INNOVATIONS AT THE WELL SITE/
Emissions Management & Reduction By Joe Etheridge, Encino Environmental Services
"W
hen you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind: it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science." Lord Kelvin The late physicist Lord Kelvin was known for his “stream of consciousness” ramblings; however, what he is essentially articulating is the principle “if you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”
Such is the dilemma with materially quantifying Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) attributes, particularly the “E” side of the equation. In order to transition away from “greenwashing” tactics to a more sophisticated method of climate accounting, we must first recognize that there is not a single point of truth, perspective or providential device that will provide an answer, let alone the correct one. Understanding that climate science is an extremely complex discipline – consisting of a litany of scientific sub-disciplines, and in some cases, geopolitical economics and market analysis – it stands to reason that objective measurements are needed to properly feed the climate model; principally measurements acquired from multiple points of view. Humans are naturally uncomfortable steeped in ignorance, and climate science – which has become contaminated by politics, media bias and personal emotion – has further clouded our understanding of environmental impacts from anthropogenic activities. Fortunately, through vertical integration of technologies, coupled with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), we now possess the ability to measure greenhouse gases (GHG) from both biogenic and anthropogenic sources from the ground to space and everywhere in between. Ground-based instruments consisting of standard metal oxide sensors to hyperspectral and multispectral imaging devices are used to collect “asset-grade data” and represent a class of devices known as continuous emissions monitoring systems (CEMS). These instruments are useful in understanding the characteristics and behavior of certain GHG species under various operational circumstances; however, local
measurements (though continuous) limit our ability to understand the system as a whole. For that, the same technologies used at the asset-level can be used by drone reconnaissance, helicopters and slow-speed airplanes to capture system behavior on a much larger scale. Although mid-air techniques capture system attributes beyond the asset (level), they are limited by dwell time and weather conditions which only provide a snapshot. Due to the democratization of space technologies, satellites have become useful in detecting and quantifying GHG emissions at the asset, area and/or basin level and may be used to qualify ground-based and mid-air observations. Furthermore, microsatellites (CubeSATs) which may circumnavigate the earth up 12 times per day, provide a higher degree of asset-revisitation which may alert stakeholders to potential environmental upsets and impacts. Combined with AI and ML intelligence, this new measurement ecosystem stands to revolutionize the way operators make decisions and creates a level of transparency that may cancel out some of the political, media and “community science” noise while optimizing climate performance. ................................................................................................ Joe Etheridge is a co-founder of Encino with 20 years in industry. Past positions include working Mass Emissions Cap and Trade (MECT) at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), as well as environmental field operations and corporate business unit support for ConocoPhillips Company. As the Chief Technical Officer of Encino, he is responsible for enhancing the technology, processes, systems and procedures used to help companies improve their climate performance. Mr. Etheridge holds a Bachelor's of Science in Bioenvironmental Sciences from Texas A&M University in College Station.
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