image: From left, Daniel Olsen, Dan Zimmerle, Bryan Willson, and Anna Hodshire, with the CSU Energy Institute, landed $326 million in federal awards to investigate ways to reduce methane emissions in collaboration with the oil and gas industry. The funding forms the university’s largest-ever research award package from a federal agency. Photo: Vance Jacobs
Credit: Colorado Sate University/ Vance Jacobs
The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency have awarded $326 million to three Colorado State University research projects that aim to improve U.S. oil and gas operations and reduce methane emissions nationwide.
The EPA’s Methane Emissions Reduction Program is providing the funding to the CSU Energy Institute and faculty working across multiple departments in the Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering, with the goal of helping oil and gas operators improve operational efficiency and manage emissions. The efforts will also support activity to build an inventory of methane emissions, improve air quality and offer workforce development.
The combined funding amount constitutes one of the largest federal award packages in the university’s history and will enable high-impact research, CSU Vice President for Research Cassandra Moseley said.
“We are proud to lead deployment of innovative solutions to emissions that will support small operators, contribute to workforce development and improve conditions for communities. This work will be accomplished at a massive scale,” Moseley said.
“CSU interdisciplinary research has provided solutions in this space for decades, and I look forward to seeing what these new partnerships – involving industry, the environmental community and local stakeholders – can accomplish in the future.”
Natural gas is widely seen as a bridge fuel to low-carbon energy. However, it is made primarily of methane – a powerful greenhouse gas contributor – which can escape from production, storage and transport systems, so even small natural gas leaks can reduce its benefit as an alternative fuel source. Additionally, methane is often co-emitted with other air pollutants that create ozone and air-quality impacts in local communities.
Researchers at CSU have been working for over 30 years to develop and implement solutions to such problems through the Energy Institute, headquartered at the Powerhouse Energy Campus.
One such example is the Methane Emissions Technology Evaluation Center (METEC), a large-scale facility where researchers collaborate with oil and gas industry partners and solution developers to create best practices in emissions leak detection, technology and training. METEC will lead two of the newly funded projects.
Dan Zimmerle, director of METEC, will lead research on the first of the three awarded projects, which will implement new mitigation technology at older, lower producing wells that have disproportionately high methane emissions.
“The project will develop a funding program that provides cost-effective mitigation solutions for these companies,” Zimmerle said.
The sites – known as marginal convention wells – often lack operational capabilities found at newer sites and belong to smaller operators with staff and capital limitations that can slow implementation of mitigation solutions.
“We know these solutions work and are effective. We want to make it as easy as possible for operators with less than $40 million in revenue and small staffs to implement them,” Zimmerle said.
The second funded project is also a METEC project and will develop a national methane emissions inventory.
Research Scientist Anna Hodshire will lead that work and said her team will develop a comprehensive emissions inventory across production basins in eastern Colorado, Wyoming and seven other states. The CSU team will assist in two other regions; ultimately, CSU will be involved in inventory development in 32 states that produce the vast majority of U.S. natural gas.
“METEC holds a unique position as a neutral third party that works with all the stakeholders in this space – including companies, local communities, the environmental community, regulators, training organizations and non-governmental organizations,” said Hodshire who is also an associated faculty member with the Department of Systems Engineering. “This project continues that role and further elevates us as a national resource for reducing emissions.”
The third funded project will be conducted primarily in the field and will work with a leading manufacturer of energy systems to co-develop and demonstrate solutions for methane emission reduction from natural gas engine-compressor sets. Professors Daniel Olsen and Bret Windom in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Timothy Vaughn at the Energy Institute will lead this work.
Olsen said the goal of the project is to reduce engine methane emissions by up to 90%.
“We are uniquely positioned to accomplish that thanks to our extensive experience and a long history of field studies and work with companies producing and using natural gas equipment,” he said.
The Energy Institute will organize and house the research and engagement activity associated with the award and continue its work bringing together researchers from across CSU’s campus.
Bryan Willson founded CSU’s Engines & Energy Conversion Laboratory and its Powerhouse Energy Campus in 1992, which paved the way for the Energy Institute, where he serves as executive director.
Throughout his career, Willson has worked to build bridges between industry and the environmental community in a variety of fields in the U.S. and globally and has founded several global companies that provide solutions to complex emissions challenges. He shared the importance of the university’s impartial leadership role to work across sectors in quantifying and reducing the environmental impacts from natural gas production and use.
“These projects will reduce climate emissions by hundreds of millions of tons, improve air quality and provide jobs in local communities, support small production companies and support national goals in energy independence,” Willson said.