 Good afternoon everyone welcome to our briefing looking at the economic and climate implications of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector My name is Carol Werner, and I'm the director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute We are very glad that you're here for this discussion this afternoon we think there are so many things that are going on with regard to methane which is part of a group of short-live climate pollutants that All of which are very very important to address, but methane is Another very troubling piece of this whole picture and is an area that I think is growing in attention Across the country which we think is very important that we all learn more about it What can be done about it? Where is it coming from? What are solutions and so that we just learn more from the from looking at the science through what this means In terms of ways to deal with it in terms of the policy the regulatory process technology solutions voluntary actions And so we are very very glad to have this panel to address a lot of these issues And so we hope that you will See this as an important way to help make sure that we really get a powerful Discussion going with regard to how we resolve issues around methane Obviously methane comes from a whole variety of sources all of which need to be dealt with It creates because methane has a large impact on climate In an outsize impact on that at the same time it also means that addressing it means that we can have an outsize impact in terms of addressing climate and And And also because we know that methane emissions in terms of looking at the different sources the largest source The largest single source of methane emissions is what comes from the whole oil and gas sector in terms of looking at Emissions from the production through the distribution Cycle and so to start us off today I first want to turn to dr. Amanda stout who will talk a little bit about the science of methane and what this means in terms of impacts upon climate and Amanda is the director of the board on atmospheric sciences and climate and The polar research board at the National Academy of Sciences and of course the whole Impact of looking at things like methane and what is happening with regard to climate and And and that this is really important in terms of looking at the impact in terms of our polar regions and They the huge impact there so and prior to joining The board on atmospheric sciences and climate Amanda had spent several years as a senior climate scientist at the National Wildlife Federation and but she Has done much much in the way of research and modeling with regard to looking at at climate and What this means in terms of climate science impacts and the Arctic and beyond Amanda Thank you so much and good afternoon to everyone. That is not my picture And and I venture to say that there are very few climate science talks that have started with a picture of Abraham Lincoln Maybe this is the first But for those of you who don't know the National Academy of Sciences was founded by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 and President Lincoln had the foresight to know that our nation needed a source of independent and objective advice on matters relating to science technology engineering and medicine And that's just what this organization has been providing for over 150 years Now Abraham Lincoln might have had a lot of foresight about our nation's needs for science But I doubt that he had foresight to expect that one of the most pressing issues of our time is Climate change and what we're going to do about it But the fact is that the National Academy of Sciences have published dozens of reports on climate science Going back to the 1970s In fact, one of the first reports we published is the famous Charney report Which did the first calculation of how much warming you might get from a doubling of carbon dioxide and they got it pretty much right We did a report in 2001 at the request of President George W. Bush climate change science That laid out our understanding at the time You may be familiar with America's climate choices that came out in 2010 in 2011 at requests of Congress as well And this broad body of work has helped us understand what we know about climate change And it drawing upon that work and about the work of all the scientists who contributed to it We know that human activities are changing climate Perhaps the most clear treatment of that is in this booklet that we published earlier this year There's copies out on the table if you want it climate change evidence and causes and we did this report together with our sister Organization in the United Kingdom the Royal Society and it lays out I think really clearly the things that we know about climate science, so I'm going to just go through them pretty quickly We know why carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases like methane cause warming. We understand the physics of the greenhouse effect We know that greenhouse gases are increasing in the atmosphere CO2 today has increased by about 40 percent over the last 200 years Methane has increased by about a hundred and fifty percent over the last 200 years And we know that these values are higher than at any time going back for the last 800,000 years based on our observations in ice cores We also know that the planet has warmed by about a degree and a half Fahrenheit since 1900 And we know this because we have thousands of places around the planet where we are measuring the temperature And then we have multiple different independent analyses of those temperature data that have all come to the same conclusion about the temperature record We know that the planet is changing in other ways that are consistent with warming We know that ice is decreasing Snow is decreasing the heat content in the ocean is increasing and our sea levels are increasing as well And we know that more warming is expected as we continue to put carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere this these Two maps show the amount of warming we might expect if temper if our emissions continue on a business as usual trajectory in which to case we're looking at something on the order of 4.7 to 8.6 degree Fahrenheit warming by 2100 That's the right hand map But we also know on the flip side that reductions in emissions can limit this future warming And you can see on the left-hand map that we could have significantly less warming if we were to take Major reductions in emissions Finally, we know that just a few degrees of warming is a cause for concern Temperatures during the last ice age were just five to seven degrees cooler than they are today So the type of warming that we're talking about is Significant and we know that the warming we've already experienced is already causing widespread changes in regional and local temperature and Precipitation is causing changes in weather extremes. We're seeing more frequent heavy rainfall events more frequent heavy snowfall events more frequent heat waves and We know that there are already being seen impacts on human societies and the natural world So there's the question. How can we limit future warming? And the answer to this question is at once deceptively easy and incredibly difficult This is how it was put in this report by the National Research Council in 2010 The United States needs prompt and sustained strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions All right, so if you're going to reduce your emissions the first step would be to know what are your emissions and Indeed the Environmental Protection Agency has been completing inventories of US greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 And here's the pie chart of the gas emissions in 2012 You can see that carbon dioxide is the largest one in this pie chart And that is the main reason why most of our attention has focused on what we can do to limit carbon dioxide in the atmosphere but you'll notice that there are a few other gases there to methane and nitrous oxide and These gases are important as well, and I think we're increasingly recognizing the importance of them For one thing these these gases are much more potent than co2 So if you look over a hundred years a single molecule of methane will have 28 times more warming than a single molecule of co2 If you look over a shorter time period like 20 years a single molecule of methane will have something like 84 times as much warming As a single molecule of co2 So methane packs a pretty big punch These gases are also shorter lived than co2, so we think of methane as a significant short-lived climate plume as was mentioned before And here's one way to think about this This is a plot from the recent intergovernmental panel on climate change report that came out in 2013 The red line on the top shows what basically they did an experiment where they said let's do emissions for one year And then let's track the temperature response to those emissions over Several decades. So the red line on the top shows how the temperature response to carbon dioxide and you see that it has a long sustained impact on the climate Methane which is in the orange Has a similar magnitude of impact in this in the near term after it's emitted over the first couple decades But then it's rapidly removed from the atmosphere. So after about 50 years the amount of warming from methane is negligible You can see that there are a whole range of other short-lived climate pollutants that have other lifetimes and impacts as well So what does this mean in terms of? Are what we can do in terms of controls Well, this report from the academies that came out in 2011 Made a strong point that controls on carbon dioxide and on these short-lived climate pollutants affect different aspects of the climate If and this is how they put it the effective mitigation of methane and black carbon and other short-lived climate pollutants is to trim the peak Warming rather than to limit the long-term warming to with to which the earth is subjected if Early action to mitigate methane emissions was done instead of action that could have reduced net cumulative carbon emissions The long-term CO2 concentration would be increased In fact, there was an analysis that came out just last year where they did this experiment in a model So the top line shows the warming if we follow a business as usual trajectory for greenhouse gas emissions the Sort of greenish yellow line shows what would happen if you just reduce CO2 and you can see in the short term up to 2075 That that warming still increases pretty rapidly, but then eventually we start to level off The orange line shows what would happen if you have reduced the short-lived climate pollutants And you can see that in the short term over the next few decades You can slow warming significantly more than you could if you were just dealing with CO2 emissions And finally if you look at the pinkish magenta line You can see that if you were to do both the CO2 and the short-lived climate pollutants You get the benefits both in the short term and in the long term and you're able to reduce your CO2 levels And you're warming. I mean I'm sorry you're warming overall in the long term more There are several other reasons why you might want to think about doing something in the short term We are already seeing impacts So of course anything that we can do to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the warming now should address those impacts It will also be important in terms of slowing the rate of warming and for things like ecosystems Which are struggling to adapt that rate is very important It also could provide us some time to build resilience within our human systems to adapt to the changes that are inevitable And finally there may be some other benefits in terms of health and agriculture from doing some of these actions to reduce methane emissions and other short-lived climate pollutants All right, so what are these emissions of methane? Carol mentioned that there are many And here's the EPA's inventory from 2012 Something like 40% of the emissions come from fossil fuel energy And it's from a whole range of different points along the the pathway from extracting the fossil fuels To production to distribution even the pipelines that deliver gas to our homes Much of that energy is lost in terms of leakage from the system and would have economic value if it were captured And my colleagues on the panel will be talking in a lot more detail about the opportunities to do something about that methane Those methane emissions it bears noting that there are some other Significant sources of methane one is from agriculture and this is partly from the way that we manage our manure and Partly from what goes on in the guts of cows and sheep and pigs and that sort of thing And they're actually there are efforts underway to try and address some of those emissions as well And finally waste is a large source of emissions And that's largely the gas that outflows from landfills and again There are fairly low technology solutions to that problem as well as many of these other problems So one big takeaway in terms of methane emissions reductions is rather than trying to do a wholesale change in the way that we Provide energy to our economy you can do a number of relatively small focused Low technology solutions to address part of the problem You can get a pretty bang for the buck out of technology that we already know how to apply The other thing I want to point out about this is that It's actually really hard to do an inventory of methane and there's quite a bit of debate about these numbers and what are the different sources And that's an area of active research right now And in fact we at the National Academy has had a whole workshop on that just last week So I think with that I'm gonna turn it over to my panelists and Just remind everyone that all of the reports from the National Academy of Sciences are free and available Online and you can find them in lots more at americasclimatechoices.org Thank you So we will now turn to our next panelist LG Holstein who is the senior director for strategic planning at the environmental defense fund In their Washington DC office LG brings a wealth of experience on the policy side He has been in senior positions in government including As well as in the private sector and he has been in previous assignments at the Department of Energy at NOAA the White House he's worked here on Capitol Hill and He also has worked at the National Conference of State Legislature So he's sort of seen the policy side from a whole lot of different perspectives and angles And he also has been involved in the private sector and of course at EDF There is much much work and commissioning of reports underway with regard to methane emissions And and of course as part of their overall Climate agenda and LG will be talking to us about some of that LG Thank you very much Carol and Carol. Thank you again for hosting this panel today We hope by the time the panel is over with that we will this afternoon have convinced you that action on carbon pollution is Tremendously important, but action on some of these short-lived climate forces climate pollutants such as methane Is equally important in order to as Amanda beautifully described effect Not only the overall climate, but very importantly the rate of change Which specifically of course goes to the what we actually experience and the generation or us experience in the near term And I tend to think of it also Amanda as Buying the time that we need to come up with the solutions That will mean a cleaner environment and lower emissions And avoiding that tipping point that we're also familiar with and concerned about When it becomes impossible to to go to turn the clock back and we've launched into a a new era of truly disastrous impacts on our on our planet on our society Societies and our economies So let me pick up then where Amanda left off Amanda. I don't want to steal your pen Is that yours? No, I will steal it then Let me pick up where Amanda left off and talk for a moment then about solutions to the methane problem now We believe again, I'm with Environmental Defense Fund That one of the most important solutions is for the government to take action And specifically that means the environmental protection agency using its existing authorities and the Bureau of Land Management now David Doniger in a few minutes my colleague in NRDC will be talking in greater detail About the EPA opportunity But let me just capture the idea behind what we're looking for from the Bureau of Land Management BLM under federal law is is required to Make public lands available for multiple use so that does mean the mining of coal and it does mean The the exploration and production for natural gas and oil and of course that Policy has been in place for many many years But they're also required because these are public lands to avoid waste and to avoid unnecessary pollution and to undertake activities that as technology changes ensure that the public's resources are protected in the long term and That the and that the waste does not does not occur now The waste has two implications when we're talking about public lands one implication is the obvious one Which is when you have waste such as the leakage? of Methane from natural gas operations on public lands you get more pollution more climate change and faster climate change Amanda has described But the other dimension is that the public actually potentially loses out on royalties Because those emissions go up into the air excessive emissions That are beyond BLM's reach or beyond what BLM decides it's going to reach and those Resources are then lost in terms of doing the calculation of what you and I as co-owners And other members of the public as co-owners of these resources Should recover in terms of the the royalties and So from our standpoint in the environmental movement It's critically important for the government to take the lead in the in this area And demonstrate that they can use existing authorities and responsibilities that they have under key statutes in order to Ensure that the natural gas revolution that's occurring Does not end up worsening our environmental problems instead of potentially making them better than they would otherwise be so We at EDF understood Going back several years That the methane problem was a more serious one perhaps than many people had realized but we also quickly discovered that there was not adequate information about the sources and of methane emissions and about Opportunities for doing something about limiting those emissions and So we've undertaken about 16 different scientific studies And we've undertaken them with lots of interesting partners oil and gas industry partners universities independent scientists and the main point I want to convey is that every single one of those studies Is going to be an or in the case of the several that have been completed have been peer reviewed And so they will end up in Scientific journals and they will have gone through a very rigorous process of a review They will all be subject to the independent oversight by outside scientists So we have no control over what the conclusions are though We obviously have our own views about what the policy implications are as I've just briefly described with respect to EPA and BLM One of the most significant Studies that we've I should say all the studies will be complete by the end of this year, but they won't all Necessarily have been published by then again. That's not up to us It's up to the peer reviewers and the professional journals, but let's just say going into 2015. You'll start seeing a Flurry of these studies as they begin to make their way out through the scientific community So this is one of the more noteworthy studies that we undertook we commissioned ICF international Which many of you know is a well-known widely respected company with lots of international experience particularly in the oil and gas sector and Asked them to take a look at what the opportunities were for reducing methane emissions and and in particular help us take a look at what and here of course is the key question because if we're persuaded by Amanda That we should do something And that the problem of methane emissions is serious and needs to be viewed together with what we call the and proposition Together with the longer-term problem of carbon emissions, then we have to say okay fine But what's it gonna cost and will it derail? the natural gas revolution that's occurring in America, so You see if I can hit the right button here Clearly not the right one this one yes Always go to the forward arrow. So the first time I saw this slide. I wanted to run from the room But let me assure you you don't have to And it doesn't matter if you can't read the small print because the high concept here is going to be very straightforward Those of you who picked up the handouts out on the outside table will have Will have this slide but basically what this slide does is take a look at the cost of addressing methane emissions across the the natural gas supply chain And tries to get a handle on the key technologies And the and the cost of doing something about methane emissions So let me say a couple of things and first and then I will Give you simultaneous United Nations translation of the slide itself The most important thing to understand when we're talking about the existing infrastructure about infrastructure that's leaking methane is That although methane emissions will continue to rise in coming years if we don't do anything about it because of the natural gas revolution that's underway in America the vast majority of methane emissions in coming years will continue to come from the vast network of Existing infrastructure that we already have in this country. So yes, the natural gas revolution Will further increase those emissions, but we have a great deal of equipment already in the ground and business procedures Already in place That we're suggesting need to be addressed so in the in the small print What you're seeing is the a series of bars that represent different type different Parts of the supply chain different pieces of equipment and so forth the width of the bars Refers to the num the amount of methane that Is implicated by whatever particular bar it is so that Horizontal access is billions of cubic feet of methane and the bars as they rise or as they go vertically Indicate a cost of doing something about the emissions that come from those particular types of Activities and equipment and so to simply capture the Fundamental message of this slide it is that the The bars that you see in green represent steps that can be taken with respect to pieces of equipment I'll give you an example or two in a moment, but steps that can be taken that actually will result in a positive payback to the industry participant that undertakes those changes and That happens simply because of the value of the resource itself if we're no longer emitting it But rather keeping it in the system then that brings value back to the company Whereas the blue bars as you see them over on the right-hand side indicate some cost Going forward to the industry, but if you take basically all of these technologies pieces of equipment if you take all of these Practices represented in this in this slide what you end up with is a very important bottom line And that bottom line is that we can knock off about 40 percent of these methane emissions That we are experiencing at a cost of less than 1 cent per thousand cubic feet of gas produced Now if we think of the price of natural gas now, and of course, it's fluctuating but over four dollars per thousand cubic feet of gas One cent Per MCF of gas produced seems to us anyway like a reasonable price to pay or to ask the industry to pay with respect to getting a handle on this problem and Ensuring that the natural gas revolution really does redown to the benefit of our of our country and of course these are solutions that can be taken overseas And shared with lots of other countries that are wrestling with greenhouse gas pollution as well The kinds of Technologies or equipment that I'm describing are very mundane things. They're things like compressors There are things like Valves there are things Throughout the supply chain that we're all familiar with but have been put in at it We're put in at a time when people weren't including us in the environmental community weren't paying particular attention to methane so for example imagine a valve that was designed to operate based on the pressure of the natural gas in the line and The valve actually opens and closes by emitting by emitting methane and of methane. I should say is 97 or 98 percent of the volume of natural gas so sometimes we use these terms methane and natural gas interchangeably Let me then go to the next slide and Magically there we go. So this is a map that you may also have it's also out in the handouts This is from a second study. We did because we even though you just heard me say that These pieces of equipment are Mundane in the sense that they are already out there in the supply chain We wanted to know well who's out there making the equipment that doesn't leak who's out there making the Compressors That are sealed Who's out there making the seals that don't leak and so we commissioned yet another company dot-2 Which is very good at doing this kind of market survey work and you can see here a Representation of the number of country companies around the country that are already engaged in this business So we know that we have the manufacturing infrastructure necessary to develop and Put into the field the technologies we need indeed these companies are already making those technologies and that of course begs the question well if Indeed this is a problem and if it's so inexpensive to do something about methane And we have all these companies and workers out there Benefiting from doing that then why do we need EPA and why do we need BLM to do something to make sure That the industry actually uses these products and part of the answer to that question is to tell you that there are Leading members of this industry that are already moving forward and making commitments to do the right thing But there's no reason why they should be put at some sort of competitive disadvantage Or looking over their shoulders at maybe somewhat less responsible brethren who would choose not to spend even that Penny per MCF or less on making these changes It's a little bit like thinking about why it is that so many companies or even some of us as individuals Don't make energy efficiency improvements to our factories or to our homes And the answer often is is because they have different priorities or because maybe they don't even know about this as a problem And that's a classic case of what's going on in the oil and gas industry in America right now They are racing to tie up the the shale properties from which all this new oil and gas can be produced the the Exploration and production budgets of these companies are heavily dominated by acquiring these lands and beginning production and Very important for them building the many Thousands of miles of gathering lines and pipelines necessary to bring that new product to market So what am I simply saying that the problem that Amanda described and the solutions that I've talked about are not first in order of Priority necessarily for some of these companies and let's face it some of these companies would prefer to have some of their other members in the industry take the lead On this and while they continue with business as usual Whereas we would like to accelerate the change over in this industry in order to make sure that the natural gas Revolution in this country ends up being a true winner. Thank you and we're going to continue looking at what the possibilities for Dealing with methane emissions are by hearing next from David Doniger who is a policy director and senior attorney for the Climate and clean air program for NRDC the Natural Resources Defense Council David has been involved in working on climate and And and clean air issues since 1978 so he's been involved in so many of the clean air act legislation and regulatory issues as well as climate issues including looking at stratospheric ozone depletion as well as the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 and he Also spent time during the Clinton administration at EPA as a senior counsel and also at the council on environmental quality Went back to NRDC and has been heavily involved in a number of cases that now have gone to the Supreme Court and Working forward with regard to looking at how we resolve some of these climate issues David Thanks very much. Call you make me sound older than most of the natural gas infrastructure, but But younger than younger than power plants Well, so NRDC comes to this problem with a perspective that We how does this work by the way? There we go that that we have a portfolio of major sources of Carbon pollution of heat trapping pollution and we need to act on all of these in fact We need to be aiming towards a clean energy future Which is dominated by efficiency and renewable energy? But for a long time we're going to be using Fossil fuels and especially For a long time we'll be using natural gas and it seems critical to us not to leak it away into the atmosphere It's also critical to the efficacy of the clean power plant the power plant standards to Maximize the use of efficiency and renewables to but to the extent that gas is used to Have that delivery of the gas be as tight as it can be so you don't undermine and erode the Point of combustion advantage the gas has over coal By leaking stuff away on the way to the on the way to the plants the Here's how we see the methane regulations That we believe are needed fitting in the top of the list is the clean power plan If a 26% reduction is made by 2020 Which is the EPA estimate of the impact of its interim standard that would be about a 650 million ton reduction of CO2 in 2020 below 2005 levels We've had significant progress on fuel efficiency and carbon emissions from new vehicles through two rounds of Clean car and fuel economy standards And a one round and a second one underway for trucks Which would reduce emissions about 200 million tons of CO2 below expected levels by 2020 and And the next biggest thing is the leakage of methane from the oil and gas sector and as I'm going to explain We think that somewhere around 130 million tons equivalent of CO2 Can be reduced maybe more than that through a set of measures that are Based on the studies or based on the the analysis that LG already laid out and NRDC Environmental Defense Fund CR club to clean our task force earth justice number of other organizations are working together to press the administration to Make the decision to go forward with methane regulations as part of the strategy of Getting to the target the president's target of a 17 percent overall in greenhouse gas reduction From the 2005 level by 2020 and as an important part of whatever the target would be for 2025 or 23 in the Coming round of treaty talks so We've heard several different Numbers used we actually are using the Potency estimates from the fifth From the most recent IPCC report 36 times more potent than CO2 per pound over a hundred year time frame 87 times more potent over a 20 year time frame The EPA estimates that there are 7.7 million metric tons of methane emitted from that system We think it could be substantially more than that actually The 7.7 million tons it would be equivalent to more than 260 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent and With enhanced standards We think this could be reduced by up to half Which is I was saying earlier would equate to about 230 million metric tons of CO2e each year And it could be accomplished in about five years And it could be bigger than this if the actual leakage is bigger because then the measures I'm about to talk about would scoop up more methane and keep it out of the air There were some initial standards set by EPA in 2012 for the burst of emissions that come at the At the end of the fracking process the so-called completion emissions I think of it as popping the top on a soda can and there's this whoosh of emissions that are here Today and gone in about two weeks but it's a significant amount of VOCs and methane that escapes into community air and into the global atmosphere and EPA's requirements for So-called green completions equipment basically to mobile equipment that can separate the Liquids in the gases and then recover the gases instead of leaking them away is a very sound measure Pays for itself very cheap if it costs anything at all And I think it's just about fully in effect and EPA is starting to pick up the benefit of it in the inventory But it's only one measure at one, you know at the well pad. There's more to be done together the organizations I mentioned they're working together have identified five categories of Emission points which to us make Perfect sense to for EPA to tackle going forward Equipment leaks up and down the system There is a these pneumatic Equipment that I think LG mentioned compressors Liquids unloading which is basically you know these wells get a case of bronchitis and they need to have the liquid removed from them in order to breathe freely and continue to pump their Their methane and that can be done in ways that Releases a lot of methane or ways that does not and then the fourth item there is referring referring to the completion emissions Drilling of fracking wells whose primary purpose is said to be oil Recovery, but which contain a lot of gas and are not covered by the regulations. I was mentioning before So if we extend the green completion requirements to those to those oiling gassy oil wells, that would be another major Way to pick up methane Productions and you can see again the numbers that we're talking about now EPA and the administration to publish the methane strategy Administration published a methane strategy in March. It promises decisions this fall Sort of a tryout trade tri-trio triad of alternatives one is to rely on continued voluntary programs. I hope that was just You know to fill out the trip trio. I it would be I would be shocked and very upset if EPA had opts for a continued Voluntary approach for the reasons that LG mentioned Good guys in the industry leaders in the industry do the right thing But not everybody does the right thing and the whole point of having standards is to level a playing field For the industry, but also to capture the emissions that are left behind by the laggards So the the the methane strategy also Points to two routes that could be chosen under the Clean Air Act one is to use again the route which was chosen for the completion emissions the regulation of VOC's and and in situations where a Mixed stream of VOC's and methane are emitted together a VOC control can amount to the same thing and capture Both the methane and the VOC's That's fine when the stream contains both VOC's and nothing but as you move farther down the The the system especially you get to the processing plants the whole point of which is to separate out everything but the methane and Ship methane or 97% methane down the pipeline System further you end up with no VOC's or virtually no VOC's in the stream and a VOC based regulatory system sort of Stops there the leakage continues, but it's all methane So the scope of the VOC rules does not match the scope of the leakage problem another Issue when dealing with existing sources is that the VOC regime can be applied only in the areas that Don't attain the standards for ozone smog which is what VOC Which is the reason VOC's are regulated and The oil and gas system Has areas which do which operates in areas which do violate the ozone standard But most of the system and most of the leakage are outside those areas. So the VOC authorities Don't operate outside those zones we Advocate that EPA use section 111 B as in boy and D as in dog The same provisions which are being applied to the power plant regulations because they apply to the emission of in this case methane irrespective of where Your sources are located irrespective whether they're in smog areas or not Those methane regulations under 111 D would also apply to Any of the equipment that leaks methane Irrespective of whether it's still leaking volatile organic chemicals. So those two regulatory paths have a very different yield In terms of how effective they would be and we estimate that you get eight to ten times as much methane Captured by dealing with this problem directly under the 111 authorities Then you would if you go at it through the surrogate of VOC's The actual regulatory steps are almost the same EPA rights of guidance states have to write plans for the existing sources EPA rights standards that apply directly with the new sources that all the procedures are essentially the same and the Technology tests are more or less the same the economic tests more or less the same But scope is different and scope matters here So to Sum up the direct methane approaches to us the eight to ten times more effective approach than the surrogate of regulating smog forming compounds Much more effective even even more than that compared to voluntary programs These approaches can be built on previous EPA standards. There's plenty of examples of leak detection and repair plenty of other standards that That address this kind of equipment none of this is rocket science none of this even involves the the Kind of the structural issues that are involved in the power plant plan. It's much simpler than the power plant plan The Clean Air Act provides the authority as I said direct regulation if you assume that The GWP is 25 or 28. You're talking about almost a hundred million metric tons if it's 36 You're talking 130 million metric tons Or and if the leakage rates are actually more than that it could be a whole lot more than than either of those numbers These measures are highly cost-effective. They can be done quickly Mentioned compliance and implementation is straightforward. It's not And have the complexities of the clean power plan and It seems like us it seems like a piece it seems like falling off a log to us in terms of a simple straightforward Decision that EPA should make the administration should make and that frankly would be quite straightforward for The industries involved to comply with And and we hope that's what what goes forward. Thank you There's also been a lot of work going on over at the World Resources Institute with regard to looking at methane emissions and the power plant standards and to Hear about that work We will now turn to Michael. Oh beater who is a senior associate for energy and climate at WRI Thanks, Carol and thanks to all of you guys for coming here I will try to keep my presentation brief because following after Amanda LG and David means that there's not much left to say on this issue So I'm gonna start my presentation with a quick statistic Which I think is actually pretty interesting and helps put the methane emissions question in context Methane emissions just from oil and natural gas development in the US Or more than the direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions from US steel iron and aluminum manufacturing combined And that's just using a 100 year equivalent that Amanda talked about in a shorter time frame of 20 years than Methane from oil and natural gas development is actually a much bigger problem than those three pretty big industries Which is why we need to get this right The EIA projects that natural gas productions can increase by about 50% Between now and 2040 it's already increased by about 50% just in the past six or seven years So from a climate air and water standpoint is pretty critical that we Get natural gas development right and then we start acting on it very soon We don't have the time to take a wait-and-see approach The good news is that we know how to address these issues and this gets to a lot of what LG talked about studies from NRDC The ICF and EDF study that LG referred to Paper we put out last year at WRI as well as EPA's natural gas star program all Demonstrate that there are many cost-effective Technologies currently available that can get at the large and small sources of methane in the oil and natural gas field I should also point out the Center for Sustainable Shale Development Which is a consortium of industry? Sorry of companies and NGOs including EDF that's active in Pennsylvania Which is working to put some of these best practices into use in everyday operations And not to take nothing away from from the success of this group, which I think is great But but voluntary actions like these as David mentioned are not going to be sufficient to address the scope of the problem That is out there today Before going forward, I just want to say a very quick word on the issue of flaring and because it seems to be a hot button issue, especially in a lot of oil producing states and Just to clear up any misconceptions about flaring as a way to reduce methane emissions It certainly is an option for reducing methane emissions, but it should be viewed as a stop-gap measure And not a solution From a climate perspective flaring can Reduce emissions of methane by about 98 percent increasing co2 of course because you're burning natural gas But incomplete combustion during the flaring process means that you've got potentially significant Emissions of methane carbon monoxide hazardous air pollutants and volatile organic compounds all of which are not nice things to have around We know that where flaring occurs it occurs primarily at oil wells that have a lot of natural gas But there's not enough Infrastructure there to bring that natural gas to market Thankfully, this is a problem that can be solved with the right incentives Congress and the states can help incentivize that infrastructure to put flared gas to more constructive use So now getting back to Where the emissions come from in the oil and natural gas process? LG's Organization EDF is putting together a number of studies that he mentioned Which will help shed a lot of light on this issue because right now it there is a pretty Large gap in our knowledge base simply because it's really difficult to track and to measure methane emissions. They're invisible And you know loss of methane loss of natural gases is too often built into the Tariff structure of companies in this industry. So it's sort of a pass-through cost It's they they they essentially just write it off But as this graphic illustrates, there are emissions coming from every stage in the natural gas life cycle This data comes from EPA's greenhouse gas inventory And it's tough to see the fine print but to sum up what's happening beneath this These pictures is a list of studies that have come out in the past five years or so almost all of which have indicated that The scale of methane emissions is actually greater and potentially much much greater than EPA currently estimates in its inventory You know the good news is as I mentioned and others have mentioned that we do know a lot about how to get at these emissions and to Give you just a brief overview of a three Options from different aspects of the life cycle and hopefully not bore you too much and not get into too much technical detail Just go through a few of those right now as representative of examples first our pneumatic devices which LG covered a little bit these are Devices that they're regularly various components of the natural gas that flow through them temperature pressure flow rate and As LG mentioned they are powered by natural gas and in the course of that of normal operations they bleed Potentially significant amount of natural gas into the atmosphere there about one-third of all Methane emissions in the production sector and We know that existing equipment that's in place now as has been mentioned Will be a major source of emissions for years to come But the good news is that we can retrofit or replace these high bleed pneumatic devices with Equivalent devices that do the same thing but with much less impact on the climate There are low bleed and no bleed equivalents that can put a big dent in these emissions No bleed Pneumatic devices are an option when there is access to grid electricity But even if there is no grid electricity Available retrofitting high-bleed pneumatics with low bleed equivalents does make sense and is A way to reduce methane emissions that an investment that pays for itself in typically three years or less Next compressors which do what they sound like they compress they increase pressure at the You know all the way from the production stage through the transmission and distribution A Big compressors called centrifugal compressors vent or leak a lot of methane through seals A lot of them a lot of the existing compressors have what's called wet seals They use oil to try to keep methane from escaping into the atmosphere the problem is that This oil when it absorbs too much natural gas it loses its effectiveness and eventually a lot of natural gas is Emitted into the atmosphere so there are two options available for Dealing with these wet seal compressors you might expect one of them is dry seal compressors. They don't use oil They admit a lot less methane The other is to install equipment that can capture and reroute gas back Into the processing plant This is gas that would otherwise be vented flared leaked And both of these options are cost-effective. They've been proven to pay for themselves in three years or less The gas capture systems are tend to be a little bit more cost-effective and they can reduce emissions by up to 85 percent or more Lastly talk about pipeline venting along the transmission pipelines When pipeline operators need to perform maintenance on their pipeline The first thing they need to do is reduce the pressure in that pipeline This is for safety reasons. You don't want your maintenance people blown up. That makes sense. So what they do is they essentially There's two ways to reduce the pipeline pressure You can just bleed a lot of it vent it into the atmosphere That's one way of doing it or you can just sort of push it through the pipeline section in question to the next part of the Pipeline reduces the pressure and also reduces the amount of natural gas that would then be emitted into the atmosphere For planned maintenance where when folks can plan ahead Portable compressors can push about 90 percent of the natural gas in a section of pipeline down into that next section 90 percent reductions of methane is it's pretty good and this you know, it's not a very expensive measure For emergency repairs when you don't have the time to secure a portable compressor You can use inline compressors that are less effective but can still reduce The amount of methane that's get that gets vented into the atmosphere by about 50 percent And since we are currently in the Russell Senate office building figured I would close with some opportunities for Congress David talked about what EPA is doing has done and potentially will do on methane emissions. They are Soliciting input right now on a number of major sources across oil and natural gas systems And it remains to be seen Whether when and how strong any regulations are that come out of this process So with that in mind, there's a few things that Congress can do first there's a lot of research and development that gets done at the Department of Energy and targeted R&D in this industry can help bring down costs of emissions measurement and control technologies some of which Brent is going to talk about right after this As I mentioned a lot of these emissions control technologies are cost effective right now But there are opportunity costs You know as LG mentioned these are investments that are made in emissions control technologies that would otherwise be made in drilling The next well or building the next pipeline So bringing down the cost of emissions control technologies makes these investments even more attractive to industry If EPA does not put out extremely ambitious standards for all of the Segments of the life cycle they're looking at or even if they do there's still going to be some gaps There's still going to be emissions that are not going to be covered by EPA and that those are gaps that can be filled with legislation And lastly there's always the tax code everybody wants to talk about how to use the tax code better Well one way is to incentivize the purchase and greater implementation of these emissions control technologies and I will end there so it's always important to talk about as we as we look at at issues at problems and also we really need to think about solutions and And now we want to hear from somebody from the private sector who is part of thinking about how we deal with This important area of emissions measurement of the technologies needed to as we've already heard in terms of basically controlling these emissions What's really available and a company that is actively engaged in pursuing all of this so to talk about His companies perspective and how some of the issues are being seen by them is Brent Lamert who is vice president for sales and for test equipment with FLIR systems Brent has been with FLIR for about 17 years So he brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to this whole area Brent Thank you And thank you all for for being here today It's wonderful to see a packed room that there's this much interest in methane and helping our environment I'm very pleased to see that. Thank you to EESI for the invitation to be a part of This panel and part of this conference. We appreciate that as well With me today, I have two other Gentlemen from FLIR Tom Scanlon and Paul Sarapusco They were both instrumental in the early development of our optical gas finder optical gas imaging business and Tom brings a global perspective is just back from Dubai and a conference on flares So that's very topical and Paul is in charge of our continuous monitoring cameras And and those are used in several new applications for optical gas imaging So both of them will be available during the Q&A Now one thing I'd like to just ask has anyone ever seen a methane leak? It's colorless. It's odorless. So It's difficult to see have you seen an optical gas imaging camera Many of you have a few have not so I want to start off just with Some video of what methane looks like to an optical gas imaging camera and we can see large leaks We can see small leaks Importantly we can also see the source of the leak and this is important in being able to determine How to make the repairs and be able to make those repairs more quickly and Often more cost-effectively Few of the videos may make you think twice about using your cell phone while you're filling up your your vehicle as well So this is just a small portion of the videos that that our customers our trainers our salespeople See on an everyday basis and at the end of the the talk We actually have a gas finder here with us will allow you to to actually see how it works. I Did not bring the co2 camera. We do have one of those and we would See the hot air in the room One one of the things that optical gas imaging as a technology for L. Dar does Extremely well is it finds the big leaks fast. Yes, we can see small leaks very very small leaks but we find the big leaks fast and that's important because When we look at the sources, it's a small number of leaks That are the majority of the volume that's leaked This is a recent slide presented in October from the National Academy of Sciences and in in the slide just action at 10 to 20 percent of well pads would reduce emissions by 60 percent That's incredible. So what we're trying to do is find those really big leaks Right the super emitters as as we refer to them as well When a customer first starts using an infrared camera They start playing around with it learning how to operate what each button does this happened to be one of our customers the very first time they picked up and turned on the camera they walked out the door and they started to look around and What I want you to notice is that's outside the fence line of this plant That's from an underground leak from a 36 inch pipe feeding into that plant It would not be on anyone's list to inspect and under a traditional L. Dar program You would not find that leak but with an optical gas imaging camera and Looking around while you're at your facility. You find the big leaks Find them quickly and you can find them at a distance You also notice that there's a safety implication here, too, right? And brings us to our next point We are trying to reduce methane emissions for the effect that has on the environment, but it also has a implication for safe operations Or and safety for the general public. So that last video was outside the fence line If someone is leaving the plant and believes that they're away from any dangerous atmosphere What happens at that moment if there's a spark and ignition or someone lights a cigarette that could be an incredibly dangerous dangerous situation normally people rely on Other instruments to find out what the atmosphere is around them in this case. You see a TVA a toxic vapor analyzer and The tip of the wand there and in this video. He can't find the leak We can see it with a camera and I'm going to turn on what we call high sensitivity mode Where in this digital filter you can see exactly where the leak is? But the TVA didn't find it It's it's incredibly powerful what optical gas imaging can do in the operations of a plant in being able to see Measure and be able to move forward and and make repairs Now it is Something that when you find those large leaks it's very profitable to fix them That that's something that was addressed earlier this morning, but we've had some end users present at conferences for us and I'd like to show you some of the videos that they have in the next slide and some of the numbers that they've talked about with How much does it save when you find these leaks a? Conference that we've hosted is called Petrotherm, and you see a couple of large leaks Some of our customers have referred to Methane or natural gas as $12 gas Since the BTU value is more expensive than than gasoline But we're not talking tens of thousands of dollars for a single leak or a hundred thousand dollars often We're talking five hundred thousand million dollars of Payback the payback for the equipment and the repairs is incredibly rapid I do want to take a minute to talk about regulation. I was one of the things as we prepared for today was What does industry need? from our Regulators what do we need and I wanted to take a look at kind of a progression here and by AWP what I'm talking about is method 21 and the alternative work practice if you're familiar with that and method 21 and then the AWP was intended to actually allow the use of more technologies to be able to Reduce emissions Unfortunately, there was some language in there that required if you used optical gas imaging To actually once a year you had to use a TVA So many operators many Will just invest in one technology and training for their Employees and one technology rather than investing in both so it actually reduced the use of optical gas imaging Quado addressed some concerns, but I'd like to highlight what's being done in Colorado right now and then this is A wonderful case study that's being looked at around the world as a way to have both industry and The regulators work together and three key things that their legislation addresses is what can I use? What tools am I allowed to use on my site? Well, I can use either a TVA. I can use OGI They don't have to use both Next they define the frequency of the inspection so depending on the potential of the leak or that tank or other device You have to inspect monthly quarterly or annually so they know how often they need to There may be most Importantly, and this is something that was not addressed in method 21 in the language there You're given time to repair The leaks that you find in method 21 You if you see a leak You have to report it right and once you report it. There's a potential fine So do you want to see the leak? Do you want to find that 36 inch pipe that's underground leaking that's not on anyone's inspection? What Colorado has done is they have made it So that you want to find all of the leaks Yes, you report them and yes You make the repairs and there's not a penalty as long as you repair them in the time frame in the schedule that you should That's very common sense. That's very logical and it's something where industry Was partnered together with the state to come up with regulation that made sense and is doing a lot of good For our products. We've been investing in this technology Or a very very long time and it's something in the Datzu report several of those bubbles on the maps We're FLIR locations where we make the the sensor and other key components for the gas finder At facilities around the US our gen 2 added what we call a high sensitivity mode a digital Image enhancement that allows us to see gas far more effectively than before and Then in the gen 3 an entire series of gas finders where we're able to put the reporting and the recording on Board the camera as well as we launched several new sensors to be able to see other types of gases So while we're talking about methane here that series of cameras can also see VOCs. We also have a series that see Global warming potential gases like SF6 there are 23,000 times more powerful than co2 and is used as an insulating gas in Utility industry we have a camera that sees carbon monoxide. It's used in the steel industry mainly for safety To see where there's there's leaks on the input to the blast furnace something that unfortunately there has been Several fatalities around the world and using this technology is helping to reduce that risk We have cameras that see various refrigerants and then our latest Innovation is one that sees co2 and we're using that at several different places Including in the oil and gas industry for enhanced oil recovery recovery or EOR where Carbon dioxide is injected into the well and we're just going in and we're looking for leaks within the compressor system So it's very similar to the equipment. We inspect for natural gas other products that have been Launched this year that are our significant is a multi-sensor solution as well as high resolution and then a new OEM module and that module allows us to Put together solutions with partners that have never been done before in this industry so we can put them into Explosion proof housings and monitor continuously 24-7 looking for leaks or into custom Enclosures and even into airborne platforms to go on to UAVs or aircraft to be able to inspect very large areas and Inspect pipelines So thank you very much for your time today We're going to switch over to a live demonstration with the camera just a second But I just want to leave you with we find the big leaks fast and and we're looking for those super emitters. Thank you So Paul will you grab the camera and and we're going to just switch from the PowerPoint Complex how hard is this to carry into the field? You'll see that this camera is Chased like a camcorder it operates on a matter So lighter colors are warmer darker colors are cooler It is a calibrated instrument and measures temperature so Paul has a source for us So that's just a tiny amount of butane that we're seeing it's actually drifting down Paul Wow, thank you That was all very sobering and should put sort of all of this in context in terms of what we've heard So why don't we open it up for any questions or comments? The name you have and if you would just identify yourself, please when you ask your question Curtis, okay? Yes, if you could go to the microphone, that'd be great My name is Curtis Moore. I edit and publish something called the health and clean air newsletter for a number of years I work here in the United States Senate and I take it that's Nobody seems to be aware of the fact that every holder of a permit to treat stored dispose of hazardous waste And the theory behind it was that everybody who generates any waste at all whether it's air pollution or water pollution is required annually to certify that It is minimizing its waste stream I don't know if any of you have ever bothered to look at those Certifications to see whether they're true or not, but they would certainly apply to oil and gas pumping stations That's I just wanted to make that recommendation to you I've been involved in global warming for quite some time and I'm glad to see that some attention is finally being paid to a Specific source of a global slow long-lasting I coined that term SL CP or whatever it's called, but I Just require refer to them now as short-lived global warming pollutants air pollutants You're only focusing on methane emissions From oil and gas Operations, you're not focusing on you don't seem to have any program for other sources of methane Even though they're easily controllable or black carbon, which is the second most powerful cause of Global warming and it has a lifetime of only five to ten days as opposed to a hundred to a thousand years for carbon dioxide Are any of you considering and your organization's actual regulatory programs to address all? pollutants that are short-lived that cause global warming They constitute a majority or a near majority of all current global warming Well, I'll let other panelists also speak, but I just wanted to say For this briefing we really wanted to narrow the focus We thought that it was really important to look at this particular issue just as we Also indicated that there are a lot of other sources of methane that also need to be dealt with and We have EESI has also done some past briefings looking at the whole group of short-lived climate pollutants Because we think that they all need to be to be addressed So I would bet that people on our panel are looking at all of those but anyway It went stood LGD. Do you want to say something and then Michael and Dave? Well, I want to say something first about Curtis because for those who don't know he was a long-time Friend of the environment here on Capitol Hill. Well, he still is And Should be acknowledged so Curtis. Thanks for for coming today And I'm gonna feel a little bit sheepish even Being up here on the panel when you probably should be but I'll say that at Environmental Defense Fund We've actually been looking at a at some subsectors within agriculture Particularly rice cultivation and I won't elaborate on that now for the reason Carol said but we are concerned about it Maybe I'll defer to David on the question of regulatory responses but we're we are looking at ways in which you can Cultivate rice without allowing the production of methane that occurs if you leave the Remainder sitting in these flooded rice paddies for extended periods of time and it you can have a dramatic change in the methane releases if you if you undertake more careful approaches to the water management in rice cultivation We're working on HFCs. We're working on This source of methane we're working on other sources of carbon It's important to do as much as we can but we're trying to chew on some of the biggest bites first and Ones where you where there's a clear regulatory path so Curtis love to hear more about pathways on black carbon and and other opportunities you see Let's use the rest of this one on this opportunity Great and Michael. Did you want to add anything? Okay terrific? and Curtis will have a book coming out in the spring that we should all be eagerly awaiting so other questions or comments Okay over here. Hi, I'm Nathan Shapiro. I'm from Congresswoman Rosa DeLorro's office So far Oil and gas Explorations at least in shale Is rather in its infancy And it's largely has been heavily influenced by the states Let me just look at what's happening in New York Is there a concern that if the federal agencies such as the EPA or the Bureau of Land Management Try to get heavily involved and try to push regulations Like you've been suggesting that there will be pushback I mean, I think no matter what EPA does on any pollutant from any sector, there's going to be pushback from some states Yeah, right Go ahead. I was just gonna say I think there's also been a lot of concern because as issues have arisen across a lot of states That that there has been concerned about Not as much state action moving forward with regard to addressing Methane as they're undoubtedly, you know, given the presentations at there has not been the kind of response from states That should be warranted and it is a problem Across the whole infrastructure as we've heard so go ahead Michael So actually, I think states have taken the lead on this issue, although they haven't done nearly enough the regulations in 2012 from EPA that David mentioned were Modeled largely on successful regulations in Colorado and Wyoming And then we talked about what Colorado is doing right now requiring leak detection repair on a regular schedule depending on the size of the facility and I think that can also serve as a model for what EPA is doing. I think ultimately National regulations from EPA that address methane emissions directly Across all segments of the supply chain are going to be necessary But I think there's a lot that states can do in the meantime to sort of prod EPA to lay the groundwork to demonstrate that these are cost-effective measures that They can work with industry and bring industry on board And as it happens, I'm actually working on a paper right now that's going to come out in about a month or so Looking at state approaches to reduce methane emissions from from all of these different aspects of natural gas systems I just add that some of the most productive And the biggest accomplishments under the Clean Air Act have come in situations where there have been a leadership state or or a set of leadership states and they demonstrate what can be done and then EPA is able to nationalize the the result and the clean car examples where California has been the lead for so many years along with Some of the eastern states including Connecticut, I think You know have resulted in those clean car and fuel economy National standards couldn't it wouldn't have been leveraged. It wouldn't have happened without the state leadership But at the same time there were states who were obviously not willing to join the club and Even opposed to the federal government doing that step of taking it national I think Colorado is the new California with respect to his leadership on natural gas Some other states too and there's an opportunity to do the same kind of leveraging Here with the support of many many states even states that are not Sure, they want to see that the the shale gas resource Opened up they still want to meet be sure that they that that to the extent it is in their states or in other states that They don't it isn't nothing isn't leaked away causing global warming More global warming for us all so there's there's a broad coalition of support for this Among the leadership states and it's not that he it's not your father's also bill of leadership states It includes some some interesting new ones like Colorado Mike McCracken from the climate Institute There's mainly I think for David and LG or something answer so with EPA you have the endangerment finding driving the science and driving action If you go to the Bureau of Land Management, however, you're seeing very different kinds of things At least for the Powder River Basin Coal Where I've specifically looked at the environmental impact statement done in 2004 it essentially dismisses IPCC It says there's no specific findings that are of any use at all It was taken to court and the judges rule. Well, at least they addressed it I mean it was in section four, which was maybe three or four hundred pages long They had four pages that basically said it wasn't useful if you look at the Approval that I guess went out yesterday from one of them I don't know if it was BLM for the action in Alaska and you look at that environmental impact statement its Statements where as I recall I don't have the words exactly, but there's nothing specific We can identify and in any case the emission is minuscule so we're going to sort of totally ignore the climate change effects They have a whole section where they talk about climate change is going to occur and what that might do to operations And everything they don't say why climate change is occurring there, but they have this section that just doesn't do it What in the world are you you know? Where do you get hope that BLM is going to actually seriously address this issue because I don't see any indication that they are Okay, I can be so blunt Who can talk about hope? Okay So let me just make one point is it's I'm not an expert on the BLM rules I'm going to defer to LG on this but I believe it's the case that if EPA establishes these Methane regulations limits that I'm talking about they will apply not only on the Private lands, but they'll also apply on the BLM lands, so you have an opportunity for Some sort of matrix where BLM can add value to aspects of this that the EPA leakage rules wouldn't address I can't speak to whether BLM will warmly embrace this idea Or if indeed they will how long it might take but we are from the environmental community after all and We're overflowing with the audacity of hope, but I would say that I would say that there are I think Requirements in law as I said during my remarks on which we can hang our hats Both from a policy and a legal standpoint and they have to do with the obligations I mentioned that BLM has as the steward of these public lands and those twin obligations are to reduce waste or Minimize waste number one and number two to prevent unnecessary pollution And we would certainly argue that that pollution Reference is not limited to the spillage of chemicals at well sites Any more than Pollution from coal mines would be limited to Non-air releases Of chem of chemicals so we do think that there is a strong basis for making the argument and that ultimately And this I presume will be And I'm going out on a bit of a limb here, but the the president's request and Stated intention which David talked about to this fall announce a package of responses And we hope they're not purely voluntary we would assume That BLM regulations would certainly be on the table for that discussion And so that's the case we're making if we don't we don't achieve that goal Let's come back and talk about it again in January 1st Because was this involved in in terms of the the president's Road map with regard to In terms of looking at the methane strategy in terms of talking about BLM I thought that BLM was part of that. Okay Any as we have time for a couple other questions or comments I Think there are lots of things that need to be followed up here Just like in terms of what dr. McCracken just raised and and I must say that Oh, do we have you have a question sure going right ahead. Hi. I'm Molly Gilligan from IUCN I know most of the panelists here are us based But I was wondering if any of you can expand upon the global aspects of this issues Maybe if any of your work or research is being applied to global solutions for this global problem Thank you Well, I just mentioned that We are we have a substantial operation in China and there's The Chinese are interested in seeing if they can Be produced more natural gas and we're interested in Providing them information on how if they do that they can do it with the lowest impact on Environmental impact including the lowest losses of methane so and then we're also working to make sure they know of the the Problems that we found in this country with respect to the fracking operations and what you have to do to do it more or less Well, or more or less poorly So yeah, we're trying be a force to Educate and get a better result in China than you might have otherwise That's the main area outside the country where we're active as As as we complete the 16 studies I referenced We will take those results and try to disseminate them more broadly and a specific focus for us is is Europe or next year and hopefully we'll be able to Go to Countries in Europe and make the case that the United States government has demonstrated some leadership on this issue and that United States industry Has proven that there are products and technologies Rapidly improving as you saw in the FLIR presentation that can actually bring about a Rapid reduction in in these methane emissions and I think perhaps in the Discussions that we had there was one term I noticed that we didn't define even though I and others used it which is which is L. Dar and that That acronym refers to leak detection and repair what FLIRs presentation was all about and Obviously figuring out where in the world? This methane is coming from our studies look at that at a fairly high level FLIR and Companies with those kinds of technologies enable their customers To pinpoint in industrial operations the precise locations of these emissions so I do think that there are numerous technologies and techniques that that we can take overseas and FLIR of course already is doing that as part of its every day Every day business activities. We hope to come on their heels with a strong policy case And scientific case that this kind of action is urgently needed I actually just wanted to ask Brent or someone from FLIR to comment about that because it just seems to me that one of the most powerful Tools is in terms of what you were showing that in terms of really making the case and in in terms of people being able to see What is really being dealt with so are you seeing an uptick in the international market in interest? I Might defer to my boss who's responsible for the the rest of world rather than my myself We are seeing gas finder sales around the world. I will say in in Europe. They're ahead of us when it comes to offshore Looking for leaks and methane and then we are here in in the US I think around the world people are looking at Colorado as an example to to study and See if if there's pieces or all of that legislation should be applied in in their countries Is is something that we're seeing and as far as the comment about the power of being able to see the gas We all understand what's what's happening. We we see the the numbers in in the charts But we all have a very different reaction when we can see it with our own eyes It's a visceral reaction. We see that with producers where the personnel that are responsible for the LDAR applications Where they take a lot of pride in the work that they're doing for their company for their environment And when they go home and talk to their families and to their children They take a lot of pride in what they they do with with their work every day Did you want to add anything? on Tuesday I in the way of answering the question on international impact I was in Abu Dhabi and I was there at a conference that was totally dedicated to flare management and I want to leave you with with just a couple thoughts About the impact of what we do here and how it can impact what's what's going on around the world With regard to a mission control and The first thought I want to leave you with is the power of what happens here Both in the regulatory community and with our multinational corporations In the regulatory community the EPA has has endorsed and adopted this product and and of course the most Significant endorsement is they bought it and they're using it And when you go overseas and you get questions about who's using the camera Even though not every nation in the world Admires the United States or might even have some issues with the United States There is broad respect for for this nation as an incubator of technology so when the EPA adopts our technology everybody listens and When mobile Exxon or shell or BP buys our cameras Because they work or because they're getting a little bit of a regulatory push Everyone around the world listens so an important point to to leave you with based on what I saw on Tuesday and I think the other the other factor that I was really surprised Was the extent to which the OPEC nations are citing data From the World Bank and other locations other information sources on where they stack up with the rest of the world and They're interested in it They're not turning a blind eye and I heard more than one presenter when I was in that conference talk about their kids coming home and Asking them daddy, what are you doing to improve the world emissions issues? They're not using in issues. They're talking about pollution But it's this information on how they stack up with the rest of the world And I saw more than three presentations where they were referencing how they stood With regard to emissions compared with Russia and other states around the other nations around the world So in the way perhaps leaving a little bit of hope out there I was I was very impressed with what I saw and and what we do here can have a big impact on what happens around the world Well, and that just makes the case for Doing something right and and I think that's terrific in terms of looking at the whole role of the whole technology development side that that your company other companies have played in terms of Looking at issues like this and finding solutions so that we can better deal with things Because as we've heard from all of our speakers in terms of looking at climate other environmental issues Economics and Obviously public safety So I want to thank all of our panel very very much And I appreciate all of you staying since we have gone past our appointed hour But thank you all very very much And I'm sure that our speakers can take a little bit of time if you have other questions He went to follow up with so thank you We hope to do more topics right along this whole area of short-lived climate pollutants. Thank you so much