sky-high energy prices, even as
the price of natural gas is projected to increase by 30% for
the average household this winter.
Despite my frustration with this Administration's failure
to address energy prices and flawed approach to emissions
reductions, there is still reason to be optimistic. One of them
is with us today, Dr. Greg Rieker and LongPath Technologies.
While working at NIST, Dr. Rieker completed the proof-of-
concept research that takes Noble Prize-winning laser
technology and applies it to a long-term, scalable emissions
control.
LongPath has since gone on to receive two different ARPA-E
awards from the Department of Energy. LongPath's work has been
blind-tested, verified, and commercialized. It is a very real
success story of utilizing the proper channels of federal
resources and then letting the market determine its fate.
I look forward to hearing more from Dr. Rieker about
LongPath's story, technology applications, and how we can
better enable more successes like this in the future.
Thank you Madam Chair and I yield back the balance of my
time.
Ms. Stevens [presiding]. I am submitting testimony for the
record, and I'm attaching the Democratic staff report to the
opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Presiding Chairwoman Stevens
follows:]
Climate change is a profound threat to our communities, our
economy, and our way of life. We are already experiencing the
impacts of climate change in my district, and without concerted
action these impacts will surely intensify in the decades to
come. America must do everything it can, as quickly as
possible, to slow the pace of climate change. Only by acting
decisively and acting now can we avoid the most severe climate
impacts and ensure a safe and prosperous future for ourselves
and the future generations to come.
Oil and gas sector methane emissions offer a unique
opportunity to translate short-term action into long-term
impact. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. But due to its
relatively short lifetime in the atmosphere, reductions in
anthropogenic methane emissions can very quickly slow the rate
of atmospheric warming and provide more time for broader carbon
reduction policies to take effect. The energy sector is one of
the largest sources of human-caused methane emissions in the
United States, and oil and gas operations represent the bulk of
energy-related methane emissions. Thus, oil and gas sector
methane emission reductions should be a cornerstone of
America's strategy to cut methane quickly and effectively.
Cost effective and technologically feasible methane
detection and mitigation tools for oil and gas operations are
already available today. They should be deployed widely, and
they should be deployed in a manner that maximizes their impact
on methane emissions. The fact that atmospheric methane levels
continue to rise rapidly, with 2021 featuring the highest
annual increase in methane ever recorded, suggests that the oil
and gas sector must do more to reduce methane leaks from its
operations.
It is also important to develop a better understanding of
oil and gas methane emissions. The scientific community
believes that the sector's methane emissions could be
significantly larger than previously known. Accurate,
comprehensive data about oil and gas methane sources would
strengthen the ability of both the industry and the Federal
government to respond in an informed manner. If the tools exist
to gather this data, we should support the implementation of
those tools to the greatest extent possible.
Our hearing today will allow us to engage with these
issues. I am excited to hear the perspectives of our
distinguished panel of witnesses, who have all made impressive
scientific contributions to the arena of methane emissions from
the oil and gas sector. I expect they can help to inform the
Committee's deliberations regarding the role that Federal
research and development programs can play in addressing data
gaps and supporting innovative technologies to detect,
quantify, and mitigate methane emissions from oil and gas
operations. I am also interested to discuss the findings of the
report written by the Majority Staff of the Committee regarding
these issues. It is my belief that the report can further
inform today's hearing and the Committee's activities moving
forward.
This hearing is timely and important, and our discussion
today will hopefully be a catalyst for further public and
private sector action to reduce oil and gas sector methane
emissions. When it comes to confronting the climate crisis, we
must all do our part.
Ms. Stevens If there are other witnesses--or, excuse me, if
there are other Members who wish to submit additional opening
statements, your statements will be added to the record at this
point.
And at this time, I would like to introduce our witnesses.
Our first witness is Dr. David Lyon. Dr. Lyon is a Senior
Scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). Dr. Lyon's
work focuses on the analysis of methane emissions data, as well
as research into technologies and policies to reduce natural
gas leakage and minimize the climate impacts of natural gas
development. Prior to working at EDF, Dr. Lyon worked for the
Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality as coordinator of
the State's Air Pollution Emissions Inventory Program.
Following Dr. Lyon is Mr. Riley Duren. Mr. Duren is Chief
Executive Officer for Carbon Mapper, a Research Scientist at
the University of Arizona. Carbon Mapper's mission is to use
satellites to provide global monitoring of methane and CO2
emissions at the facility scale to help accelerate climate
mitigation actions. Prior to cofounding Carbon Mapper, Dr.
Duren served as Principal Investigator for 10 research projects
involving greenhouse gas observing systems and data analysis
frameworks in his work supporting programs at NASA (National
Aeronautics and Space Administration), NIST (National Institute
of Standards and Technology), and NOAA (National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration).
Our third witness is Dr. Brian Anderson. Dr. Anderson is
the Director of the National Energy Technology Laboratory,
NETL, within the Department of Energy. He manages the NETL
complex, leads NETL's national programs in carbon-based energy,
and provides program support to other DOE offices. Under his
leadership, NETL initiated critical technology development and
deployment projects aimed at decarbonization, reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions, and low-carbon power systems. In
2021, the Biden Administration named Dr. Anderson Executive
Director of the Interagency Working Group on Coal and
Powerplant Communities and Economic Revitalization.
Our final witness is Dr. Greg Rieker. Dr. Rieker is the Co-
Founder and CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of LongPath
Technologies and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
at the University of Colorado. Over the past decade, he led a
team to transition Nobel Prize-winning laboratory laser
technology into automated regional scale methane leak detection
systems. LongPath Technologies was founded to commercialize
that system into a broadly scalable, continuous monitoring
system for oil and gas infrastructure. For this work, Dr.
Rieker was recognized with the Colorado Governor's Award for
High-Impact Research.
As our witnesses should know, you will have five minutes
for your spoken testimony. Your written testimony will be
included in the record for the hearing. When you have completed
your spoken testimony, we will begin with questions. Each
Member will have five minutes to question the panel. We will
start with Dr. Lyon.
TESTIMONY OF DR. DAVID LYON,
SENIOR SCIENTIST, ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND
Dr. Lyon. Thank you. Madam Chair, Ranking Member Lucas, I
am David Lyon, Senior Scientist for the Environmental Defense
Fund. I've spent the last decade researching oil and gas
methane emissions, working closely with experts in industry,
academia, government, and other environmental organizations.
Environmental Defense Fund is a nonprofit, nonpartisan
organization with over 3 million members and 750 staff that
uses science and economics to find solutions to the world's
most serious environmental challenges, including climate
change. Methane is both the primary constituent of natural gas
and a powerful greenhouse gas with over 80 times the warming
potential of carbon dioxide over the 20 years following its
release, responsible for 1/4 of today's global warming.
The good news is that global temperatures in 2050 could be
reduced by 1/2 a degree Fahrenheit if methane emissions are cut
in half by 2030. The oil and gas industry is the largest
industrial source of methane emissions but also has the most
cost-effective solutions for reducing emissions since capturing
methane often means--apologies for not having the video. Yes,
so the good news--so capturing methane often allows companies
to sell more natural gas. Additionally, the methane mitigation
industry provides many high-paying jobs and is rapidly growing.
However, delaying the widespread adoption of mitigation
measures will substantially worsen climate impacts and cause
continuing harm to communities and workers.
Although mitigating methane emissions is usually cost-
effective, there are several challenges in detecting and
quantifying emissions in the oil and gas industry. First, oil
and gas infrastructure is widespread with diverse site types,
including wells, tank batteries, compressor stations,
processing plants, and pipelines.
Second, peer-reviewed research has found that the top five
to 10 percent highest-emitting sources typically account for
over 1/2 of oil and gas methane emissions. The sources,
sometimes called super-emitters, can occur at almost any site,
and their locations are difficult to predict, so all sites must
be inspected for leakage.
Finally, there are many emissions sources, particularly
super-emitters, that emit intermittently. Therefore, leak
inspection surveys may miss these episodic emissions if they
are only observed during their off-state.
Due to these challenges, the U.S. EPA's greenhouse gas
inventory has been shown to underestimate oil and gas methane
emissions by 50 percent compared to a measurement-based study
that estimated 13 million metric tons of methane, equivalent to
2.3 percent of the country's natural gas production and
representing the waste of over $5 billion of a valuable natural
resource.
There are numerous available and emerging technologies for
detecting and quantifying emissions, which can be grouped into
two general categories: wide-area screening and continuous
monitors. Screening approaches typically use remote-sensing
technologies deployed on aircraft, drones, vehicles, or
satellites to quickly inspect large numbers of sites for
methane emissions. Many of these approaches both quantify
emission rates and generate an image of the methane emissions
plume, which can help operators determine the exact cause and
source of the leak.
In contrast, continuous monitors are installed at a
stationary location to detect and sometimes quantify emissions
at one or more nearby sites continuously or at a high
frequency. For both screening and continuous approaches,
rigorous field testing plus a clear understanding of how the
technologies are incorporated into operator work practices is
critical for their successful implementation.
Federal agencies can effectively support research and
implementation of methane detection, measurement, and
mitigation technologies by funding two types of programs:
First, accelerating the research and development of
technologies, including instruments and data analysis; and two,
collecting methane measurement data to better characterize
emissions. Previous Federal research and development efforts
such as the DOE ARPA-E monitor program have been highly
successful in facilitating major improvements in several
technologies. Additional funding could increase the diversity
of available approaches and drive improvements in performance
while reducing cost.
Agencies such as NOAA, NASA, and NIST could use multiple
measurement approaches such as satellite remote sensing to
annually quantify both total and super-emitter methane
emissions in major U.S. basins, which EPA could then use to
assess the accuracy of the greenhouse gas inventory and
prioritize updates.
Additionally, emissions data could be used by EPA to
increase the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of oil and gas
methane regulations such as informing their proposal to allow
advanced screening for leak detection. This federally funded
data likely would enable companies to reduce their emissions
and publish their own measurement data to demonstrate when they
have lower methane intensity than their peers, which would help
domestic and international consumers make informed decisions
when they purchase natural gas.
In summary, oil and gas methane emissions are a serious
problem that has achievable solutions, and the Federal
Government can drive emission reductions by funding the
development and implementation of advanced technologies to
quantify and mitigate emissions. Thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Lyon follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Stevens. Let--next up is Mr. Duren. Can we please make
sure the camera is on?
TESTIMONY OF MR. RILEY DUREN,
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CARBON MAPPER
Mr. Duren. Yes, thank you. Good morning, Chair Johnson,
Ranking Member Lucas, and Committee Members. I'm Riley Duren,
CEO of Carbon Mapper, a nonprofit organization with a mission
to deliver precise and transparent global methane and CO2
emissions data at facility scale to help guide emission
reductions.
The urgency of cutting methane emissions can't be
overstated. NOAA observations indicate growth rates in
atmospheric methane concentrations over the past 2 years that
are unprecedented since systematic measurements began in 1983.
But there are solutions at hand that can still reverse course
and limit global warming. It starts with making invisible
emissions from all sources visible and therefore actionable.
My comments today are grounded in a methane research
program that helped establish over a decade ago at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). This research continues today at
Carbon Mapper and through my joint appointment at the
University of Arizona, and it's benefited from sustained
support from NASA with contributions from NIST and the
California Air Resources Board.
Over the years, we've proved that, when armed with data
insights on methane point sources, people can take action to
stop these emissions. It was these research findings and the
support of our philanthropic donors that motivated us to form a
public-private partnership with JPL, Planet Labs, the State of
California, and others to launch a global constellation of
satellites starting next year to find, measure, and communicate
emissions about methane and CO2 point source.
The oil and gas industry has the tools and technology today
to cut methane emissions more quickly and cheaper than any
other sector if they know where to focus. The benefits of doing
so extend far beyond climate. Given expanding demand for U.S.
natural gas exports, managing methane emissions in the United
States from oil and gas supply chain is becoming increasingly
important for national security and global competitiveness.
Additionally, because methane is an ozone precursor and is
often co-emitted with other toxic compounds, improving methane
monitoring and mitigation is important for local air quality,
health, and environmental justice for millions of Americans who
live in close proximity to oil and gas infrastructure.
The U.S. oil and gas sector is characterized by millions of
active and inactive production sites, pipelines, and other
infrastructure distributed over vast and often inaccessible
areas with significant variation in their age, operational
status, productivity, and management practices employed by
operators. This enterprise is a complex and entangled web of
different jurisdictions and regulations, translating
significant variability by region, production segment, and
equipment type in terms of the monitoring requirements and
enforcement responsibility.
Many operators and regulators unfortunately today remain
largely uninformed about actual methane leakage because current
measurements are still too sparse, infrequent, or insensitive.
And while some companies are undertaking prototype--prototyping
programs, which is great, the resulting data is often
proprietary or behind paywalls. The bottom line is most U.S.
oil and gas infrastructure to date is still not sufficiently
monitored for methane emissions.
In recent years, our research team and our partners applied
methane observations from surface sensor networks, aircraft,
and satellites to quantify and track methane emissions from
five U.S. onshore oil and gas basins, among other work that's
summarized in my written testimony. We've seen concrete
evidence that good data can translate directly to mitigation
action. So, for example, by sharing advanced methane data in
California with operators, our research pilots have led to
voluntary methane leak repairs at 44 facilities that translate
to over 1 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent
reductions that have been verified by follow up overflights.
Emerging examples in other States are showing that timely and
precise data can enable real reductions.
Congress has an opportunity to lead by marshaling U.S.
science agency contributions to augment operational monitoring
by companies with these recommendations. NASA and NOAH could
commission annual surveys using satellite and airborne
observations to quantify methane emissions from key U.S.
onshore and offshore production basins to support the national
greenhouse gas inventory and evaluate the overall efficacy of
oil and gas methane regulations. NIST can establish standards
for methane emission detection and quantification, including
independent evaluation of basin and facility-level measurements
to validate their accuracy. DOE and NASA could prioritize
methane measurements in their technology development
portfolios, including improved sensitivity, spatial and
temporal completeness, and solutions to variable illumination
conditions and wind uncertainty, which remain significant
challenges.
Federal agencies, in doing this, can maximize acquisition
of data from non-Federal sources, including the private sector,
academia, and nongovernmental organizations. By providing
scientifically robust interpretation and transparent public
dissemination of data, Federal science agencies are uniquely
suited to leverage the expanding global ecosystem of methane
observing systems.
In closing, preventing methane leakage can prevent runaway
warming now. There's an urgent need for U.S. science agencies
to strengthen methane accounting and mitigation efforts by
governments at all levels, companies, and broader civil
society. And as I've mentioned, these investments can improve
both U.S. standing and technical contributions internationally
while supporting local air quality and equity needs of local
communities across America.
Thank you very much for the opportunity today, and I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Duren follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Stevens. Great, thank you, Mr. Duren. And after that,
we're going to hear from Dr. Anderson.
TESTIMONY OF DR. BRIAN ANDERSON,
DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ENERGY TECHNOLOGY LABORATORY
Dr. Anderson. Good morning and--Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking
Member Lucas, and other distinguished Members of this
Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss methane
research--methane emissions research and development today,
alongside my fellow distinguished witnesses.
To help lead a clean energy revolution that achieves a
carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and puts the United
States on the irreversible path to a net-zero economy by 2050,
we at NETL are accelerating technologies not only to
decarbonize power generation and industrial sources to remove
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mitigate environmental
impacts from fossil fuels, we're also working on the methane
emissions technologies.
Our essential technologies in the Administration's plan to
decarbonize the economy, one, is the production of carbon-free
hydrogen and ammonia in addition to carbon capture and
sequestration. Where hydrogen and ammonia production relies on
the existing natural gas production and distribution assets,
there's an opportunity to achieve four different goals. We
could stabilize the climate by taking cost-effective steps to
tackle near-term threat of methane, a very potent greenhouse
gas that we've discussed that accounts for about 1/2 of the
rise in global average temperatures since the preindustrial
era. We can keep communities free from contamination of their
water and air supplies, we can advance American technology to
address decarbonization, and we have an opportunity to create
jobs.
As outlined in the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon
Management's Strategic Vision, NETL supports research to
address mitigation and quantification of methane emissions from
fossil energy supply chains from resource production,
processing, transportation, utilization, and storage. NETL is
also developing accurate, cost-effective, efficient technology
solutions and some best practices to help identify, measure,
monitor, and eliminate methane emissions from these sources.
There are unique challenges associated with methane
emissions from the natural gas sector that include efficient
and permanent plugging and abandonment of orphaned wells,
resilient pipeline materials and aging equipment, and flaring
of associated gas at the wellhead due to insufficient takeaway
capacity through conversion to sustainable chemicals and solid
carbon products.
So our scientific research informs efforts to better
understand methane emissions and to design more effective
monitoring, quantification, and mitigation strategies through
an integrated monitoring platform and to--and accelerating
technology solutions that are focused on real-time, continuous
monitoring. For example, since 2005, NETL has developed rapid
airborne methods for locating undocumented orphaned wells
through the development and field validation of advanced
electromagnetic hardware and machine-learning software that
helps bridge the knowledge gap and quantify emissions to
prioritize the management for our plugging efforts.
In addition, for the last decade, NETL has served as the
Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management's national expert
in evaluating and communicating lifecycle environmental
information to stakeholders around--in the United States and
around the globe to understand the natural gas extraction
delivery and electricity production landscape.
Our laboratory also focuses on low-cost, low-maintenance
pipeline sensor technologies that can monitor corrosion rates,
gas leaks, and gas stream chemistries and enable more
intelligent natural gas infrastructure. NETL is also developing
methods for integrating sensors via wireless telemetry, testing
procedures for embedded sensors in coated pipelines, and
conducting field-based tests of pipeline monitoring systems
that verify performance, as well as having advanced pipeline
materials for corrosion protection systems and real-time sensor
technology.
These innovative technologies are tools for methane
monitoring detection and quantification, as I've mentioned
before, and they're essential because quantifying methane
emissions is complex, as we've discussed. It requires robust,
resilient sensing platforms that operate ground-based, aerial-
based, satellite-based solutions focused on highly granular
continuous data collection that can enable rapid response for
methane mitigation operations. These technologies must also be
supported by advanced communication protocols and
transformational data analytics to observe methane
concentrations associated with natural gas systems and provide
predictive capabilities to repair and replace potential methane
emission sources before they present an environmental concern.
Through R&D and partnerships with industries, universities,
other national laboratories, and of course Federal investments
including the Department of Energy's ARPA-E program focused on
reducing methane emissions, we will continue to drive the
commercialization of products and processes that achieve U.S.
and international decarbonization goals while supporting job
creation and global competitiveness as the world's energy
transition proceeds.
So our quantification and mitigation portfolio has 43
active projects both internal at NETL and with our extramural
partners across methane detection field trials, equipment
technologies, pipeline coatings, machine learning, and others,
so thank you very much for the opportunity to discuss some of
these cutting-edge innovations to methane emissions, which have
applications within and beyond the energy sector.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Anderson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Stevens. Excellent. Great testimony so far.
And next, we are going to hear from Dr. Rieker.
TESTIMONY OF DR. GREG RIEKER,
CO-FOUNDER AND CTO, LONGPATH TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
Dr. Rieker. All right, thank you very much, Chairwoman
Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas, and distinguished Members of the
Committee. Thank you for inviting me here to testify today.
You can't improve what you don't measure, and that's been
the topic of this discussion here and all of my work over the
past decade. You heard about the work of the other witnesses
interpreting data from satellites, airplanes, and field crews
to generate large-scale emissions data sets for decision- and
policymaking. The additional critical component that I hope to
bring to the conversation is that the action of emissions
mitigation happens at the local level. The oil and gas
operators need to know in real time the location, the size of
leaks so that they can fix the problem. And that's what
LongPath brings to the challenge.
And we've been called the 5G of methane, a network of
continuous monitoring that feeds back instantaneous emissions
data to oil and gas companies 24/7 and alerts them as leaks are
happening. We use Nobel Prize-winning frequency comb lasers
that emit hundreds of thousands of colors of light. We quantify
the level of methane and other greenhouse gases by detecting
how much of each color of that infrared light is absorbed while
it's traveling through the atmosphere.
The systems are tower-mounted, and each tower covers an
area of about 20 square miles and provides specific
quantitative emissions rate data on a well-by-well basis for
customers within the purview of these towers. It's about 10 to
1,000 times more sensitive than aerial and satellite approaches
and quantifies emissions from specific facilities many times
each day and each night. And critically, it sheds light on the
intermittent emissions that were mentioned earlier, one of the
most common forms of emissions in the field. There's nothing
like this in the world, and it's the true product of American
ingenuity and an example of government support for technology
development in action, as the prior witness just mentioned.
I started working with frequency combs that underpin this
LongPath technology in 2012 at NIST, the National Institute of
Standards and Technology, where a lot of the early government-
funded work on frequency combs happened. I moved as a Professor
to the University of Colorado and was funded in 2014 by ARPA-E,
the Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency,
that I know many of you on this Committee have played a heavy
role in creating and maintaining, and thank you for that.
Our team transitioned this technology finally to a proven
commercial product in 2020, and we now have systems covering
almost 300,000 acres with 17 oil and gas companies as
customers. We are on track this year to reach almost 650,000
acres with a boost from the ARPA-E scale-up program.
What's important from this story, aside from the example it
gives of the R&D machine in the United States in action, is
that this, along with many other technologies that are coming
into this space, have just reached the market in the last few
years. The relative newness of these technologies means that
there's a struggle on how they should be incorporated into
policymaking, as well as a general lack of knowledge of their
existence and capabilities within industry.
I therefore hope that there are three things that you'll
take away from my testimony today. The first is that powerful
new technologies exist that can help us not just understanding
emissions but give companies the kind of immediate feedback
that they need to control them.
The second is I urge you to consider technology evolution
in the policymaking that this and other bodies are considering
today. EPA policies that stipulate a particular technology or
particular method or SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission)
rules that punt on measurement altogether and are based on
counts of equipment and calculated emissions will set us back
years in making American oil and gas the crown jewel of low
emissions production worldwide. LongPath has provided to the
EPA a detailed work practice and framework for the inclusion of
continuous quantitative monitoring as an alternative means of
compliance, performance-based compliance. And I hope this
component will enter the upcoming role.
And finally, third, I urge you to think about the role the
government might play in methane emissions abatement as a
public good and a public infrastructure just like a road or
bridge or internet connectivity. Could we competitively bid an
infrastructure project to build a multi-technology monitoring
network across our production basins? LongPath, in
collaboration with other methane data providers, can cover the
Permian--it's one of our largest oil and gas basins in the
United States--with the infrastructure for 24/7 monitoring for
less than the cost of the last James Bond movie, so I think we
have to sit and think what our priorities really are.
Thank you for the opportunity, and I look forward to
further questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Rieker follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Stevens. Well, excellent. And before we start our
questions, I have a letter here from GHGSat to be entered into
the hearing record, and so without objection, so ordered.
At this point, we're going to begin our first round of
questions, and the Chair is going to recognize herself for five
minutes.
Reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector is
one of the fastest, most cost-effective ways we could reduce
global warming that changes our climate. And I'm committed to
fighting climate change because it is fueling more severe
weather events, extreme flooding, and power outages in the
communities I represent in southeast Michigan.
So, Dr. Lyon and Mr. Duren, both of you in your testimony
highlighted the role of super-emitting methane leaks or, as you
put it, Dr. Lyon, the mere five to 10 percent of methane
sources that are responsible for more than 1/2 of all methane
emissions from the oil and gas sector because of their massive
size. The science is telling us that super-emitters are central
to the problem, but the Committee staff investigation found
that oil and gas companies are failing to prioritize super-
emitters in their methane mitigation programs. The companies
are not defining them, tracking them, or targeting operational
changes to try to anticipate them and reduce their frequency.
So, Dr. Lyon, is the scientific evidence regarding the role
of super-emitting leaks compelling enough that oil and gas
companies should be making them a priority?
Dr. Lyon. Yes, I think there is enough scientific evidence
to show that super-emitters are major problem and should be one
of the priorities of oil and gas companies, so really trying to
detect these super-emitters and then do root-cause analysis to
figure out what changes need to be done to prevent the
recurrence. But there also are a lot of emissions from other
sources, including low-production wells, so I think it really
takes a comprehensive approach of both addressing the super-
emitters and the more lower-emission source types.
Ms. Stevens. And, Mr. Duren, what are the implications of
failing to address super-emitting leaks for the oil and gas
sector's ability to reduce methane emissions widely and
quickly?
Mr. Duren. Well, I think the big argument is opportunity
loss. I think it's been pointed out by a number of speakers and
some of the Committee Members that, you know, super-emitters
represent low-hanging fruit. They're the fastest way and in
many cases the most cost-effective way to reduce a lot of
methane really quickly. We have a new paper out or coming out
soon looking at multiple U.S. oil and gas basins that find that
between 20 and 60 percent of the regional emissions are
basically dominated by a small number, usually maybe 100 or so,
super-emitters. And it's not all oil and gas but it's a lot of
it. And that to me is just--it makes a lot of--it's common
sense to go after the big ones first. This is like triage. If
you think about it, if you've got heart trouble, you need to
treat the heart attack first and then worry about your long-
term, you know, need to get on statins and so forth. So, you
know, I think there's a need to address all of these sources.
And as a--I think as Dr. Rieker also pointed out here is
this--you know, there's no Swiss-Army-knife approach to this.
We need a system-of-systems approach, and that means focusing
measurements on the different classes of emitters, including
super-emitters but also a lot of smaller emitters. And it
really does take a systems approach to get there. And,
fortunately, we have technologies in the science community and
in the oil and gas industry that are becoming shovel-ready. We
need to scale up and operationalize them and put them to work
across the United States so we can close these leaks.
Ms. Stevens. Yes. Well, we are all about the systems
approach here on the Science Committee and understanding that
any problem is a--understanding any problem is the key to
solving the problem, so quantifying methane emissions,
measuring the size of methane leaks individually and
collectively is vital to grasp the scale of the problem and
improve the mitigation techniques to fix it. And that's why the
findings of the Committee staff investigation are so obviously
alarming and obviously disappointing regarding the
unwillingness of oil and gas companies to use quantification
data to improve their leak detection and repair (LDAR)
programs.
So, Dr. Lyon, how important is it for oil and gas companies
to incorporate quantification data into their methane
mitigation efforts in order to act more efficiently and
effectively?
Dr. Lyon. Yes, I think for the--particularly the leak
detection and repair programs it's important to have kind of a
pseudo-quantification, so I don't think companies need to know
exactly how much emissions are from various sources but have
the rough order of magnitude so they can prioritize the
repairs. I think where quantification is very valuable is more
in the reporting, so having a method so that companies can use
measurements to accurately report their emissions and give
confidence to consumers and other stakeholders that the
reported gas performance is accurate.
Ms. Stevens. Great. Well, thank you. And with that, I'm
going to yield back and recognize Mr. Lucas for five minutes of
questions.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Dr. Rieker, as I mentioned in my opening statement, ARPA--
the ARPA-E program at DOE has received bipartisan support from
this Committee for many years. In fact, Chairwoman Johnson and
I led legislation that reauthorized and increased funding for
ARPA-E last Congress. It was signed into law as part of the
Energy Act, and we're looking forward to the program's success
over the next couple of years as a result of that.
I was pleased to see that LongPath is a two-time ARPA-E
award recipient, but I remain concerned that even technologies
like yours that receive Federal funding still run into Federal
regulations that can ultimately kill its commercialization. So
my question is how do you and other ARPA-E projects with long-
term uses like the Methane Emissions Technology Evaluation
Center interact with the regulatory agencies like the EPA
during the ARPA-E funding process?
Dr. Rieker. That's an excellent question, and thanks again
for your support to ARPA-E.
So I think it's incredibly important that we understand
sort of the cycle of how we--how these problems come to light
and then how we solve them, you know, so there's early work
that's done by NOAA, by EDF, and others that kind of identifies
the problem. That's when, you know, the folks at ARPA-E and DOE
and NETL started to come in with programs that would support
technologies that could, you know, solve this problem in a
reasonable way.
I think there's a right time to kind of bring in the
regulatory aspect of this, and I think that right time is as
we're starting to understand what technologies are going to be
able to solve this problem. And so what we've done as part of
the--you know, our work with ARPA-E is try to engage with EPA
as much as we possibly can, hold several meetings to bring them
up to speed on what technologies are coming along, but most
importantly, I think it's been up to us to kind of develop work
practices that we can offer to the EPA for inclusion in
rulemaking and suggestions for that so that these technologies
don't get overlooked. It's a difficult problem because these
technologies are being developed so quickly and tested so
quickly to be able to capture everything into these rulemakings
as they happen. So I think often, you know, lots and lots of
communication, that's the key.
Mr. Lucas. Continuing to discuss this particular genre,
generally speaking, do you think current EPA rules and
regulations are slowing down innovation?
Dr. Rieker. I think that the current rules--and there was
mention, I think, in your testimony about AMEL, which is the
alternative means to allow technologies like this to come in,
those are onerous for technologies like ours. And part of that
is that it's--it has to do with the fact that we certify, you
know, an emissions technology on a particular facility. There
are tens of thousands of facilities across all of these oil and
gas basins, and so I think it's very important that on-ramping
of new technologies, alternative technologies based on
equivalency to current standards, which is what Colorado and
other States have chosen to pursue, that's incredibly important
to allowing our technologies to supplant some of these
requirements. We've heard from operator after operator. I'm
already going to have to do this, why should I, you know, pay
more to do an alternative technology? So it's incredibly
important.
Mr. Lucas. The University of Oklahoma currently manages
NASA's Geostationary Carbon Cycle observation science
operations and is responsible for science integrity of the
mission. This will be the first U.S. satellite to precisely
measure methane near Earth's surface and deliver much-needed
data on the health of vegetation across the Americas and the
release of naturally occurring greenhouse gases.
Mr. Duren, since your organization focuses on global
methane data, I'll start with you, and anybody else who wishes
to comment can certainly chime in. If a system like GeoCarb
proves accurate and useful for measuring methane at a highly
granular level, do you think we should consider supporting a
network of low-Earth orbiting and geostationary-located
satellites globally like we have for our weather--space-based
weather detection system already?
Mr. Duren. Yes, sir. I think that's a really good example
of--and you--what you--you just--I think you've kind of
partially answered the question with the Weather Service
analogy. And back to my point about a system-of-systems
approach, the current and planned satellites like GeoCarb, like
Carbon Mapper, like GHGSat, like satellites that are being
fielded by the European Union and even the Chinese Space Agency
have different capabilities to sense methane, and they are
largely complementary and they bring different things to the
table.
And so back to my point about there isn't a Swiss Army
knife; we need a systems approach. And I for one am excited
about seeing NASA launch GeoCarb because it will provide high-
frequency data that is difficult to get with other satellites.
Mr. Lucas. Since these are worldwide issues, having the
ability on a worldwide basis to assess the data just seems
logical, much like the weather patterns.
With that, I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. Stevens. Great. And with that, we'll hear from
Congresswoman Bonamici for five minutes of questioning.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Chair
Johnson and Ranking Member Lucas and to our witnesses for this
important hearing.
The Committee staff's investigation into methane leaks
revealed some alarming data about the true scale of methane
emissions from the oil and gas sector. In particular it's
extremely concerning that internal company data shows that just
a few massive methane leaks can account for most or all of the
methane that a company reports to the EPA for its production
operations in an entire year. This suggests that methane
emissions from oil and gas sector are likely far greater than
the official data indicates.
So I'm going to ask each person on the panel, what would it
mean if oil and gas companies better used quantification data
to understand their aggregate methane emissions? And is
additional innovation needed or do we have adequate technology
now? If you could do that in a sentence or two, Dr. Lyon,
please start.
Dr. Lyon. Yes, I think companies can use multiple
measurements to quantify their emissions. I think the big
question now is how they report that data. So currently, the
EPA greenhouse gas reporting program has very prescribed
methods, mostly kind of bottom-up emission factors. So I think
the key would be updating the greenhouse gas reporting programs
to allow companies to use scientifically rigorous measurements
to estimate their emissions.
Ms. Bonamici. Great. And do we have adequate technology now
or do we need more innovation, Dr. Lyon?
Dr. Lyon. I think we have adequate measurement technology,
but some of the data analysis, there are some outstanding
questions, but I think they are very close to being solved.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Mr. Duren, same question. What
would it mean?
Mr. Duren. I think the big gaps we have now largely have to
do with scale up and operationalization. It is about how much
area is covered, how much the equipment is sampled and how
frequently. It's--we're making great progress in selected areas
with pilot programs and prototyping, but we're only a small
fraction of the way there. We need ways to help the industry
and agencies scale up quickly, and so it really is an
operationalization--I think largely operational scheme today,
and then again, working on research to enable additional
improvements down the road.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Dr. Anderson?
Dr. Anderson. Thank you. I agree with both previous
witnesses. What I would add to that is there are certainly many
of the super-emitters, some of them, as we've heard, 10 percent
is 1/2. We also have some numbers that indicate that 20 percent
is 80--20 percent of the emitters are 80--result in 80 percent
of the emissions. And certainly the identification of those
lowest-hanging fruit gives us a tremendous opportunity with
existing technologies for replacing equipment, either
compressors and valves, that those technologies are ready to
replace many of the super-emitters.
Ms. Bonamici. So you mentioned existing technologies. Do we
need additional innovation, or do we have adequate technology
now, Dr. Anderson?
Dr. Anderson. Well, there's--adequate technologies that
begin the pathway of the low-hanging fruit, but the advances in
technologies both in mitigation, long-term mitigation and
prevention, as well as in total quantification and covering the
full landscape. So being able to cover larger swaths of the
infrastructure with less technology, less investment is an
upcoming technological advance we need.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Dr. Rieker, same question, what
would it mean, and do we need additional innovation?
Dr. Rieker. Yes. So I--yes, I just want to follow on to
what everybody else was saying there, that the technology
exists. It's the scaling that we're in the process of doing
right now.
One thing I wanted to add, though, is that I think it's
smart to have certification and think about certification as a
way to reduce confusion on quantification within the industry.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you.
Dr. Rieker. There's been a lot of technologies developed,
and that confusion can exist if we don't have certification of
these technologies.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Dr. Lyon, in your testimony you
mentioned that systems and technologies needed to cut emissions
in half by 2030 are widely available and inexpensive, so that
should be great news, but in 2021 it was a second record-
breaking year in a row for annual growth of methane emissions,
so clearly we're not where we need to be. So Dr. Lyon, I know
you've worked with operators in your work through the EDF, so
in your opinion, why are companies not seeking out and
implementing the technologies you describe as widely available
and inexpensive?
Dr. Lyon. Yes, I think some companies are starting to
implement the technologies. It's more the whole system of how
they use the methane detection technologies to assess issues,
and they're finding that a lot of the issues are more things
like operational or maintenance problems, so it may require
things like them to redesign their site. So I think it's
requiring--it is a learning process of both kind of integrating
the methane emissions data with understanding their own
operational systems so they can really reduce their emissions
and increase their operational efficiency.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. And, Mr. Duren, I think I have a
few seconds left. You made a similar comment in your testimony.
Do you have anything you can add?
Mr. Duren. Just quickly that the issue here is
completeness. We need wider area coverage, more frequent
sampling, and more sensitive measurements if we're going to see
enough of the methane to a big impact on mitigating it.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Madam Chair, I yield back.
Ms. Stevens. And with that, we're going to hear from Mr.
Posey for five minutes of questioning.
Mr. Posey. Thank you, Chairwoman Stevens.
Dr. Rieker, with 75 percent of Florida's electricity being
generated by natural gas and our nationwide electric grid
already facing unprecedented number of threats such as rolling
blackouts, do you believe the proposed rules in their current
form increase compliance burdens or operating costs for
existing natural gas production sites?
Dr. Rieker. I'm sorry, it broke up just at the end. Could
you repeat the end of the question?
Mr. Posey. Yes. In the current form, do you think that the
proposed rules will increase operating costs for existing
natural gas production sites?
Dr. Rieker. I think for existing natural gas production
sites what we're showing with our data is that the cost to add
this type of monitoring and repair is often paying for itself
in terms of lost product. Gas prices are quite high right now,
so that's especially the case, but I do think, you know,
getting these technologies out, we're finding that the cost
burdens can be offset often by keeping things in the pipe.
Mr. Posey. Yes, I mean, Floridians have already seen a 20
percent increase in their electric bills this year. Do you
think this will exacerbate that?
Dr. Rieker. I don't see this as exacerbating it more than
sort of the--you know, the world conditions that exist around,
you know, natural gas and oil production. You know, certainly
everything that we do to add a little bit to what's happening
and what's being done on these oil and gas production sites
could add cost.
Mr. Posey. With the need of making sure Floridians have
access to affordable, reliable electricity, what would the
proposed rules lead to higher electricity bills?
Dr. Rieker. This is--again, this is difficult for me as
sort of the arbiter of data that's out there in terms of what's
happening on leakage, and so that's one I might need to follow
up on in terms of how I think that would come down to costs for
consumers.
Mr. Posey. What recommendations do you have for the EPA to
ensure that the cost for the natural gas industry in meeting
regulatory requirements and in meeting--incorporating the new
methane emissions reduction and detention technology don't
jeopardize the operations of existing sources?
Dr. Rieker. Absolutely, that's a great question, and I
think that's allowing these new technologies to have the proper
on-ramp that--as I was saying before, that don't require, you
know, an operator to do exactly what's stipulated today and try
to add new technology on top of that. Making that on-ramp for
new technology will allow them to cut the costs of some of the
older, more efficient ways of doing the detection.
Mr. Posey. I got you. Well, thank you very much. Madam
Chair, I yield back.
Ms. Stevens. Great. And with that, we're going to hear from
Dr. McNerney for five minutes of questioning.
Mr. McNerney. Well, I thank the Chair. Hey, I thank the
witnesses. You guys are great. I love your testimony. It's a
very exciting field. I think the technology being discussed
here represents a great potential to simultaneously eliminate
economic loss while addressing harmful emissions. It's a win-
win situation to capture methane, and we should become a
national global leader in this issue.
Dr. Anderson, how could analytic advanced approaches like
artificial intelligence (AI) help improve data analysis and
make information more usable to operators?
Dr. Anderson. Thank you for the question, and I'm really
excited about the opportunities for machine learning,
artificial intelligence, data analytics because, as we deploy
more sensor technologies and--with more varying types of
sensors and gathering those data, integrating them together to
create predictive capabilities for even sensing and predicting
when you might have leaks from pipelines or being able to
integrate multiple sensor technologies into predictive
capabilities, when we can embed that into the technologies that
are being deployed to lower the integration barrier for
operators, then you can start having an opportunity to make
real-time decisions, operators can make real-time decisions and
even have automated systems that can close valves and adjust
compressor conditions when potential leakages are occurring. So
there's a real opportunity of combining at the cyber-physical
interface data analytics and machine learning.
Mr. McNerney. Well, yes, that's exactly what I'm getting
at, and the predictive capabilities I think is a real promise.
What about using AI to help detect or identify the super-
emitters?
Dr. Anderson. I think when we're--you know, in particular
we have some opportunities for top-down and bottom-up
measurement convergence. That's going to be--we can start to
identify the gaps between the top-down assessments and the
bottom-up assessments that can point to potentially unknown
super-emitters. And by analyzing large data sets or large
swaths of land, including satellite-based and aerial-based
imagery, then we can start to identify potentially unknown
super-emitters that might be abandoned or orphaned wells that--
you know, most of the super-emitters that are on infrastructure
are pretty well-known, but I think there's an opportunity for
large-scale data analytics from top-down to bottom-up.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you. Dr. Rieker, hey, your technology
looks pretty exciting. Using the electromagnetic spectrum to
identify emitters and where they are is really good. Could you
discuss--or when you discussed deploying LongPath's technology
with prospective oil and gas clients, do they appreciate the
potential benefits of a more effective, more science-based
approach to methane mitigation or are you getting pushback?
Dr. Rieker. No, I think that right now so many of the
adoption of these new--so much of the adoption of these new
technologies is voluntary that we're seeing oil and gas
customers bring this system onto their fields, like what
they're seeing, tell their neighbor. Again, this is a tower-
based approach that can cover multiple operators at once. And
so I think they're starting to understand what the real-time
feedback can do for their operations. So we've not seen a lot
of pushback on that.
As I mentioned earlier, I think having kind of third-party
certification of the quantification that's capabilities that
are associated with these technologies is really important
because I think it's sort of easy when you have many
technologies out there, some that work better than others to
paint with a very broad brush and say, well, this technology
doesn't quantify, well, maybe this one doesn't quantify well
either, and that's just not true. Each technology is specific.
So I think that we're seeing kind of open-arms adoption of
this technology. I think the real question, as was mentioned in
some of the testimony earlier, is they're learning as fast as
they can how to bring this technology--or how the data from
this technology can be integrated into their operations in a
very efficient manner, and that's what we're seeing through all
these different trials right now is how do we best use the
data.
Mr. McNerney. Well, thank you. Dr. Lyon, are there
particular categories of observation technologies that need
more investment or need to be scaled up rapidly in order to
fill in the gaps to create a more comprehensive monitoring
system?
Dr. Lyon. Yes, I think it's really several technologies and
how to integrate them, so I think any technology that can image
the emissions is highly valuable because it can help the
operator really pinpoint where the emissions are coming from,
so I think improving those imaging technologies but also
continuous monitors, so really improving continuous monitoring
and particularly the data analytics so that the operators can
really effectively and quickly find emission sources and then
repair them.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Stevens. Great. And with that, we're going to hear from
Dr. Baird for five minutes of questioning if he's with us.
All right. How about Mr. Feenstra?
Mr. Feenstra. Thank you, Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member
Lucas, and thank you to all the experts on our panel for
sharing their expertise and experience on this issue we're
discussing today.
I'm proud to say that my district is a leader in energy
alternatives to oil and gas. Biofuels, like those produced in
my district, emit little to no methane and can help reduce
methane emissions in our Nation's energy portfolio.
Dr. Rieker, let's talk about some of the problems with the
EPA's current approach to methane monitoring. Right now, the
only compliance methods are handheld cameras or handheld
sensors. That means it requires someone to physically go site
to site and conduct the monitoring, which, by logic, would mean
that some kind of emissions from their car could be detected.
In this technology you develop more accurate if not simply
equally accurate information. Is there other compliance methods
that we could currently look at?
Dr. Rieker. Yes, in addition to our technology, so I think
it's a great question, and I think it's great to point that
out. It's a very labor-intensive process as it's kind of
currently implemented in terms of these handheld cameras.
That's what my--you know, our company and many of the others
that have been described here are trying to reduce, that human
intensity and increase the frequency with which measurements
are being made.
So I think the bottom line is trying to, again, create
those on-ramps for technologies like ours not to just purely
supplant the need for, you know, optical gas imaging and crews
to go around and do some of these sweeps but rather to direct
those technologies so that they spend more time looking at and
actually identifying the leaks that they're going to be fixing
right there on the spot rather than spending a lot of time
looking at facilities that aren't leaking.
So I think it comes down to seeing how we can make these
regulations more performance-based and, again, leaving the door
open for technologies that can increase the efficiency that
these types of regulations are implemented.
Mr. Feenstra. Thank you. I appreciate those comments.
They're very important.
Dr. Anderson, a research group at Iowa State University in
my district has discovered and tested a way to keep methane out
of the atmosphere. The process uses an extremely thin layer of
platinum as a catalyst and converts methane into chemicals like
ethylene. They are typically used in plastics and other
materials. In your testimony, you mention other methane
conversion techniques that involve electricity and microwave
reactors to convert methane into hydrogen or formic acid. How
do you see these and other methane conversion techniques
factoring into the future of methane reduction strategies?
Dr. Anderson. Well, thank you for that, and I applaud the
work on--at Iowa State. And we have a lot of work going on at
the laboratory across our portfolio in the methane conversion.
There are opportunities in scaling down those chemical
conversion technologies to where they can be deployed in the
field through modular processes. Converting into liquid fuels
or hydrogen or even ammonia resulting in lower emissions at the
wellhead in the field and then transportation systems would
result in lower emissions across the midstream infrastructure
as well. So a portfolio of those technologies of methane
conversion into solid carbon products, as well as low-carbon or
zero-carbon energy carriers will play a role in the portfolio,
particularly as we move into more deployment of hydrogen
technologies as well.
Mr. Feenstra. Thank you for that. Just so for application
purposes, where do you see this going? I mean, do you see this
3 years out, 5 years out on where we can actually use the
research that is being done to actually have the application
done in the field?
Dr. Anderson. On some of the modular conversion
technologies that are achieving some high maturity rates today,
so in terms of deployment in the field and the stranded natural
gas assets that exist in the Permian Basin and North Dakota
just north of you in Iowa, there are some opportunities within
the next decade to be able to deploy those. Many of them would
be around the commercial viability, economic viability.
Mr. Feenstra. Well, I appreciate you saying that in the
next 10 years. That's why it's so important we do the research
and it's so critical that our universities are doing this
research, and we have to make sure we fund this research and
get this done sooner than later. Thank you for your comments. I
yield back.
Ms. Stevens. Great. And now we'll hear from Mr. Casten for
five minutes of questioning.
Mr. Casten. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks so much to all
of our witnesses.
You know, I'm--I love the Science Committee because we get
all this good, fascinating information on data, but I think
sometimes we have to remind ourselves that we measure these
things because ultimately we have to go through and figure out
how to reduce them. And of course that's beyond the
jurisdiction of this Committee, but, you know, if my neighbors
were piping their sewage into my back lawn, I would have a
small problem of not knowing how much sewage is coming. I would
have a big problem with the pile of sewage.
I mention that because we are at a moment where we have hit
an all-time high for CO2 in the atmosphere at 421
parts per million. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change) report that just came out said that we have already
overshot 1.5. We're at two degrees of warming. It only feels
like 1.1 because of all the soot in the atmosphere, which is
cooling. And what was very clear when we were in Glasgow was
that the only tool we had was to get the methane down as
quickly as possible as a short-term forcer of warming to offset
what's going to happens when the soot drops out.
I say that because if we look at this current moment, as
some of my colleagues are in saying we should celebrate our
progress, we are falling victim to what that famous Wildcatter
George W. Bush said in condemning ourselves to the soft bigotry
of low expectations.
Mr. Anderson, I want to come to you. If we are going to get
the methane down, we need to not only know how much of it there
is but understand where it is being released and the causality
with enough information to understand where is it being
released at granular levels, temporally at granular levels,
geographically, accommodating for various weather events. And
what I'd love to hear from you is if we are to get at that
level of causality, what are the top research priorities to
really develop that kind of robust methane monitoring quickly?
Dr. Anderson. So, quickly, I think that, you know, some of
it we have a number of undocumented wells that are currently
emitting that are off of the infrastructure with a more
difficult time to control. We are at the time right now with
the bipartisan infrastructure law and the funding in the
Department of Interior for plugging orphaned and abandoned
wells so we need to very quickly ensure that we have the
technologies to identify those non-known super-emitters so that
we can plug those wells in the coming years. And then also on
the infrastructure, again, I think that there is a lot known
already about where those are, and so ensuring that the
opportunities are there to deploy the technology that would cut
down on the super-emitters on infrastructure already is
absolutely necessary.
Mr. Casten. OK. So if we were to build this out--and I know
we've been back and forth about, you know, what are the actual
numbers, which of course was the whole question of this report.
Do we even trust what the numbers are? It strikes me that the
data that we have is in a lot of different data bases. We have
satellite data, we have LDAR data, we have--you know, private
companies have their own metering data that are doing massive
energy balances on their pipelines. Does that--and this is a
question for any witness who wants to answer it. Does that data
exist in some kind of comprehensive database? And if not, would
there be value in a--in some kind of a federally organized
consortium to get that data so that we could actually
understand where the--where we have gaps?
Mr. Duren. Yes, I'd like to comment on that. We've had some
discussions with Federal agencies about this. You've put your
finger on an important gap. The short answer to your question
is no, there is no such data base. Currently, there are two
types of emissions data out there. There's what I call type 1,
which is focused at the national inventory level and maybe the
level of States, and that's aggregate-level emission. A lot of
that data is in the public domain. It's generated by Federal
science agencies like NOAA, NASA, and EPA, and that--and
there's more we could do to operationalize that, provide more
routine tracking to see how things are working writ large.
But what's really missing is the type 2 emissions data.
That's what we've been mainly talking about in this hearing,
and that is data at the scale of individual facilities that
operators can use to drive leak repair. And that is largely
today still very spotty where it does exist. A lot of it is
still proprietary behind paywalls, and there definitely is room
and need for some sort of national data clearinghouse for data
that is quality-controlled and reviewed and credible and can be
disseminated and used by many actors to get our arms around
these leaks.
Mr. Casten. So just to that point with the time I have
left, the--it strikes me that once an oil and gas company has
custody of the gas in their pipeline, they have an economic
interest in getting as much of it to a meter as possible. But
upstream you've got multiple players, different releases, and
we're into the scenario of my neighbor dumping sewage in my
yard. Do you think that there is a way to get that data without
some kind of mandatory reporting requirements and penalties for
noncompliance?
Mr. Duren. The short answer is yes. That's a complex answer
and probably worth a follow up conversation with more Members
of the panel and others who aren't here today.
Mr. Casten. Well, I'll take you up on that date, and I
yield back. Thank you.
Ms. Stevens. And now we're going to hear from Mr. Babin for
five minutes of questioning. Thank you.
Mr. Babin. Thank you, Madam Chair, I appreciate it. I want
to thank Chairwoman Johnson and Ranking Member Lucas and thank
all of our witnesses for being here today.
Last month, the Biden Administration provided sanctions
relief to Venezuela to encourage additional oil production
there. According to the International Energy Agency's methane
tracker, Venezuela has the highest methane emissions intensity
in the entire world. The methane emissions from a barrel of oil
produced in Venezuela are almost 8 times higher than the
average barrel of oil produced in the United States. So if
President Biden is blocking domestic production due to climate
concerns, I'm curious why those same climate concerns don't
apply to foreign countries that are run by dictators.
My question to all of the witnesses would be would it not
be advantageous from a climate perspective to focus on ramping
up our own energy production here in the United States, which
is far cleaner than Venezuela and quite frankly other--any
other Nation in the world that produces oil and gas. If I could
hear that, please, briefly.
Dr. Lyon. Yes, I can answer that. I think there is an
opportunity for the United States and the U.S. oil and gas
companies to use measurements in a transparent way to
demonstrate when their methane emissions are lower than some of
the international competitors. And I think really we can build
trust in a bunch of the stakeholders, including consumers for
perhaps, you know, U.S. LNG (liquefied natural gas) exports, so
I think it really is advantageous to the United States when we
can use measurements to really--to demonstrate to the public
that our gas--when it does have lower methane emissions.
Mr. Babin. Thank you.
Mr. Duren. I would quickly add that the satellite evidence
unfortunately indicates that the United States is actually one
of the highest methane emitters on the planet, and that's a
paper we published in the journal Science with colleagues from
Europe a few months ago that show there are a few jurisdictions
where there is quite large methane emissions. And I think this
is an opportunity for the United States get out in front and
lead. If we can reduce our emissions and show it through
transparent data, then the markets will win out because, you
know, given the realignment we're seeing in natural gas supply
chains in Europe, there's increasing demand for U.S. natural
gas, and it benefits the United States from a strategic
perspective and U.S. private sector and the world if we can
reduce our emissions and show it transparently and provide
visibility into all those other jurisdictions so U.S.----
Mr. Babin. Well, Mr. Duren, I would hope that you would
send me and provide me with documentation that that is true
that we are producing more methane because every single
statistic that I see, we have the cleanest production methods
here in the United States. And I proudly represent the 36th
District of Texas.
Anybody else want to say anything there?
Dr. Rieker. I think I'll just chime in and say that, as was
mentioned earlier, the United States is light-years ahead in
developing the capabilities for measurement and for reducing
emissions across these fields, and so to the extent that we can
accelerate that work, we are going to be able to be the gold
standard and the provable gold standard for emissions. And I
don't think it's far away. I think it can be done quickly so--
--
Mr. Babin. Yes. Thank you.
Dr. Rieker [continuing]. I support that, that we need to
push our own production.
Mr. Babin. Right. Thank you very much.
OK. Second question to all, are you aware of any country
that has methane monitoring capabilities equal to what our oil
and gas industry has? Because according to Wood Mackenzie,
offshore deepwater production carried out in areas such as the
Gulf of Mexico has the lowest greenhouse gas emissions of all
sources of oil in the entire world. In fact, a 2016 analysis
published by the Obama Administration's Bureau of Offshore
Energy Management, BOEM, concluded that ending lease sales in
the Gulf of Mexico would increase, increase global emissions by
saying, quote, ``U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would be higher
if BOEM were to have no lease sales. Emissions from
substitutions are higher due to exploration, development,
production, and transportation of oil from international
sources being more carbon-intensive,'' unquote. Of course,
ending offshore lease sales, which makes us less secure, raises
energy prices, and increases global emissions is a centerpiece
of President Biden's climate agenda.
So if--does anyone on the panel disagree that given that
demand is constant, one of the best ways to reduce lifecycle
greenhouse gas emissions is to displace Russian and Iranian
energy by expanding U.S. offshore oil and gas production? And
following up on that, is it possible to expand U.S. oil and gas
production while also continuing to decrease U.S. methane
emissions? So if you can tell me the answer to those questions,
do you know any other country that has methane monitoring
capabilities equal to our own industry? And answer the other
questions that I had asked in the time that I have allotted,
please.
Dr. Lyon. Yes, I can answer briefly. Yes, I do not think
any other countries meet the United States' expertise in oil
and gas--in methane measurements, and I do think we can likely
increase our production while lowering methane emissions, and
that will allow us to better compete with other countries who
export oil and gas and have not invested in methane mitigation.
Mr. Babin. Thank you. I think I'm out of time, so I yield
back.
Ms. Stevens. Great. And with that, we're going to hear from
Dr. Foster for five minutes of questioning. Thank you.
Mr. Foster. Yes, I think one of the key things here is that
your--Representative Babin's comment that given that demand is
constant, that can't be true if we're going to actually solve
the climate problem, that we have to find ways to displace
natural gas basically as soon as we can with hopefully hydrogen
and others.
But given that we have this problem, could anyone say
something about the end point of the comparison with space-
based and land-based or, I don't know, drone-based approaches?
What is the best worldwide solution to this? Or do we have--and
for example, if it is land-based solution, then our best
strategy is to develop this technology and then give it away
for free or heavily subsidize it to the rest of the world to
get them to adopt it. And what is the low-cost way to get
adequate measuring so that we actually measure the sources that
are economically plausible to fix? Does anyone----
Mr. Duren. I'll start. I think it's--again, it's going to
require a combination of methods. I don't think there's a best
solution. I think it is the portfolio of methods that we need.
We're seeing this emerge now with pilot projects. Our own
research team has been using surface networks satellites, and
aircraft for over a decade, and a lot of people in industry are
doing this now. And I think the question is how do you scale
up? And I think the answer to your question, Congressman, is
how do you export this internationally? Because it's a little
bit of a mixed bag. Some jurisdictions would benefit a lot from
U.S. satellite data. Others would benefit from the technologies
like LongPath. And I think it's--again, it's a great
opportunity for the U.S. research and development enterprise to
export U.S. know-how, and it's going to lift a lot of ships
around the world.
Dr. Rieker. Yes, this is Greg Rieker. I would agree with
that. LongPath is doing its first international partnerships
down in Australia in the coming months, and as was mentioned
earlier, the kind of expertise not just with our company but
many companies in the United States that have cropped up around
this, the ability to export is extremely high. There's--we're
just way ahead, and I think we're going to be able to get out
there and get in front of this problem in other countries as
well.
I think the mixing of the data is really important. The
satellite data can give you the global coverage in a much--you
know, much sooner than we can scale up ground-based
technologies. Again, the nice thing about the ground-based
technologies is the high-frequency and the high-resolution, you
know, going facility by facility and delivering the data
immediately to the customer so that they can fix this. So I
think it's--what you're going to see is waves of adoption, you
know, and satellites getting first to global coverage and then
ground-based networks building up behind that.
Mr. Foster. The ultimate economics of it, are you going to
just put lots and lots of satellites up there to get a higher
frequency of measurement? Is that just going to end up not
being a winning strategy, or is that something that's a
plausible endpoint? One of the things I think we all worry
about is that there are certain jurisdictions that may not be
enthusiastic about having their emissions measured for a
variety of reasons. Are there--you know, has anyone had a look
at the ultimate economics of, for example, a very extensive
space-based system and how that would compare?
Mr. Duren. Well, I think there's--sorry, I didn't mean to
interrupt.
Mr. Foster. Go ahead.
Mr. Duren. I was just going to say that your point is
exactly why we need the global systems because the global
energy supply chain is interconnected, there's not a single
supplier of natural gas, is it benefits the United States to
deploy remote-sensing technology and ground-based sensors
around the world so that we have overall excellent situational
awareness everywhere.
To your cost point, this is one of the reasons why many of
us on this--I think on this panel and elsewhere are
recommending to EPA that they adopt a matrix approach when
asking operators to choose technologies that they can select
between different price points that provide different levels of
performance. Some work better in some regions and jurisdictions
than others for different questions and providing that
flexibility gives industry and regulators, you know, the
degrees of freedom they need to innovate. And so rather than
picking the winner up front is to provide a flexible approach
that allows the most cost-effective, highest mitigation
potential.
Dr. Rieker. Absolutely. And I would just add--and I think,
you know, the technological challenges for the different
technologies are different, so if there are clouds overhead,
snow on the ground, you know, these can be issues for
satellite-based monitoring, as well as resolution and
sensitivity. So there are tradeoffs, some that can be overcome
and some that cannot between--that makes this technology stack
so important.
Mr. Foster. And is there a rough estimate of the total
emissions from natural sources of all kinds compared to what
we're doing with, you know, natural gas? Is that--you know, if
we get a factor of five reduction in what man are doing, are we
now dominated by natural sources, what's that ratio roughly?
Mr. Duren. It's about half-and-half natural and
anthropogenic, and of anthropogenic, about 1/3 is fossil
energy, including oil and gas.
Mr. Foster. OK. And are there plausible strategies to deal
with the natural fraction, or are those--that remains an
unsolved problem?
Mr. Duren. Not at the present time. Our best option is to
reduce the things that are shovel-ready, and that's oil and gas
emissions.
Mr. Foster. OK. I understand. And my time is up, and I
yield back.
Ms. Stevens. That's great. And we're going to try Dr.
Baird.
Mr. Garcia for five minutes of questioning.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member, for
this hearing. To the witnesses, thank you for your testimony.
I got a few questions, but, Mr. Duren, I just wanted to
clarify or have you restate, the assertion that you made
relative to the United States being one of the--I guess the
biggest offender of emissions, can you--not restate it. Just
remind me of what you said there. I want to make sure I'm
understanding you correctly.
Mr. Duren. Yes, sir, I want to be clear. That was one
research study with satellites that exist today that cannot see
all of the emissions down at facility-scale. So I'm not talking
about all the emissions, but we did a study with colleagues in
Europe that identified so-called ultra-emitters. These are
sources that are emitting 50 tons an hour and up, and they're
very short-lived, but they happen all over the world. And they
are clustered in certain parts of the world. They stand out
like wildfires. You can see them in North America, you can see
them in Europe, you can see them in Africa, and so we have maps
that show where the hotspots are.
We're seeing the tip of a methane iceberg from space today.
We can't see all of it, but what we do see with those high
emitters is they are responsible for about 10 percent of global
oil and gas emissions. And for that highest setting--that
highest set of emissions, we can see very clearly where they
are from space with satellites----
Mr. Garcia. Are you tracking Asia and China in these
equations, India as well?
Mr. Duren. Yes. Yes, sir.
Mr. Garcia. OK. And so I'm very--I'd love to--I echo Mr.
Babin's sentiment. I would love to see that data and understand
those assertions a little bit better because I haven't heard
much about China in this hearing so far, and we all know that
they are, from an emissions perspective overall, emitting more
into the atmosphere than any other nation is, to include the
United States. So I understand what you're saying and the
nuances of the satellites and the imagery, but we do need to
always keep China in the scan pattern as we're looking at root
causes of climate change.
In my district I represent California's 25th congressional
District, which is northern L.A. County, and we have the worst
natural gas leak, I think, in the history of the country, maybe
the planet at Aliso Canyon Field. Do any of you have resources
either deployed there in the past or currently or are looking
to in the future to help characterize either past emissions or
residual emissions or sort of future mitigation and sensing in
order to trigger warnings of future leaks with Aliso Canyon?
I'm just curious as to what is actually out there right now and
whether or not you guys are playing in this field and what data
you've seen.
Mr. Duren. Yes, sir, I can take that. We were heavily
involved with the Aliso Canyon response. We continue to conduct
research overflights for the California Resources Board. I'm
happy to say that we don't see massive emissions there anymore.
I also just point out that, you know, industry is taking
positive steps. And I want to--you know, I want to acknowledge
SoCal Gas, just provided a comment on a press release we had
this morning about the--you know, the 2.5 million metric tons
of CO2 equivalent reduced through voluntary action.
And SoCal--you know, SoCal Gas is, you know, taking the lessons
from these research studies and they've been investing their
own measurements, and I encourage you to reach out to them and
see what they're doing in southern California. I think it's a
good example of what other companies can do around California
and the rest of the United States, again, to buildup and
operationalize that kind of monitoring.
Mr. Garcia. Yeah, on the backside of the incident I think
that's very true, and we're in good comms with them, and I do
think everyone is trying to do the right thing.
My sort of latent concern with this field is that they
continue to use natural storage facilities. Effectively, the
caverns are just naturally reoccurring caverns underground, and
it's, you know, just a couple miles away from the San Andreas
Fault line. So this--while they've done the hardening and the
reinforcements of the valves and the pipes that were corroded
as--you know, as root cause for this initial leak, the
fundamental design of the storage facility is still vulnerable
to seismic activity, and that's something that I think you
guys' assets will help.
The last question, the ships, you know, Ports of Los
Angeles, Long Beach, and Port of L.A., we've got a bunch of
ships because of supply chain challenges nationwide that are
just sitting out there in the ocean. Some of these are oilers
bringing oil to the United States from the Middle East. Has
anyone characterized the impact to the environment and the
atmosphere of these ships just sitting out on the coast, very
dirty ships from ports of call from the Middle East and, you
know, countries that we're dependent on oil. What do we know
from that regard?
Mr. Duren. That's an excellent point from an air-quality
perspective and criteria pollutants. Without knowing more about
who's currently sitting out there, I wouldn't want to comment
about methane emissions, but since you raised the question, I
will raise the point that this is an important topic to pay
attention to as the United States increases LNG, liquefied
natural gas exports, using ocean tankers. I think it's
important to understand what the true methane footprint of that
supply chain is across the ocean, which traditionally is very
difficult to measure.
Mr. Garcia. Yes, I'm out of time. I'll reclaim. I think
that will pale in comparison to the footprint of CO2
emissions emitted by ships bringing oil to the United States
that we're dependent on. But, Mr. Chairman, I'm out of time--or
Madam Chair, I'm out of time. I yield back.
Ms. Stevens. OK, thank you.
And with that, we're going to hear from Mr. Beyer for five
minutes of questions.
Mr. Beyer. Madam Chairman, thank you very much.
Madam Chair, earlier this year, I wrote a letter along with
Representatives Lowenthal, DeGette, Peters, and Leger Fernandez
to the Environmental Protection Agency commending Administrator
Regan for proposing strong rules to reduce methane and other
harmful air pollution from both new and existing oil and
natural gas facilities across the country and offering comments
on the rules. And I'd like to ask unanimous consent to enter
that letter into the record.
Ms. Stevens. So ordered.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you. The letter recommended that the rules
apply comprehensively to smaller leak-prone wells that comprise
the majority of the Nation's fleet of oil and gas wells. It
also urges a stop to the wasteful polluting practices of
routine flaring of associated gas and oil wells.
Mr. Duren, scientific evidence supports the idea that a
small number of super-emitting leaks are disproportionately
responsible for methane emissions from oil and gas operations.
This is just Pareto's Law applied to methane emissions. How can
the Federal Government encourage oil and gas companies to focus
on these opportunities for rapid emissions reductions, the
super-emitting leaks?
Mr. Duren. Yes, sir. I think as we recommended--a number of
us recommended that I think both research investments and
improving sensors, but equally important is Federal investments
in using agencies like NASA, NOAA, and NIST to conduct
measurements at the larger scales to give us an idea at the end
of the day are these regulations and industry practices having
the intended effect? In other words, it's important to be
looking at individual wellheads and flares with the individual
technologies, but we also need to zoom out and look at
emissions at the scale of basins to say ultimately is this
working? And I think that's a really good place for the Federal
science agencies to fit. They have a lot of capability to
commission and do their own work and hopefully engage others,
and I really encourage that kind of investment from this
Committee.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you. Dr. Rieker, the EPA's greenhouse gas
inventory calculates methane based on estimates of what we know
about oil and gas equipment under normal operating conditions.
This means that it's not a tool to effectively measure the
contributions of methane leaks to total emission but is being
used as one. What can Congress do to incentivize the
development and readiness of methane quantification
technologies such as LongPath to become integrated into the
Federal regulatory system?
Dr. Rieker. So I think I'll answer that question right off,
which is, as I mentioned earlier, with the number of
technologies that are coming onto the market, there can be
confusion about the capabilities of those technologies. And I
think that third-party certification that is independent,
companies should not be self-certifying themselves, is critical
to encouraging sort of the uptake and the ability for these
technologies to come together.
Commenting a bit on your last question, continuous
monitoring is that critical piece to get after these often
intermittent and very large super-emitters, and so I think to
the extent that the Federal Government and different policies
can really push for higher frequency checks, that's the best
way. If we're only seeing these facilities once every 6 months,
there's a lot of emissions that happened during that period
before we caught them. And so, again, that's a big gaping hole
that sort of certification body that can help arbitrate amongst
the technologies that are coming online very quickly. That will
help stimulate these companies to use more and more of these
technologies.
Mr. Beyer. Just piling up on that, Dr. Rieker, the
economist Thorstein Veblen said that ``Invention is the mother
of necessity.'' Is the availability of new monitoring systems,
these new technological developments, likely to push the
industry to develop operational change?
Dr. Rieker. Yes, and we're already seeing that, and it's
fantastic. So just the same way that these companies are using,
you know, pressure sensing and temperature sensors and flares
to make sure that they're turned on, they're starting to see
continuous methane monitoring as almost a check-engine light
for these facilities. So if something goes wrong on the
facility, there's a good chance that we're going to see
emissions of some sort because of a disruption in that
facility. And so that's how a lot of these companies are
starting to use this data. They take the emissions data as a
trigger to grab data off of all of the other sensors on their
facilities and coming back to the earlier comments on AI to be
able to identify a root cause more quickly. And we have many
examples of this where we've seen it work.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you. Mr. Duren, I only have half a minute
left, but LIDAR technology, is there something we can do in
Congress to really kickstart the quick incorporation of LIDAR
for this?
Mr. Duren. If you mean, you know, direct sensing, yes,
there could be more work that, again, for certain applications
it's great, particularly for searching things at night. It may
have co-benefits for high-latitude methane as well, but it's
not a panacea. It can't see everywhere.
Mr. Beyer. Great. Thank you very much. Madam Chair, I yield
back.
Ms. Stevens. Great. And with that we'll hear from Dr.
Baird.
Mr. Baird. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the
opportunity to be with you. And it's always interesting to hear
from experts in the field.
And my background is agriculture, so I'm going to take a
little jaunt off in that direction. In the fight against
climate change, many innovative techniques--and that's what
we've been talking about here today--continue to help American
farmers and ranchers reduce greenhouse gas emissions. One of
those technologies that I'm familiar with is tremendous--and it
has tremendous potential and can be used to not only eliminate
animal waste but also convert food--leftover food that can be
used to produce fuels, and that's the methane digesters.
So, Mr.--Dr. Rieker, would you please share your thoughts
on the value of methane digesters?
Dr. Rieker. So I--yes, I'm not going to argue. I think it's
a highly valuable technology to the extent that we can use what
otherwise would become waste streams to produce energy that's
useful to us, I'm absolutely in support of that and--yes, I've
no further comment. I think it's a good technology.
Mr. Baird. Do any of the other witnesses have any thoughts
on that issue, methane digesters? A lot of our producers in
west central Indiana have been very successful at utilizing
these.
Mr. Duren. I totally agree, sir, that digesters, if
properly installed and maintained, can have a significant net
reduction, and that can generate biogas, which, you know,
generates revenues for farmers. I do know that we've done a lot
of work in California and Colorado doing overflights, and we
have found that in cases where the digesters work, they
definitely bring methane down, but there are also cases where
they're not properly maintained where they actually generate a
lot of methane. So the devil is in the details.
And I think one simple recommendation I would make is if
we're going to install digesters, we could put simple onsite
methane monitors to make sure that they're not leaking just
like you have a gas detector in your house, and I think that
would go a long way to improving confidence in that technology.
Mr. Baird. And those can be relatively effective----
Mr. Duren. Yes, sir.
Mr. Baird [continuing]. To monitor that? Yes?
Mr. Duren. Yes, sir. It's a--these are fairly contained
facilities. It's not a hard thing to monitor.
Mr. Baird. Well, the other issue we get into, and that's
not for this discussion, but I did want to mention that, you
know, I think farmers and ranchers struggle with trying to find
the support and the funding to put in those digesters. I'm not
asking for your response on that kind of thing, but I do want
to make that comment. I think they struggle to get sufficient
support to install those units properly, so I'll make that--Mr.
Anderson, you got any thoughts that you would like to share on
the methane digesters?
Dr. Anderson. Well, I completely agree, they're very
useful. The devil is in the details. I think that exploring the
other options not just in agriculture but in municipal waste
and landfill gas, that we need some robust solutions, and it
is, yes, farmers and ranchers but also the operators of
landfills to ensure that we're capturing methane from all of
the anthropogenic sources.
Mr. Baird. Dr. Lyon?
Dr. Lyon. No, I just concur with the other panelists. I
think it is an important opportunity for reducing emissions.
Mr. Baird. Wow, we've got agreement here. I mean to tell
you, we've got a place to start. So anyway, I really appreciate
your answers, and I think agriculture plays a role in all of
this. And, Madam Chair, I yield back. It's my pleasure.
Ms. Stevens. How about that? All right. And with that,
we're going to hear from Ms. Ross for five minutes of
questioning.
Ms. Ross. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for holding
this important hearing. And I have some prepared remarks, but
given Dr. Baird's question and what's been going on in North
Carolina, I want to echo his interest in ways of capturing
other forms of methane. I represented a number of companies as
a renewable energy lawyer before I got elected to Congress and
did some great work on poop-to-power, which in North Carolina
we call renewable natural gas. And I also got one of the first
landfills licensed--got a certificate of convenience and public
necessity for them to be able to sell their captured methane as
a source of energy.
I agree the devil's in the details in the technology, but
we have some very effective and good examples in North
Carolina. And so Dr. Baird, if you want to have some folks from
North Carolina come and talk about how it got done, I am more
than happy to invite them to this Committee or any other
Committee.
But I think this--we've been talking here particularly
about methane that comes from natural gas extraction, and so
I'll ask a few questions that go on with that. And as we've
heard from most of the Members and from the witnesses, we
obviously can't mitigate what we don't measure, and leak
detection is an essential step toward reversing overall
greenhouse gas emissions and achieving our climate goals. And
so taking advantage of technological advances toward addressing
super-and ultra-emitting leaks presents a significant
opportunity toward rapid and significant emissions reduction.
And I know a lot about this in North Carolina. Since we've
shut down so many of our coal-fired plants, demand for natural
gas in North Carolina has more than quadrupled in the past
decade as we know it is a more reliable source of energy as we
transition to more intermittent forms of renewable energy.
But I want to ensure that these existing technologies are
as clean as possible and make sure that we use this opportunity
to see them as transitions, as providing that backup for when
the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow.
I want to ask a question of Dr. Lyon and Mr. Duren first.
Both of your organizations are working to launch methane
monitoring satellites so that we can get kind of a high-level
perspective. Can you please explain how you see the unique role
of satellites in helping mitigate oil and gas industry
emissions and how they fit in with our suite of other
innovative LDAR technologies and what satellite capabilities
exist today?
Dr. Lyon. Yes, I can start. Yes, so I think some of the
advantages of satellites is, first, that they can observe
emissions in a lot of places where we don't have permission to
fly aircraft like Russia, and their value is really
particularly looking at more the larger-scale emissions, so
emissions at the regional or area level, but there are
advancements in satellites that are allowing them to see some
of the largest point sources.
Ms. Ross. OK. Mr. Duren?
Mr. Duren. Yes, I would just add to it that these systems
complement each other, so MethaneSAT is uniquely suited to
quantifying emissions at the scale of large regions with
exquisite precision to give us really exciting situational
awareness. I say exciting with quotes around it, important
situational awareness not just in the United States but
globally, what we were talking about earlier. And Carbon Mapper
really is focusing down at very high resolution, 30-meter scale
with high-frequency ideally daily to weekly sampling over 90
percent of the world's methane-emitting and CO2-
emitting infrastructure so we have that wide area of coverage
and relatively frequent sampling. And these and other
satellites can complement each other. We call it tip and cue
where somebody sees a hotspot in one location and satellite B
is tasked to follow up on it, so we really are within the next
year or two going to be in a new world of capability. And you
combine this with the surface measurements like LongPath and
others and we can get there.
I do want to point out real quickly that what--you made two
examples, EDF and Carbon Mapper, MethaneSAT and Carbon Mapper.
These are both philanthropically funded programs so far. There
is no Federal funding for these programs. And so while it's
great that the Federal agencies have robust research programs,
the things we're talking about in this Committee and all these
recommendations are going to need resources, and it's important
to realize that it is a zero-sum research program. And so if
we're going to do these things we're talking about, there will
need to be resources for these agencies to advance them.
Ms. Ross. Well, that was a great final pitch. And Madam
Chair, I yield back.
Ms. Stevens. Great. And with that, we're going to hear from
Mr. Carey for five minutes of questioning.
Mr. Carey. Madam Chair, I thank you for the opportunity to
ask my questions. I want to make just a couple statements.
First off, knowing the importance of natural gas in our
economy, I think if any of us read the--read any of the trade
rags, you realize the price of the Henry Hub for natural gas is
almost double what it was a year ago. We all see the price of
gasoline at the gas pump, but when you look at what it's
actually costing our--the consumers back home, we're seeing
that go back up. So we have to be mindful of that. We also see
the price of natural gas as it relates to Europe, and the
prices are much higher.
So knowing that methane is significantly attributed with
the natural gas market, I'm looking at one of the charts Mr.
Duren, I think, provided that showed a tremendous amount of
methane emissions from the Pennsylvania-Ohio area. I'm
assuming--and I'm--this question I guess would be for you, Dr.
Anderson, with NETL. I mean, have you guys done significant
mapping at abandoned oil and gas wells? And what type of
methane emissions are actually coming from those facilities?
Dr. Anderson. Yes, and considerable to put it short. We are
undertaking both aerial assays for identifying orphaned and
abandoned wells. Pennsylvania because there are wells that are
150 years old in the region, there are significant emissions in
the Pennsylvania and Ohio region because of that from old,
abandoned wells. Many of these wells are hard to find. They
don't have the steel in the ground anymore. Sometimes, they
were pulled out for the--during the Second World War. Sometimes
the casings were taken out even earlier. So they are often hard
to find. So we have this significant effort in mapping. We even
have about 1,200 miles of mapping that we'll be conducting this
year, I believe.
Mr. Carey. And, Dr. Anderson, I mean, to that point, I
mean, aren't there a significant amount of private companies
that are actually out there having to plug these wells
currently just to do the operations, whether it be coalmining
or any type of underground mining operations? And shouldn't
those companies somehow work in conjunction with your
organization to make sure that that is--that the number of--
number of wells that have been plugged actually relates to the
reduction of methane, that they are actually helping?
Dr. Anderson. Yes, and they certainly work with the State
agencies, so in Pennsylvania or Ohio, the Department of
Environmental Protection at the State level and so that we--we
work in conjunction with the State agencies as well to
understand the plugging and abandoning programs that the
companies have. That is to say those are for wells that are not
orphaned. There--we have a significant number of orphaned and
abandoned wells, somewhere between 90,000 or 150,000 orphaned
wells across the country, and so those are wells----
Mr. Carey. Dr. Anderson, real quickly on that point, but
you--and I'm just--I can't remember what organization actually
did the charts, but I--on average, how much methane actually
comes from an abandoned well? Was that your organization or was
that another?
Dr. Anderson. We've done some of those assays. Some wells
it's negligible and some wells it's considerable. I mean, it
varies wildly. And so across the 100,000 abandoned wells, it
spans the whole scope.
Mr. Carey. I guess the reason I say that, it seems to me
that if we have a--we have an ability to actually go out, plug
these wells--and I believe the President's budget also talks
about doing some of that. But if we had the ability to go out
and do that now to reduce the methane and do so that is not
going to costs the consumer any moneys but that will also
protect the environment, I think that should be the priority,
again, as we see the price of the Henry Hub and knowing the
natural gas prices are continuing to climb, that's going to
hurt the consumer. So my thing, go for the low-hanging fruit
and let's plug these abandoned mines and work with the
industries that are in those areas to get that done.
Mr. Duren. The only thing I would chime in, Congressman, is
that I think the research shows----
Mr. Carey. Well, thank you for chiming and since I didn't
ask the question, but thank you.
Mr. Duren. Sorry. Sorry, sir. I was just going to
elaborate. I do think the argument for low-hanging fruit is
that the small number of super-emitters are really a fast way,
they're easy to find, they're typically easy to fix. The
abandoned wells are, I think, an entire order of magnitude
bigger challenge because there are so many of them, they're
hard to find, they typically emit at lower rates, and it takes
a different focus and it takes, you know, significant resources
to close it. And I think there is a Federal program to go after
and close abandoned wells. I think a gap that we're trying to
point out is there's still relatively limited programs in place
to go after the super-emitters, and that's why some of us are
pushing that.
Mr. Carey. Well, thank you. Dr. Anderson, I don't have much
more time, but I would like to follow up with you in terms of
the studies that you guys have done on the emissions of methane
from those abandoned oil and gas wells.
Dr. Anderson. I can provide any information you'd like in
the QFR (questions for the record).
Mr. Carey. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Ms. Stevens. And with that, we'll hear from Mr. Lamb for
five minutes of questioning.
Mr. Lamb. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Dr. Anderson, welcome back to the Committee. It's great to
see you again, and we're very thankful here in western
Pennsylvania for your continued service at NETL.
I actually wanted to stay on the issue of the abandoned
wells just for a second. My colleague Congresswoman Bice and I
have introduced a bill to try to help your research efforts
along those lines. So I was wondering if you could just
address--we expanded the amount of money available for the
monitoring and finding of these wells. We put some of that in
the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Could you address what that
increase in funding has allowed as far as NETL's surveillance
efforts in western Pennsylvania and where you see that--the
needs of that program going when it comes to kind of continued
surveillance or, you know, what is addressed in my bill with
Congresswoman Bice has to do also with the prioritization of
those wells by super-emitter status. So if you could kind of
maybe just give us a more current update as to where your
efforts are on that particular issue and where you could be
going if we gave you the resources?
Dr. Anderson. Well, Congressman Lamb, good to see you
again, thank you as well for you and Congresswoman Bice's
leadership on that. I think that what we are driving toward is
doing additional surveys, more surveys with additional sensing
technologies that can identify the orphaned and abandoned
wells. And so we're using not only electromagnetic hardware,
machine learning software, integrating what is gathered in the
field, but the ability to scan large areas quickly has proven
to be very beneficial.
And so the increase of funding and efforts in that space is
enabling us to go beyond just finding the wells but then doing
risk characterization, mitigation, optimization strategies,
using various sensors, again, laser-based, optical-based, Hi
Flow gas sampling and compositional analysis, and then
dovetailing into the bipartisan infrastructure law where
there's--and within the Department of Interior that we're
collaborating very heavily with the funding for the plugging of
those wells where you're simultaneously characterizing where
those are and prioritizing the heavier emitters for the
Department of Interior. So we have an interagency effort going
on between the two agencies.
Mr. Lamb. If we're talking about like a 100-yard football
field, how far down the field do you think we are on the issue
of locating and prioritizing these emitting abandoned wells?
Dr. Anderson. I would say given the level of uncertainty of
anywhere--the estimates being from 90 to 150,000 wells, there--
I would say we're still at the 20 or 30--our own 20 or 30.
Mr. Lamb. Yes. Yes. No, that's what it seems like, so we're
going to have to sustain these efforts over time, I agree.
Can you talk about the technological difference between
surveying and identifying abandoned wells versus surveying and
identifying leaks from the actual natural gas infrastructure
system, how the technologies are similar or different?
Dr. Anderson. Well, I think that if you're looking for the
emission itself, the technologies are really similar, and so if
you use the same kind of assays where you're identifying the
leaks from existing infrastructure and you find an abandoned
well that's emitting, that's a great find. However, given the
breadth and distribution of those potential abandoned wells, we
can't survey the entire landscape until we can narrow down
where we think those wells are.
And so as one example in western Pennsylvania we know based
on pictures from the late 1800's that in one particular
location we should have at least about 100 wells in some of
that early oilfield development, and to date, we still only
found 20 or 30 and so there's still a long way to go.
Mr. Lamb. Yes, great. Well, thank you very much for your
work, and we're going to continue trying to get you the tools
you need to get this job done. Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
Ms. Stevens. Great, thank you so much. And with that, we'll
hear from Mr. Gonzalez for five minutes.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Dr. Rieker, I'm going to start with you. As I'm sure you
know, one of the drawbacks to satellite observations has been
their considerable range of uncertainty and inability to apply
to smaller emitting sources. While some progress has been made
in the space in recent years, can you help explain how LongPath
and similar technologies can identify leaks that today
satellites and drones simply cannot monitor?
Dr. Rieker. Yes. Two reasons, one, we're closer to the
problem, so it's a challenge to, you know, measure small leaks
from a very, very high altitude through clouds and through the
rest of the atmosphere. So by bringing something like LongPath
that's miles away from the emissions that it's measuring or
point sensor technologies right next to it, that's part of the
problem.
The other piece is just the ability to use active sources,
and so our system uses a laser beam. We send a laser beam out
rather than relying on the passive backscatter of light from
the sun and other sources, and so it just is a much, much more
sensitive way to do things if you're closer and you're able to
use an active light source that goes out and sends the light
that is absorbed by the methane and look for the change as it
comes back.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you. I want to talk about the laser-
based sensor component with respect to cost. Currently, the
gold standard is laser-based sensors but can run anywhere from
$10,000-$100,000 per sensor. From a cost standpoint, do you
have an estimate on the net cost to oil and gas companies that
deploy your technology?
Dr. Rieker. Yes, so we--great question. So, you know, again
with the network approach that we're taking, we take that cost
and we spread it over many, many facilities and, you know,
13,000 acres per tower like the one that's shown in my
background here. And so the way that we approach this is almost
like a telecommunications model where you have a tower, it
serves an area, and within that area customers pay a certain
monthly fee. And that fee can be very low and probably don't
want to put those fees on the record, but the numbers are low
on a per-facility basis and they subscribe in for the data the
same way you'd get your--you know, your cellular data for a
certain number per month.
Mr. Gonzalez. So without getting into the--I understand the
sensitivity around, you know, quoting specific numbers, but
without getting into the specific numbers, from a unit
economics standpoint, is it profitable for companies to deploy
the technology, capture the methane, and then sell it back at a
price that covers the cost? Like is this net profit or----
Dr. Rieker. Yes.
Mr. Gonzalez [continuing]. Is it still underwater?
Dr. Rieker. Yes. So we're seeing--and again, especially at
the high prices that we're seen for gas right now, that the net
capture is exceeding the cost to monitor.
Mr. Gonzalez. Got it.
Dr. Rieker. And, you know, I should also mention that a lot
of these laser technologies nowadays, ours included, are built
off of telecommunications laser technology. The same thing
that's carrying broadband through our--through the pipes, so
it's very robust and actually the costs are coming down at a
very, very rapid rate.
Mr. Gonzalez. What needs to happen from a pricing
standpoint on the underlying asset to oil and gas before it
becomes unprofitable again? You mentioned high gas--oil and gas
prices are helping. I hope those prices go down, so----
Dr. Rieker. Right.
Mr. Gonzalez [continuing]. As I think everybody does, so I
guess I'm curious how far do they have to fall before it stops
being a good economic play?
Dr. Rieker. Yes. So that's I think coming down to, you
know, a few dollars per Mcf is potentially where those types of
crossover points occur, and so that--you know, that's not a
high price. That's the kind of prices that we would be aiming
for. The--yes, so I--you know, again, I think that as we learn
more and more and many companies are piloting this technology
and I mentioned earlier it's new so everybody's learning as we
get these technologies out there, we're going to see more and
more adoption on economic terms.
Mr. Gonzalez. Great. I have 40 seconds left, but I'm seeing
that I am quite possibly wearing the ugliest jacket in the
history of this hearing, and it's disgusting to even look at on
this camera in front of me, so with that, I will yield back.
Ms. Stevens. I didn't even notice the jacket.
Mr. Gonzalez. You're too kind.
Ms. Stevens. But with that, we're going to hear from Ms.
Wild for five minutes of questioning.
Ms. Wild. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. And to my
colleague Mr. Gonzalez, I certainly hope your wife didn't buy
you that jacket or least if she did, she's not watching this.
So I didn't think it was so bad.
Anyway, greetings, everybody. Thanks, Madam Chair, for
holding this hearing.
I want to direct my question to Dr. Lyon. I think it's
notable, sir, that most of the technologies we've been
discussing today go above and beyond anything currently
approved by EPA for regulatory use, which I think shows that
despite the flaws in the industry's current approach to methane
mitigation, there are real incentives for oil and gas operators
to do more than simple regulatory compliance in addressing
emissions. Could you speak to why that is? Why are companies
investing in these leak detection and repair programs that
exceed what is actually required by EPA?
Dr. Lyon. Yes, I think a lot of it is due to market
pressure, so there's been increasing demand for low methane
emissions natural gas, and I think the public and consumers are
getting more savvy on demanding that the performance is based
on data, so I think a lot of the--a lot but not all companies
are seeing that by really demonstrating they have low methane
emissions, they'll be able to sell more product.
Ms. Wild. OK, thanks. Dr. Rieker, do you have anything you
want to add to that?
Dr. Rieker. No, I agree entirely, and that's sort of a
follow-on to our prior comments there that the capital market
pressures, the fact that we lost out on an LNG terminal
because, you know, the gas from the Permian was considered too
dirty, and I think these are the types of pressures that are
really pushing companies to try to get ahead of the curve. And
I think to the extent that EPA and policymaking can make sure
that it doesn't disincentive getting ahead of the curve, that's
incredibly important.
Ms. Wild. So when companies come to you--this is to Dr.
Rieker--to try out your product, do they mention that kind of
thing?
Dr. Rieker. Absolutely. Yes, absolutely, that cost is not
the primary concern, it's trying to do the right thing. And
then I think as we move on, they'll start to see--as they start
to test these technologies that there are economic benefits as
well.
Ms. Wild. Got it. OK. So to all of you, to the entire
panel, can innovative methane leak detection and repair
technologies actually help oil and gas operators reduce leaks
in a cost-effective manner? I see some nodding heads. Anybody--
--
Dr. Anderson. I think unanimous, yes.
Ms. Wild. OK, great. So if we can access better data that
helps us to pinpoint the worst offending leaks, is there a
universe in which the burden to the industry actually decreases
while emissions mitigation efforts improve? Anybody care to
comment on that?
Dr. Lyon. Yes, I can try. Yes, I think as the technologies
advance and companies are better able to quantify their
performance, there will be kind of a continuous--there will be
driven for continuous improvement to really demonstrate that
they're better than their peers. So I think due to the
economics, there will be lowered costs for both the
quantification and really the mitigation efforts, so I think,
yes, this market pressure will drive improvements to costs.
Ms. Wild. So, Dr. Lyon, do you believe the ESG
(environmental, social, and governance) concerns are moving the
oil and gas sector in this direction already?
Dr. Lyon. Yes, I think many of the companies are being
moved, and I think there are some companies who are kind of
falling behind, but many of the leaders are very concerned with
the ESG issues.
Ms. Wild. And Dr. Rieker, when you discuss deploying
LongPath's technology with prospective clients, do they
appreciate the potential benefits of this more effective
science-based approach to methane mitigation?
Dr. Rieker. Absolutely, yes. I think it takes some time, I
think, for customers--and this is why we see so many customers
in sort of pilot phase, you know, you're setting up a laser 3
miles away and telling me exactly where the leak is, you know,
it sounds a little bit like science fiction, and so they want
these kind of pilot tests to understand this, but more
importantly, I mentioned this before, get it--how they take
that data and incorporate it into their operations is also new
to these companies, and so how do we, you know, develop work
practices for field crews to use this data to go effect that
change, that's what everybody is working so hard on right now.
And so I think we're going to see in late 2022 into 2023 that
kind of an explosion of these technologies coming out into the
field as people nail down how to do this efficiently.
Ms. Wild. I was--my follow up question was going to be what
concerns they expressed, but I think you nicely covered that in
your answer, so thank you very much.
With that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
Ms. Stevens. That's great. And with that, we're going to
hear from Mr. Weber for five minutes of questioning.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Madam Chair. In 2019, the Department
of Energy published an analysis that found natural gas pipeline
from Russia to Europe's electricity sector has 41 percent
higher lifecycle emissions than American LNG shipped to Europe
from the Gulf of Mexico, which happens to be my district,
interestingly enough. My district on the Gulf of Mexico has
multiple ports that are already exporting LNG, so we have the
infrastructure ready to increase that output.
Additionally, the International Energy Agency estimates
that the methane intensity of oil and gas production in Russia
is 30 percent higher than in the United States. Emissions in
Iran are 85 percent higher for each unit of energy produced.
And Venezuela, believe it or not, is an astronomical 652
percent higher.
So my question to all witnesses, do you agree or disagree
with the calculation that increasing U.S. oil and natural gas
exports to Europe can actually decrease greenhouse gas
emissions in Europe?
Dr. Anderson. Yes, I--Congressman, the report you
referenced in 2019 came out of NETL, out of our laboratory, so
I absolutely would say yes.
Mr. Weber. OK, good to hear.
Dr. Lyon. Yes, and I will add that there are regional
differences within the United States, but I think there are
definitely basins that are going to have oil and gas methane
emissions that are lower than Russia and Venezuela and Iran.
Mr. Weber. OK. Next? Mr. Duren?
Mr. Duren. I would agree. If we keep--sir, if we keep on
the path that we're on with these innovations that the United
States will have and can have the cleanest oil and gas
footprint in the world. And you're right, sir, that there a lot
of jurisdictions around the planet that need to do better, and
that's one way this technology can help them do better. If we
make it all visible, then there will be market forces on those
other jurisdictions to clean up their act as well.
Mr. Weber. Well, it's the government forces I'm concerned
about, but let's go with the next witness.
Dr. Rieker. Yes, the last thing I'll say there is that
we're seeing a lot of midstream and LNG providers that are
starting to test technologies in order to be able to stamp
shipments with specific kind of carbon footprint numbers,
almost a credit score for that. That's going to be incredibly,
incredibly important I think on the international markets.
Mr. Weber. Who else are we missing? Is that everybody? Must
be.
Let me ask you this question. This is for Mr. Lyon and
Duren. Methane monitoring satellites that compare and contrast,
that's pretty fascinating. We can watch those countries that
you're talking about. So those emissions--as that satellite is
monitoring those emissions, I guess, in real time--and we'll
stick with Mr. Lyon to start with, do those emissions move,
waft, or travel?
Dr. Lyon. Yes, so the methane plumes do move with the wind
direction, but the satellite approaches can account for that,
so they're using the wind speed and direction as they're
quantifying emissions.
Mr. Weber. So let's say we have emission A on today from
Russia. The satellites--it happens at noon today. Is the
satellite in place to watch that plume as you call it move
across the world?
Dr. Lyon. It depends on how the satellites are. I think Mr.
Duren could probably speak in more detail, but yes, some of the
satellites can be tasked for long times. Others do have orbits
that are kind of recurring.
Mr. Weber. How about that, Mr. Duren? What say you?
Mr. Duren. Yes, sir. This--actually, this background in my
Zoom is an indication of exactly what we're talking about.
These are methane plumes in the Permian Basin from 1 day of
overflights with remote-sensing instruments which basically
simulates with these satellites can do. And so when we get the
satellites in orbit, we'll be able to track this level of
detail on all the countries around the planet. It will be
really clear where the--where these emissions are coming from
and where the plumes are going.
Mr. Weber. So we know--you know when the initial source of
release is, how long will a plume stay together and finally not
dissipate? I'll stick with you.
Mr. Duren. Yes, sir. The one thing to know about methane
and other greenhouse gases is they are well-mixed. That means
within hours to days they are well-mixed in the atmosphere and
they become diluted and they just contribute to the global
total. So to actually figure out where that plume ends up over
the course of weeks and months, you need complex computer
models because at some point it just becomes part of the
background. So very quickly they mix, typically within hours to
days.
Mr. Weber. So you have a pipeline--and I remember when they
used to fly pipelines with Piper Cub airplanes looking for an
oil leak in the ground. Of course now in real time with all the
computers and the monitoring they have, they're so efficient
it's really, really good. So you have a pipeline or you have a
source of emission. Do you communicate that back to that
source, whether it's a pipeline company or whatever the company
is?
Mr. Duren. That is an excellent question, sir, and it is
complicated because there are--quite frankly, there are
fragmented jurisdictions in the United States for who has
responsibility over what. I have an example of where we found
with one of our aircraft flights a leaking gathering line in
the Denver-Julesburg Basin last summer, and it took us a few
days to figure out who to call because it wasn't immediately
obvious who was responsible. And that is something that we--
that could be a benefit of this research program is to help to
build a bigger--a better data base of where is everything
located in the United States and who owns it so you can
expedite getting data that these aircraft and satellites see
into the hands of the right people who can do something about
it.
Mr. Weber. So in essence--and I don't mean this in a
negative way--that can be an income stream because if you're
company ABC and you want to know about your leak as quickly as
possible, and so if they would subscribe to your service for
lack of a better term, then actually that would be a win-win
for y'all and for them?
Mr. Duren. Yes, sir. In fact, that is a big theory of
change beyond these rapid sensing technologies we're talking
about is if you can get information into the hands of an
operator within a few days or within a few hours of a leak
springing, they can get that leak down before anybody ever
calls [inaudible].
Mr. Weber. Yes, well, nothing personal, but we want you to
call them within 15 or 20 minutes.
Mr. Duren. That's a good stretch goal. We'll shoot for it.
Mr. Weber. Well, thank you for that, and with that, I yield
back.
Ms. Stevens. Great. And with that we'll hear from Mrs.
Fletcher for five minutes of questioning.
Mrs. Fletcher. Well, thank you, Chairwoman, and thank you
so much for holding this really important hearing on methane
emissions. Thank you to our witnesses for taking the time to
testify. Your testimony both written and then here today in the
hearing has been really useful, and certainly it's clear from
this discussion that methane leaks are a major issue that will
require a collaborative approach to tackle.
As we've discussed, you know, methane accounts for about 1/
3 of global warming, and methane emissions have risen by about
25 percent in the last 20 years. And this trajectory is
obviously off from the decrease that's needed, two percent
annual decrease that's needed to meet the standards that are
set as the objective of the Paris Agreement.
And, you know, most methane leaks are from a few major
industries, and I think it's important to note as we talk about
it, and part of the complexity, this isn't just an oil gas
issue. Methane emissions arise from the agriculture sector,
from the coal industry, from waste management. There are a lot
of challenges here.
And I know that this is hugely important to many of us in
Congress to help address the issue in the oil and gas sector in
particular. I worked with Congressman Armstrong and the
Environmental Defense Fund to pass the REGROW Act as part of
the bipartisan infrastructure package last November. And the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has this provision
included to plug abandoned oil and gas wells, investing $4.6
billion toward cleaning up these orphaned wells, and that will
greatly reduce methane emissions from these sources.
As we've heard throughout the day today in this hearing,
these new and innovative technologies really are the key to
detecting and repairing methane leaks as quickly as possible.
And certainly I think there's a consensus that, you know, this
is something everyone wants to address. No one wants to see
these leaks going forward. And so, you know, we know that's
important, but from the statistics we've seen from last year,
there still appear to be a lot of hurdles that prevent us from
being where we need and want to be in terms of methane
emissions.
One of the things I also worked on last year in the last
Congress was implementing the Pipeline Safety Pilot Program,
which was included in the PIPES Act of 2020, and the language
there really allowed for a pilot program to explore new avenues
for deploying inspection technology in an effort to get these
technologies deployed quicker. And that seems to be a theme
we're hearing over and over.
You know, unfortunately, with something like that when
PHMSA (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration)
went through the rulemaking process, it didn't really consult
with stakeholders who would be using the program, applying for
the program, and so I've heard from a lot of people in the
industry that the rule as written hasn't really created a
process they can actually use--that they can use to deploy and
test these promising new technologies. And I think it's really
essential that we take a collaborative approach here to solving
the problem of methane emissions, that we work together to
figure out from both our vantage point in terms of what can be
done and also the people who will be doing it are all coming to
the table to do it and make sure that these things happen as
quickly as possible.
So my question is really to everyone on the panel. You
know, how can we in Congress as the policymakers and others in
the Federal Government work more closely with stakeholders,
folks in the industry to make sure that these technologies are
deployed faster and more comprehensively? What are the major
obstacles that you've observed in the deployment of these new
technologies? I know we have a limited time left, so I would
love to put that out there for whoever wants to take it first,
then maybe if everyone else could also submit it in writing
because I will probably go over the time we have left. Anyone
want to take that first? Mr. Lyon?
Dr. Lyon. Sure. Yes. I think the--really I think the EPA
can play a role, so making sure that the new regulation does
have a flexible and expedient process so that these--and
technology-neutral process that allows a lot of these advanced
approaches to be used in a way that it really looks forward to
maybe some technologies that we aren't--can't even imagine now
and making sure that those would also be allowed. So I think
that the EPA definitely has a role to play into making sure
that these approaches can really lead to methane mitigation
quickly.
Mrs. Fletcher. OK. And that was quick, so we still have 30
seconds. Anyone else want to weigh in? Mr. Anderson?
Dr. Anderson. I was just going to concur with that. I think
that there's a demand-side pool that technologies are being
developed through their portfolio. Let's make sure that the
pathway to deployment is clear.
Dr. Rieker. Yes, this is Greg Rieker. I would add to that
as well. We have to just be very, very careful not to
disincentivize the uptake of these technologies. Many of the
quantitative technologies are letting oil and gas companies
understand what their emissions truly are. If there is
discrepancy between that and what sort of the subpart W, you
know, requirements are about reporting, there needs to be some
reconciliation there and also some kind of allowing these
operators to--you know, to deal with that reconciliation
without being hurt by it. And I think that's really important
because that can be a disincentive to using quantitative
technology.
Mrs. Fletcher. OK. Well, thank you for that. I have gone
over my time, but I appreciate how quickly you all were able to
respond. And if you have any additional comments, please submit
them for the record. I would very much appreciate it.
And Madam Chair, with that, I yield back.
Ms. Stevens. Great. And with that, we'll hear from Mrs.
Bice for five minutes of questioning.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to maybe
reiterate--Representative Lamb earlier mentioned the bill that
we worked on together, H.R. 4270, the Abandoned Well
Remediation Research and Development Act that would focus on
methods and materials to better find, plug, and identify
methane emissions on these abandoned wells. It has passed this
Committee. It has not been presented on the floor yet, so I
would encourage our friends to consider putting that up for a
vote soon.
I want to maybe piggyback off of something that Mr.--
Representative Casten said earlier. He mentioned that his
neighbor was dumping sewage in his yard, and I think this
analogy could be translated to energy production and emissions.
Of the five countries with the largest methane emissions from
their energy sectors, China, Russia, the United States, Iran,
and India, only the United States is part of the Global Methane
Pledge. The pledge was launched at Cop26 to try to reduce
methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030. Mr. Duren, would you
agree that we need to also focus on global reductions using
advanced U.S. research capabilities and technologies to reduce
global methane emissions?
Mr. Duren. Yes, I agree. This is something--it's--global
climate change has global in front of it for a reason. It's a
global commons problem. And as I mentioned earlier, methane
mixes really quickly in the atmosphere, and so wherever it
emits, it becomes everybody's problem.
I think that one of the problems we confront in meeting the
objectives of the Global Methane Pledge and other climate
programs like the Paris Agreement is that in most parts of the
world today, we are still operating with very little
situational awareness, very real direct data on emissions. We
are limited to bottom-up estimates based on economic
information and activity data, and there's a huge gap between
what we--what's really happening and what we need to know to
effectively manage it. And when I say we, I mean humanity writ
large, not just one country.
So I think this is one place where the United States and
again the research agencies under the jurisdiction of this
Committee can really lead, and it's U.S. science and technology
that can shine a light on methane emissions and other
greenhouse gas emissions globally at actionable scale so that
people can take action everywhere and not just----
Mrs. Bice. But I want to highlight something that you just
said and that is there's a lot we don't know, correct? There's
a lot we don't know about measurement, numbers, how much is
being emitted. I mean, those are things that we are--there's a
lot of information out there that we still don't understand or
know.
Mr. Duren. We know enough at the global scale and at the
scale of individual regions to know that the methane emissions
and CO2 emissions, what they are. What I mean by we
don't know is we need more granular information that can drive
direct action at facility scale. Remember that if you think
globally but you act locally, and that's the gap right now is
the information at the scale of individual facilities so you
can guide improvements in management practices and fix leaks.
Mrs. Bice. Well, I would say that, you know, the United
States is really acting locally. We're trying to do--especially
our oil and gas companies are trying to do the best job they
can to limit methane emissions, but we're up against a global
situation that is not being addressed by anyone else or very
little is being done by those other four countries to be able
to reduce emissions, you know, specifically China. We see their
actually methane increasing. And that's going to be something
that has to be addressed.
I want to move on. Dr. Anderson, the EPA's current methane
rule assumes that low-producing marginal well facilities have
the same exact equipment and emissions as higher producing
sites and therefore contribute similarly to national emissions.
Under this assumption, the cost of compliance with the set leak
detection and repair requirements would impact all producers
but in particular it will affect small oil and gas operators of
the almost 760,000 marginal wells located throughout the United
States, many of which are in my home State of Oklahoma. So as
of this moment limited data and broad assumptions could put
many independent and small producers out of business. Does the
NETL's study published in April titled ``Quantification of
Methane Emissions for Marginal or Small Producing Oil and Gas
Wells'' contradict EPA's assumptions on marginal wells?
Dr. Anderson. Well, I think--so our study has a level of
granularity based on the R&D that we've conducted in
partnership with many of the small producers, and so I think
that it can be used to help inform the path forward for the
small producers, marginal wells. And we are continuing that
research program with that particular program on quantification
from marginal or small producing wells continues, and so we'll
continue to publish that information and put it in the hands of
the EPA.
Mrs. Bice. But should we agree that marginal well
production has a much smaller methane emission than large
producing wells, correct?
Dr. Anderson. For modern wells, yes, with modern
technologies. I mean, given that they are producing less and
the cost for abatement is disproportionate, as you had
mentioned as well.
Mrs. Bice. Great. My time is expired. Madam Chair, I yield
back.
Ms. Stevens. Thanks. And with that, we'll hear from Mr.
Sherman for five minutes of questioning.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you. If you just watch MSNBC and Fox,
you come away with the idea that oil production, gas production
must be way down in the United States because the politicians
are talking about it. The fact is that energy production in
this country was higher in the first Biden year than in the
last Trump year and will be the highest ever in recorded
history next year in 2023.
The--we--environmentalists would like to move us toward a
fossil fuel-free future, and that makes sense to try to takes
steps so that we burn less natural gas and oil in the United
States. Perhaps unfortunately some of the environmental effort
is focused on trying to get us to produce less in the United
States, which, as some of the witnesses have pointed out, means
you just produce more elsewhere where the environmental
regulations surrounding the production are usually less
stringent and the total amount of methane emitted greater.
Mike Garcia was questioning earlier. He--his district and
mine kind of intersect at the site of the largest natural gas
storage blowout--not leak but blowout--in American history. As
it happens, the emission was in his district and all the people
affected were in my district. And so I focused on natural gas
storage safety regulations. Which jurisdiction in the world,
any state, any country has the strongest natural gas storage
safety regulations? If we want to be tough, who do we pattern
ourselves after? Does anyone know? I'll ask any of the
witnesses. We don't have an answer.
I'll point out that Congress has required that we have for
the first time--before this gas blowout in Aliso Canyon we had
no Federal regulations, that we have Federal regulations, but
they're pretty much weak regulations patterned after the
Petroleum Institute's recommendations.
The--do any of our witnesses--we're dealing with the
production of oil and gas, the transportation of the gas, and
the storage. Are any of our witnesses in a position to put in
context how much methane is released from those three types of
uses of natural gas?
Mr. Duren. I'll just comment on the results of our work. It
varies quite a bit by jurisdiction. And also, Congressman, I
can point you to a study we did with the California Council on
Science and Technology a few years ago in response to the Aliso
Canyon blowout looking at security and safety and integrity of
underground gas storage. And it may have some answers to your
previous question.
But my answer is it varies quite a bit by region. In some
places the downstream natural gas system emits more--leaks more
methane than upstream. It depends on whether you're in a State
that produces a lot of oil and gas as opposed to use it, so it
varies quite a bit. And I would--I don't have a----
Mr. Sherman. When you say--you mean the upstream is the oil
and gas well, oil or gas well, and downstream is the
transportation, storage, and then ultimately further
transportation to where it's actually burned?
Mr. Duren. Yes, sir. If you look at natural gas in the
United States, it varies quite a bit whether you're losing more
of the gas in cities versus upstream and midstream production.
Mr. Sherman. Is underground storage of natural gas in
abandoned oil wells or salt mines a safe system? Do any of our
witnesses have a response?
Dr. Rieker. I can comment on that. LongPath has done, you
know, more than a year of monitoring on a couple of different
underground natural gas storage facilities, one in California,
although not Aliso Canyon. You know, it's like all oil and gas
operations, if these are properly maintained, the emissions
rates are good. And so that's something----
Mr. Sherman. I do want to comment about proper maintenance
because Aliso Canyon was a disaster.
But finally, do you have a comment on subsurface safety
shutoff valves as being necessary for underground storage?
Dr. Rieker. I don't have specific comment on that.
Mr. Sherman. My time is expired. Thank you.
Ms. Stevens. That's great. And now we'll hear from Mr.
Perlmutter for five minutes of questioning.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Dr. Rieker, good to see you. Go Buffs.
Professor, quick question. We had an opportunity recently
to meet with your company out at the National Institute for
Standards and Technology. Can you explain just in layman's
terms for me a little bit about the Nobel Prize for laser
technology that now sort of undergirds the company and the
system that you've developed?
Dr. Rieker. Absolutely, yes. This is--and this has been
kind of the--if you will, sort of the perfect transition of
that kind of technology up through to a commercial product. So,
you know, in 1999 here at University of Colorado John Hall
demonstrated a laser that would emit hundreds of thousands of
colors of light. And actually what's interesting about these
colors of light is they're perfectly spaced by the pulsing of
the laser, and so actually what he was developing was an
optical clock. And that's what NIST is of course famous for
and, you know, the timekeeping standard.
What's interesting is that researchers, myself included,
could see that we could use all of these lights--all of these
colors of light to measure the unique fingerprint, absorption
fingerprint of the different greenhouse gases. That's why
they're greenhouse gases, because they absorb that infrared
light. And so this technology, that Nobel prize-winning
technology from here in Colorado has gone on for timekeeping,
for time transfer, you know, the eventual replacement of GPS
(Global Positioning System) satellites with a different kind of
time standard that's more secure, different kinds of quantum
technologies. It's proliferated in many different directions.
It's been very, very critical for NIST and other institutions
like that to have the freedom to develop that technology over,
you know, a timespan. It took a decade before we started to
shift it toward these oil and gas operations, and then it took
Department of Energy funding to really push it over that hill
into what we're doing here.
So what it comes down to is these unique tools that are
brewing in all of our research institutions. That's the seed
corn if you will for all these innovations we're going to see
in the next decade, the next two decades, yes.
Mr. Perlmutter. So--and this is to the entire panel, but,
Dr. Rieker, I'll start with you. So in Colorado, we have some
pretty strict methane rules that the Department of Health has
promulgated. It seems like we are at a conjunction now where
both sort of environmental issues, reducing greenhouse gases,
is coupled now with profitability, potential profitability for
these companies to not lose methane or, you know, different
kinds of fuels or gases that they might sell. Have you seen an
uptick in terms of the oil and gas companies in Colorado
wanting to use yours or other types of services like this? Is
that something you're seeing now?
Dr. Rieker. Yes, absolutely. One of the interesting things,
though, is that, again, this is the importance of writing the
regulations in sort of a flexible nature. So some of the early
kind of approaches in Colorado were fairly prescriptive, and
that can--you know, the operators will say, well, I need to do
this prescriptive approach. It's going to cost me a certain
amount of money to add on and test new technologies. That's
going to cost me additional funds. And so I think that Colorado
with its alternative AIMM (Approved Instrument Monitoring
Method) process, which we have an application in for that we
can show equivalency to the standard and then be accepted to
replace the kind of less efficient older ways of doing the--
meeting the certifications. Once we clear those hurdles, and
with the support of the oil and gas companies that are
supporting those applications, we'll be able to reduce their
costs. So it's a bit of a double-edged sword. You need that
push, but you also have to be careful that that companies are
incentivized to make that push.
Mr. Perlmutter. Any of the other panelists? Mr. Duren?
Mr. Duren. Yes, I would say we're definitely seen cases all
over the United States where some operators are, I think,
pretty proactively acquiring and using different types of
measurement technology, remote sensing and otherwise, with
dramatic results in some cases. But it is--I still characterize
it as very prototype-y if that's a word, and there's a long way
to go to scale it up and operationalize it.
Mr. Perlmutter. Sure. Dr. Anderson, Dr.--go ahead.
Dr. Anderson. Yes, just quickly I would point to the--what
is called our Nation's Energy Future ONE Coalition. There's
about 50 member companies in the natural gas value chains,
about 20 percent of all of our natural gas production. Those
companies have committed to reducing their methane emissions,
and so they're already reaching for these technologies. And
it's a combination of ESG and our own bottom line.
Mr. Perlmutter. Dr. Lyon, my time is expired, but you were
shaking your head. Go ahead and answer----
Dr. Lyon. Yes.
Mr. Perlmutter [continuing]. And then I'll yield back.
Dr. Lyon. Yes, no, just saying I agree with that. Yes, I
think the companies, some of them are starting to implement it,
and I think there will be wider-scale adoption, particularly if
the regulations can be harmonized to use a lot of these
technologies.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thanks. And I guess I'd just say, you know,
there's a lot of activity in this space, and we need to make
sure that whether it's NIST or the Department of Energy or the
EPA or the States, that they're able to use a lot of this
technology as it develops. So thank you all very much for your
testimony today. Thanks, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Ms. Stevens. Thanks.
So before we bring this hearing to a close, I wanted to
thank our witnesses one last time--oh, Stansbury is here. All
right. Well, we were closing. Is she here? I don't see her. I
don't see her. We're closing.
Before we bring the hearing to a close, I want to thank our
witnesses for testifying before the Committee today. The record
will remain open for two weeks for additional statements from
the Members for any additional questions the Committee may have
of our incredible witnesses.
The witnesses are now excused, and the hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Mr. Riley Duren
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Dr. Brian Anderson
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Dr. Greg Rieker
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Appendix II
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Additional Material for the Reco
Report submitted by Representative Haley Stevens
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Letter submitted by Representative Haley Stevens
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Letter submitted by Representative Frank Lucas
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Letter submitted by Representative Don Beyer
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