13 minute read
The Inflation Reduction Act Tackles Methane Emissions
By: Robert Ward
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There’s a lot of talk about tackling climate change these days. If you listen to the media, you’d think that the solution is to electrify everything, but that’s meaningless if you do not have access to a clean, efficient, sustainable, low-cost way of generating electricity. However, not everywhere has adequate wind or sun resources, and with over 315 wind project rejections since 2015, and neither of those two being “available on demand”, natural gas is the only viable option for the foreseeable future. The goal, then, is to produce natural gas as cleanly as possible.
One long-proposed solution for reducing CO2 emissions in the United States is setting a price on carbon. But efforts to create a national carbon cap-and-trade or tax regime have proved fruitless, although there is a vocal and powerful activist movement intended to force coal plants to close, and many have. Of course, the actors most responsible for discharging CO2 are easily identified and widely known: planes, trains, and automobiles; power plants; heavy industry; commercial and light industrial operations; and agriculture, in that order, using US EPA 2020 figures. There’s truth here; recent estimates from the US EPA are that CO2 accounts for up to 80% of all greenhouse gas emissions. But, there’s a vastly more potent greenhouse gas contributing to climate change that gets much less notice or discussion: methane.
Methane, in fact, has a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of up to ~25x that of CO2 over 100 years according to the EPA, and 86x over 20 years. And while there’s some disagreement over which sector is the larger methane contributor—many databases claim agriculture is the worst, followed by emissions from the oil and gas sectors—there’s no avoiding that methane is an issue. Ironically, though, while the White House is ostensibly “laserfocused” on curbing rampant inflation, and President Biden recently signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), many large provisions and considerable funding within the bill are directed solely toward fighting climate change. One such provision is the first-ever federal fee on “excess” methane emissions. This fee will take place on or after January 1, 2024, based on certain baseline calculations and allowable exemptions. Within the oil and gas sector, using 2019 figures, EPA lists the largest methane emitters as gas production at 41%; oil production at 19%; transmission and storage at 19%; distribution at 7%; processing at 6%; post-meter emissions at 5%; and abandoned wells, 3%.
As for the fees themselves, the IRA methane emissions charge starts at $900 per metric ton of methane, increasing to $1,200 in 2025, and to $1,500 in 2026 and beyond. Notably, the IRA also “fixes” difficulties arising from the Supreme Court’s June 30 ruling that nullified the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, and codifies greenhouse gasses as “pollutants.”
These excess emission fees will apply only to methane emissions from specific types of oil and gas facilities required to report their emissions under EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting Program (GHGRP). And fees would apply specifically to petroleum and natural gas system facilities required to report GHG emissions under 40 CFR Part 98, Subpart W, or facilities emitting 25,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent or more each year. Among others, facility types will include off- and onshore petroleum and natural gas production and compression for transmission; LNG storage as well as import and export
equipment; underground natural gas storage; and onshore natural gas transmission and petroleum gathering and boosting. Interestingly, the emission thresholds depend on the type of facility, and some details have yet to be worked out, but EPA plans to issue a supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) shortly and a final rule in May 2023.
Meanwhile, the EPA will have to finalize the methane emission rule proposed last year to provide a safe harbor for exemption from the requirements that the rule would have imposed, in favor of the new rules. The EPA will also examine greenhouse gas reporting rules specifically for petroleum and natural gas systems. This is to ensure they are based on verifiable “empirical data.” The Act even includes $850 million in funding for grants, rebates, and loans to support facilities in preparing and submitting monitoring reports and provide assistance with acquiring technologies that reduce methane emissions from petroleum and natural gas systems.
Of course, what constitutes “empirical data” here is key in both understanding and complying with the new rules, and in determining the extent of methane emissions to which the rules will start applying to in 2024. Although methane rules proposed last year will [almost certainly] be superseded by the final rules in the Inflation Reduction Act, new technologies based on the principles of continuous monitoring, accurate detection and quantification, root cause analysis, and augmented-reality imaging, already are making a world of difference.
And there is no paucity of targets. Last year, the EPA estimated that a massive number of facilities would fall under the then-proposed rules: about 280,000 oil and gas wells, including central processing facilities and tank batteries; more than 3,500 gathering and boosting stations; 2,000 natural gas processing plants; and 1,900 transmission and storage compressor stations. Parallel rules from Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) would cover thousands of transmission and distribution pipelines, and associated pipeline facilities, as well as some gathering pipelines. Expectations for VRU (Vapor Recovery Units) capable of reliably handling peak production capacity are promising, given that initial production rates at new
wells are typically far higher than in subsequent months.
Optical Gas Inspection (OGI) requirements and intervals for upstream sites are currently based on expected production volumes but as anticipated previously, EPA rules will likely focus on the number of pieces of equipment installed on a site, regardless of production volumes. That is because surveys show that site emissions are primarily correlated to the number and type of equipment that can potentially fail and emit, not to the production volume. So, the most accurate approach is to calculate the “potential to emit” for every site, based on equipment counts and emissions factors. In practice, almost all sites that consist of more than a wellhead will fall under one of the several OGI inspection requirements. The EPA estimated this to be about 300,000 upstream sites—with the remainder being marginal production sites with single wellheads. To meet the number of inspections anticipated, the oil and gas industry will likely have to hire and train thousands of additional OGI inspectors to meet the requirements of the final rules, as well as identify and adopt bestin-class methane detection technologies to meet the new regulatory requirements, including aerial surveys, continuous point sensors, and continuous OGI cameras. A focus on finding and fixing big leaks faster is what counts most to reduce emissions.
Many publicly-traded companies, including those in the oil and gas industries, have adopted aggressive slates of related ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) philosophies, goals, and KPIs. By complying with ESG standards, they are positioning themselves as methane reduction leaders. And in a little more than one year, they’ll have a robust new set of rules to follow, and potentially significant fees to pay for methane emissions. But new costscalable, IoT-based, SCADA-compatible continuous-OGI technologies are available today that will minimize emissions and costs of deployment while making reporting and compliance as painless as possible.
The significance of continuous-OGI is that the EDF and EPA suggest 70% of all emissions are intermittent, and the only way to determine the operational root cause and achieve subsequent mitigation is with continuous monitoring. Cost-scalable, continuous and optical is a fantastic combination. As we like to say, you have to see it to solve it.
About the author: A native of Texas, Robert has been part of the oil & gas industry for ~30 years, focusing on problem solving and various technology initiatives in the realm of measurement operations, production optimization, enterprise SCADA, telemetry, and connectivity. He spent over a decade where he pioneered the introduction and adoption of Control Microsystems’ SCADAPack as well as solutions from Accutech Wireless, Trio DataCom and ClearSCADA. Since 2016, Robert has been active in accelerating adoption of several newer technologies ranging from cellular based autonomous instruments to WiFi in hazardous areas to connected operator initiatives, Edge computing platforms, and expansive connectivity networks with integrated components that leverage LoRaWAN and LTE. Having consulted to Kuva Systems since Dec 2020 and getting a feel for the potential of the offer, Robert joined Kuva full time in Oct 2022 as Vice President of Business Development where he is now focused on helping Oil & Gas Operators attain their ESG goals with a low-cost methane imaging camera that provides visual evidence of the leak origin so it can quickly be repaired as well as emissions quantifications.
The Deeper Impacts of School Shootings
By: Carolina Mozee and Richard Chung, Researchers at Iterate.ai; Brian Sathianathan Co-Founder of Iterate.ai; Dave Jenkins VP of Marketing and Technology Curation at Iterate.ai
The Mental Toll
School shootings impose long-term detrimental effects on the communities where they occur. Mental health suffers, surviving students fail to thrive to their potential, and the overall community endures long-term economic costs.
As a country, we are all suffering mentally to some degree. A majority of teens say they worry about a school shooting. This fear is linked to elevated anxiety levels among students, and many students under treatment admit that they are on high alert, constantly planning their escape route if violence breaks out in public. So it’s no surprise that 75% of young people and a majority of adults said that the anticipation of a mass shooting was a significant source of stress for them.
School no longer feels like a safe place. It’s hard for students to focus on getting a strong education when this fear is so prevalent. For this reason, there has also been a spike of 21% in prescriptions for antidepressants among youth within a 5-mile radius of a school shooting. Researchers at Yale University conducted a wider review of studies that followed shootings and found that other psychiatric conditions increase: anxiety disorders, panic attacks, substance abuse disorders, phobias, and other issues. Researchers admit that data is incomplete due to underreporting or poor tracking—the actual scope of problems could be much much worse.
Communities, where a shooting occurs, can also suffer from an increased rate of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). When people
typically hear the term PTSD, a common association are veterans. Researchers tracked 136 survivors of a shooting in Killeen TX, and found that 20% of the men and 36% of the women met the criteria for PTSD.
A third of adults now say they avoid certain places and events as a result of their fear of mass shootings. Mass shootings account for only 1% of shooting deaths in the US, but the impact in the public consciousness is much greater. The frequency of mass shootings, combined with the near-constant and ubiquitous media connectivity combine accumulating exposure to the stress of potential shootings. It’s not just the adults. According to a Stanford study published in June 2022, high school students that are exposed to school shootings are 3.7% less likely to graduate, 9.5% less likely to enroll in college, and 15.3% less likely to complete a bachelor’s degree before age 26. This is partially due to the fact that students exposed to school shootings are more likely to be chronically absent and to be held back a grade in the two years following the shooting. This lack of attendance is also linked to long-term harm to graduation rates and college enrollment rates.
The Economic Impact
The PBS investigation program “Newshour” found that the aggregate cost of school gun violence in not having those students grow up and lead lives is nearly $5.8 Billion.
Over a more extended period into adulthood, students in grades 9-11 who were exposed to school shootings are 6.3% less likely to be employed and have a 13.5% lower average annual earnings when they are 24-26 years. Each student exposed to a shooting could expect to earn $115,550 less throughout their lifetime. Roll those individual impacts out to the approximately 50,000 students who have been exposed, and the aggregate loss totals up to the $5.8 Billion mentioned above.
When a supermarket in Buffalo, NY suffered a mass shooting, the city budget was saddled with $500,000 in unanticipated and unbudgeted costs for first responder overtime and other city services. The impact is far worse when an entire small town unravels due to a mass shooting—the economic fallout from the Uvalde shooting is estimated at $244 Million, according to a report to the US House of Representatives. Additional economic impacts include reduced economic growth, home appreciation values are slower, and there are fewer new jobs in the areas.
Can Technology Help?
Confronting this enormous challenge has spurred some to look for technological solutions. Artificial Intelligence (AI) may hold some promise. As image recognition AI becomes exposed to more and more photos and videos, the pattern and object recognition algorithms get “smarter”, especially as the AI is trained to look for specific objects. In this case, AI can be trained to recognize weapons: guns, rifles, knives, and tactical vests. These AI monitors can be connected to existing security cameras, providing an unblinking and unwavering eye for weapons. Current accuracy is already above 90% and will improve with time.
“Our team took 25,000 images of weapon usage and identified the weapons in each scene, used computers to generate an additional 40,000 images, and then used these identifications to train an image AI to “see” the weapons. Identification can occur in as little as 30 milliseconds,” said Brian Sathianathan, co-founder and CTO of Iterate.ai. Alerts can be sent to onsite security officers and first responders. This technology has been deployed to hundreds of commercial locations and is now being piloted on school campuses and churches.
Security is best deployed in layers. AI threat awareness is not an absolute solution, but by accelerating the alert time, and by providing deeper, more accurate information to first responders, lives may be saved. AI can be used for the betterment of society. About the author: Brian started his career at Apple where he was initially hired for his software development and encryption skills. For 6 years at Apple, he led iPhone and Intel Mac initiatives within the very private New Product Introductions (a.k.a. Secret Products) Group. His two core groups designed the security and activation platform for the first iPhone, for which he holds patents. After 8 years total, Brian left Apple to be Founder/President of Avot Media, a software platform used by firms like Warner Bros to transcode video for Mobile. Avot was acquired by Smith Micro [NASDAQ: SMSI]. At Smith, Brian became head of the video business and was responsible for strategy, vision, and integration. After Avot and Smith, Brian joined the seed-stage investment team at Turner Media, where he sought out startups in the Social, Consumer, Advertising, and Recommendation spaces. Over two years, he participated in 13 investments and one acquisition (BleacherReport). Two of his startups were acquired (one by Apple) during that period. Brian is now the Co-Founder and Chief Technology/Digital Officer of Iterate.ai, an innovation ecosystem launched in 2013. Companies like Ulta Beauty, The Pampered Chef, Driven Brands, and Circle K leverage the “intelligent low-code” capabilities invented and patented by Brian and his team. Interplay dramatically speeds up and simplifies digital and AI-based innovation. Largely bootstrapped and highly capital efficient, Iterate revenues grew 287% from 2017 to 2020.
About the author: Dave Jenkins runs the marketing and technology curation practice for Iterate.ai. Having been a technologist for 20+ years, with exposure at all levels of deployment, he ran his own studio, was CTO at Backcountry.com just prior to their acquisition, managed professional services and consulting for Red Hat in EMEA and then APAC, directed online strategy for Caleres, and most recently grew a data visualization platform for Vision.Space. Dave is passionate about finding new technology and the unconventional solutions that technology can bring to business.
