Contributed by Isaac Smith, Principal, PPM Consultants
Over the last nine months, I wrote a couple of different articles on various technologies being used by Google and NASA to monitor air emissions and quality around the globe. In the article from late 2023, Air Quality Observations from Space (Seriously), I discussed NASA’s new Air Quality Monitor-1 (AQM-1) and its capabilities to monitor air quality on a global scale. In April 2024, I wrote a follow-up article, Google to Use AI to Monitor Methane Emissions from Space, that discussed how Google was going to use the data to create a map of oil and gas infrastructure, using artificial intelligence (AI) to identify components like oil tanks. MethaneSAT’s data on emissions will then be overlayed with the Google map to assist in understanding which types of oil and gas equipment tend to leak most. According to the article, the information collected by the satellite would be available later in 2024.
Last week, EPA issued a press release entitled, EPA Announces New Round of Flyovers to Look for Emissions in the Permian Basin. Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions, but it seems like the EPA got their hands on the MethaneSAT data and Google’s AI generated map of the oil and gas infrastructure and is leveraging that information to conduct some additional location-specific flyovers in the Permian Basin.
The natural gas-rich Permian Basin accounts for 40 percent of the nation’s oil supply and has been a focal point of EPA for several years, but the focus on methane emissions seems to have ramped up under the current Administration. Back in 2021, the Associated Press (AP) used data from the group Carbon Mapper, a partnership between NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and academic researchers, to document methane releases across the Permian using an airplane carrying an infrared spectrometer. They identified the GPS coordinates and then the AP took the coordinates and cross-referenced them with permits, pipeline maps, land records and other public documents to piece together the corporations most likely responsible.
Later, from July 12 through mid-August 2022, an EPA contractor flew over oil and gas facilities in the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico using a helicopter equipped with an Optical Gas Imaging (OGI) camera to identify volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions. EPA uses this data to identify and take enforcement actions against unauthorized emissions. According to the EPA, they’ve issued 48 enforcement orders based on the Permian flyovers, with penalties totaling $4.9 million. In addition to the fines, many of the settlements required companies to install enhanced monitoring systems to ensure compliance on a continuous basis.
With the ever-evolving technological landscape, the EPA and State agencies will have more tools in their arsenal to identify noncompliance, especially related to unpermitted emissions and process leaks. What would have taken a group of regulators weeks, or even months, to conduct site inspections, can now be done in minutes or hours. This technology is not only available to the regulators, as many facilities have purchased or rented OGI cameras to identify leaks and mitigate fines and administrative orders. The days of being off the beaten path and out of the regulator’s sight are over as the EPA, NASA and even Google now have an eye in the sky and are using technology to curb unpermitted emissions. Industry must do the same or risk finding themselves in an EPA press release or administrative order of their own.
If you have questions on using OGI to identify leaks, please reach out to me at isaac.smith@ppmco.com.
Links to other articles or websites on this topic are provided below.
EPA Announces New Round of Flyovers to Look for Emissions in the Permian Basin | US EPA
EPA Permian Basin Emission Videos | US EPA
EPA announces flights to look for methane in Permian Basin (ksat.com)
Google to share oil and gas methane leaks spotted from space (nbcnews.com)
AIR QUALITY FROM SPACE | Air Quality (nasa.gov)
NASA Launches TEMPO To Track Air Pollution On A Whole New Level – CleanTechnica
Next Generation Emission Measurement (NGEM) Research for Fugitive Air Pollution | US EPA