EEMDL Announces Partnership with Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Expanding Its Work on Reliable Methane Inventories into Europe
Austin, Texas, September 5, 2023 – The Energy Emissions Modeling and Data Lab (EEMDL), an initiative of three U.S. universities to improve the accuracy of greenhouse gas emissions measurement and accounting, has formed a new research partnership with the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES) in the United Kingdom.
The partnership will expand EEMDL’s physical presence into the European energy market, where the methane intensity of imported natural gas is getting closer scrutiny from policymakers, the utility sector, investors and other stakeholders. Future natural gas imports may have to comply with strict limits on methane intensity in order to access the European market.
“Achieving Europe’s twin goals of ensuring energy security and accelerating the energy transition will require imported natural gas to have low emissions intensity,” said Arvind Ravikumar, EEMDL Co-Director and a faculty member of the Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.
“Choosing natural gas with low methane intensities will require measurement, modeling and data science tools that are transparent, peer-reviewed, and trusted by a range of stakeholders,” Ravikumar continued. “The team at EEMDL has developed and continues to refine the tools that will make policies and purchasing decisions around methane intensity simpler, faster and more transparent.”
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, trapping more than 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide over a 20-year timeframe. Through the Global Methane Pledge and other initiatives, more than 100 countries – including the U.S. – have made reducing methane emissions an urgent priority between now and 2030.
To support this effort, stakeholders in the U.K. and European Union want more visibility into the methane emissions that occur during the production, processing, and transportation of imported natural gas, how those emissions are measured and accounted for, and how those emissions will be reduced over time.
“The measurement, reporting and verification of methane emissions using a transparent and globally accepted methodology has become a crucial issue for the international gas and LNG community,” said OIES Director Bassam Fattouh.
Historically, methane emissions inventories and intensities have been based largely on assumptions derived from a relatively small number of real-world measurements. These assumptions often take the form of emissions factors, which are applied broadly to estimate the emissions from oil and gas activities at a corporate or industry level, or by geography.
Recent advances in technology allow for much greater monitoring and measurement of emissions in real time. These technological solutions include: On-site sensors, drones, aircraft and satellites.
“When deployed at scale, new technologies will collect vast amounts of data, measuring methane concentrations and other variables at different locations and different times across global oil and gas supply chains,” said David Allen, EEMDL Co-Director and the Melvin H. Gertz Regents Chair in Chemical Engineering at UT Austin.
“Modeling and other data science solutions are required to translate snapshot measurement data collected by a variety of technologies across different spatial and temporal scales into useful information relevant to corporate reporting, public policy, or international trade,” Allen continued. “The science behind these tools is complex, but the users of the information will demand high quality, transparent, measurement-informed inventories that can be used to create baselines, measure progress towards emission reduction goals and calculate methane intensities as needed.”
EEMDL was launched in January 2023 by UT Austin, Colorado State University and the Colorado School of Mines. A model developed by researchers affiliated with EEMDL – the Fugitive Emissions Abatement Simulation Toolkit (FEAST) – was used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to evaluate the role of new technologies such as drones, aircraft, and satellites in methane regulations such as leak detection and repair (LDAR) programs.
In addition to industry consortium financial support, EEMDL-affiliated researchers have also been awarded approximately $11 million in research grants from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Innovative Methane Measurement, Monitoring and Mitigation Technologies program.
The EPA and DOE initiatives are central to the Biden Administration’s strategy for meeting the Global Methane Pledge, which calls for a 30% reduction across all major methane sources, including oil, gas, coal, agriculture and landfills.
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 also imposes new fees on U.S. methane emissions from upstream production locations if those emissions exceed 0.2% of the natural gas sent for sale from those locations.
An upstream methane intensity threshold of 0.2% for imports of pipeline natural gas or liquefied natural gas (LNG) is currently under review by the European Parliament, and the Biden White House and European Commission are also coordinating on methane reduction strategies to support continued use of U.S. produced LNG in Europe, which proved vital to meeting the European Union’s climate and security goals following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
“Europe has been preoccupied by its gas supply crisis over the past year, but U.S. legislation and climate events in southern Europe are pushing environmental legislation back up the agenda,” said OIES Distinguished Fellow Jonathan Stern. “With the huge amount of additional LNG which has been and will continue to be imported – much of it from the U.S. – replacing Russian pipeline gas, the need for accurate measurement of emissions has become a crucial issue, and this will be an important element of our partnership.”
ABOUT EEMDL
The Energy Emissions Modeling and Data Lab (EEMDL) is a multi-disciplinary research and education center with a mission to be the global data and analytics hub to support improved greenhouse gas emissions accounting across energy supply chains.
ABOUT OIES
The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES) is a world leading independent and autonomous energy research institute, publishing unique analysis of topical energy issues concerning production, consumption, markets, policy, regulation and the energy transition across the entire global energy economy.
Media and stakeholder contact:
Simon Lomax, EEMDL Director of External Relations
+1 202-379-6971 (c)
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