Colorado gas players vie for cleaner future
A handful of entities engaged in Colorado natural gas activity agreed March 11 to take part in a pilot program meant to reduce methane emissions from the sector, a project coordinator announced.
Project Canary is working with dozens of companies engaged in upstream activities, as well as pipeline and utility companies, to work on its so-called Responsibly Sourced Gas pilot project in the state.
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The pilot project is meant to, through data monitoring and other technologies, help the companies involved with their efforts to voluntarily reduce methane emissions from the natural gas sector to 1% or less within the next four years.
“Project Canary’s solution dramatically transforms how companies measure environmental performance by combining real-time, on-site monitoring with trusted, independent verification and analysis,” Project Canary co-founder and CEO Chris Romer said.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) finds that methane emissions are the second-largest cause of climate change, behind carbon dioxide. The IEA said last year that methane emissions could remain elevated even with industry-led initiatives to cut back.
“While methane tends to receive less attention than CO2, reducing methane emissions will be critical to avoid the worst effects of climate change,” the agency stated.
For all conventional energy resources, natural gas operations emit more methane emissions than either coal, oil or biofuels, the IEA estimated.
Project Canary partners include pipeline company Kinder Morgan.
“We are excited to be part of this industry-led pilot as we evaluate new opportunities to responsibly deliver low-carbon energy for the benefit of the people, communities and business we serve,” Will Brown, the company’s vice president for natural gas pipeline operations, said.
The US Energy Information Administration estimates natural gas accounts for about a third of the power on the US grid. Home to the Denver-Julesburg basin, Colorado is the seventh-largest natural gas producer in the US.