Mines Methane Symposium

Please join us for the inaugural Mines Methane Symposium – Issues and Opportunities held virtually on February 17, 2022, bringing together thought leaders from industry, academia, think tanks, and U.S. state and federal government, as well as foreign government leaders on the economic, policy and technology issues and opportunities related to addressing methane emissions.

The recent global Methane Pledge, as well as new proposed regulations by the U.S. EPA have put an urgent focus on how to minimize methane emissions. This will be a key area for addressing climate change, as well as the sustainability of the energy industry, and the future of the gas and oil sectors. Since 2014, Colorado had led the way to implement the first state-level methane reduction regulations in the country, and the EPA’s new proposed federal regulations were modeled on Colorado’s experience. We will focus on questions such as: What has been learned so far? What are the potential economic impacts on consumers, industries, and supply chain? What are the challenges and opportunities for methane management nationally and globally? How can data science and standards be brought to bear most effectively?

The Mines Methane Symposium 2022 will provide a critical foundation for future decisions on technology and regulation for methane emissions. This program features distinguished keynote speakers and expert panel discussions on policy and regulations, measurements and standards, research and technology, and industry deployment of innovative solutions.

Come join in this important dialogue on shaping the future of energy.

HOSTS:

• Walter Copan, Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer, Colorado School of Mines

• Morgan D. Bazilian, Director, Payne Institute for Public Policy, and Professor of Public Policy, Colorado School of Mines

FEATURING:

• Ben Cahill, Senior Fellow, Energy Security and Climate Change Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

• Manfredi Caltagirone, Acting Head of the International Methane Emissions Observatory – UNEP

• Brendan Devlin, Strategy and Foresight Counsellor in the Directorate General, Energy of the European Commission

• Steve Feldgus, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management, U.S. Department of Interior

• Ben Gilbert, Assistant Professor, Economics and Business, Colorado School of Mines

• Joseph Goffman, Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation, US EPA at US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

• Dorit Hammerling, Associate Professor, Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Colorado School of Mines

• David Hayes, Special Assistant to the U.S. President for Climate Policy, White House

• John Hickenlooper, United States Senator for Colorado

• Jennifer Miskimins, Department Head and Professor, Petroleum Engineering, Director, Fracturing, Acidizing, Stimulation Technology (FAST), Direct, Center for Earth Materials, Mechanics and Characterization, Colorado School of Mines

• Arvind Ravikumar, Research Associate Professor, Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department, The University of Texas at Austin

• Chris Romer, Chief Executive Officer, Project Canary

• Christopher Smith, Senior Vice President, Policy, Government, and Public Affairs, Cheniere Energy

• David M. Turk, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy

• Robyn Wille, Chief Strategy Officer, Air Pollution Control Division, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

• Daniel Zimmerle, Director of the Methane Emissions Program (METEC), Colorado State University

Keynote Speaker:

Presenter: Joseph Goffman, Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation, US EPA at US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

About Joseph Goffman:  Joseph Goffman served as Executive Director of the Environmental & Energy Law Program (EELP) at Harvard Law School, where from November 2017 to January 2021, together with the outstanding faculty founder of the program, Professor Jody Freeman, he lead a high-powered and dedicated group of attorneys and students providing rigorous legal analysis of policy developments and their impacts.

Prior to his tenure as Democratic Chief Counsel to the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) in 2017, he served for more than 7 years as Associate Assistant Administrator for Climate/Senior Counsel to the Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation at the US Environmental Protection Agency. There he worked on the Clean Power Plan, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, the Cross State Air Pollution Rule, the Oil and Gas New Source Performance Standards, and related air quality and climate change rules. During an earlier stint at EPW, he authored Title IV of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, pioneering the use of cap and trade in the program that tackled acid rain. His career also includes senior legal, policy, and management positions at the Environmental Defense Fund, where, among other activities, he co-founded the Environmental Resources Trust, later absorbed by Winrock.

Keynote Speaker:

Presenter: Christopher Smith, Senior Vice President, Policy, Government and Public Affairs, Cheniere Energy

About Christopher Smith: Mr. Smith joined Cheniere in November 2017 as Senior Vice President for Policy, Government and Public Affairs. Prior to joining Cheniere, Mr. Smith was the Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy, where he led the department’s policy, international engagement, and research and development programs for fossil energy. During that time, he also served as the designated federal official for the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. Prior to his roles in federal government, Mr. Smith served in managerial and analytical positions at Chevron and Texaco, focused primarily on upstream business development and LNG trading. Mr. Smith began his career as an officer in the U.S. Army and served tours in Korea and Hawaii. He subsequently worked for Citibank and JPMorgan in New York City and London. Mr. Smith holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering management from the United States Military Academy at West Point and an MBA from Cambridge University.

Presentation Notes

Panel 1 – Methane Marketplace, and the Regulatory Environment and Experience

Moderator: Ben Cahill, Senior Fellow, Energy Security and Climate Change Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

About Ben Cahill: Ben Cahill is a senior fellow in the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He covers macro trends affecting the oil and gas industry. He also leads a research initiative on methane emissions, analyzing how the global gas and LNG system might evolve in a way that lowers methane emissions. Ben was previously a director in Energy Intelligence’s Research & Advisory group and led its country risk practice. He also wrote on corporate strategy and covered Saudi Aramco, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, and the Southeast Asian national oil companies. Ben formerly worked at PFC Energy (now part of IHS Markit) in Washington, D.C. and Kuala Lumpur, focusing on country risk and macro trends in the oil and gas industry. He has an M.A. in international affairs and economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a B.A. in international relations and English from Boston University.

Panelist: Manfredi Caltagirone, Acting Head of the International Methane Emissions Observatory – UNEP

About Manfredi Caltagirone:Manfredi Caltagirone leads UNEP work on methane emissions in the energy sector, and is acting Head of the International Methane Emissions Observatory. In UNEP, he was previously engaged in the establishment and operations of the Climate Technology Centre and Network under the UNFCCC. Prior to joining the UN Environment Programme, Manfredi worked as policy advisor on climate technologies at the Italian Ministry for the Environment. He has been a Research Fellow at the United Nations Foundation and at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. Manfredi holds a J.D. from the II University of Rome, and a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Panelist: Brendan Devlin, Strategy and Foresight Counsellor in the Directorate General, Energy of the European Commission

About Brendan Devlin: Brendan Devlin is the Strategy and Foresight Counsellor in the Directorate General for Energy of the European Commission. His prime job is to give leadership on fossil fuel phase out options (which are too be delivered to the next College of the Commission).

In addition to giving this strategic advice, his work focuses on oil and gas phase out plans, the international just transition, methane emissions reductions, short-lived climate pollutants reduction, supply chain integrity, transformation of international and national oil and gas companies, transparency and corruption.

In 2021, he conceived and delivered the Global Methane Pledge, building out from the EU methane strategy of 2020. He also inserted the first reference to an oil and gas moratorium into the European Union’s Arctic Strategy, and will work in 2021 to progress that option.

At present, he is the Co-Chair of an OECD working group on fossil fuel phase out, sits on the Board of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition and is on the working group of the Task Force on Carbon Pricing in Europe

Panelist: Ben Gilbert, Assistant Professor, Economics and Business, Colorado School of Mines

About Ben Smith: Ben Gilbert is an applied microeconomist who studies the relationship between public policy, energy and natural resource markets. His research addresses problems in energy supply, energy efficiency, marine resources, regulation, firm and industrial organization, and the housing market.

Before becoming an economist, Gilbert was a news reporter covering emerging energy technology. Gilbert holds a PhD in Economics from the University of California, San Diego, and a BA in Economics and English from Whitman College. He was previously an assistant professor of Economics at the University of Wyoming and an affiliate of the University of Wyoming Building Energy Research Group.

Panelist: Robyn Wille, Chief Strategy Officer, Air Pollution Control Division, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

About Robyn Wille: Robyn Wille is the Chief Strategy Officer of the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division. Ms. Wille oversees the Office of Innovations in Planning, as well as Communications. Ms. Wille led the development of regulations to achieve Colorado’s statutory greenhouse gas goals for the oil and gas industry, adopted by the Air Quality Control Commission in 2021. Prior to joining the Air Division in 2020, Ms. Wille was a Senior Assistant Attorney General at the Colorado Department of Law. Ms. Wille lives in Denver, with her husband and two children.​

Keynote Speaker:

Presenter: Steve Feldgus, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management, U.S. Department of Interior

About Steve Feldgus:  Steve Feldgus returned to Interior after serving for seven years on the House Natural Resources Committee, including as Deputy Staff Director under Chair Raúl M. Grijalva and Staff Director for the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. During the Obama administration Steve served at the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and the Bureau of Land Management. Before that, Steve spent an additional eight years working on energy, mining, and transportation policy for Congress. Raised in Philadelphia, Steve has a B.S. in Chemistry from the UMass at Amherst and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the UW-Madison.

Panel 2 – Research, Science, and Technology

Moderator: Daniel Zimmerle, Director of the Methane Emissions Program (METEC), Director of the Remote and Distributed Energy Center (RADEC), Colorado State University

About Daniel Zimmerle: Zimmerle was a principal investigator on four major studies of methane emissions in the natural gas supply chain, including studies of upstream, midstream, and distribution systems at a nation and/or regional scale. Zimmerle is also principal investigator and director of the Methane Emissions Technology Evaluation Center, a DOE-sponsored test facility at CSU that tests next generation leak detection solutions. Research on natural gas emissions includes studies of both above- and below-ground emission locations, and several leak detection and quantification technologies, including optical gas imaging (OGI), high flow sampling, and downwind methods. Zimmerle also leads research in remote and distributed energy systems. Recent and ongoing studies include the assessment of in-building DC power distribution and end-use efficiency, high-penetration PV in distribution systems, and the aging of distribution transformers. The research team works extensively on village utility systems – electricity, gas, water, and communications – as a catalyst for village economic development. The team primarily works in Africa, much of it in partnership with Mesh Power Rwanda. 

Panelist: Dorit Hammerling, Associate Professor, Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Colorado School of Mines

About Dorit Hammerling: After 8 years working in the cement industry on process and quality control, Prof. Hammerling obtained a M.A. and PhD (2012) from the University of Michigan in Statistics and Engineering developing statistical methods for large satellite data. This was followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at the Statistical Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute in the program for Statistical Inference for massive data. Prof. Hammerling subsequently joined the National Center for Atmospheric Research, where she led the statistics group within the Institute for Mathematics Applied to the Geosciences and worked in the Machine Learning division before becoming an Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics at the Colorado School of Mines in January 2019. Prof. Hammerling received the Early Investigator Award from the American Statistical Association, Section on Statistics and the Environment, in 2018.

Panelist: Jennifer Miskimins, Department Head and Professor, Petroleum Engineering, Director, Fracturing, Acidizing, Stimulation Technology (FAST), Direct, Center for Earth Materials, Mechanics and Characterization, Colorado School of Mines

About Jennifer Miskimins: Dr. Jennifer L. Miskimins is a Professor and the Department Head of the Petroleum Engineering Department at the Colorado School of Mines, where she holds the F.H. Mick Merelli/Cimarex Energy Distinguished Department Head Chair. Dr. Miskimins holds a BS from the Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology, and MS and PhD degrees from the Colorado School of Mines, all in petroleum engineering. She has over 30 years of experience in both industry and academic settings. Dr. Miskimins served as the first Completions Technical Director on the SPE International Board of Directors from 2015-2018 and was an SPE Distinguished Lecturer in 2010-2011 and 2013-2014. In 2014, she was awarded the SPE International Completions Optimization and Technology Award. She was the Editor-in-Chief for the recent SPE Monograph update Hydraulic Fracturing: Fundamentals and Advancements. 

Panelist: Arvind Ravikumar, Research Associate Professor, Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department, The University of Texas at Austin

About Arvind Ravikumar:  Dr. Ravikumar received his from Ph.D. from Princeton University developing infrared lasers and sensors to detect trace gases in the atmosphere. He also spent a few lovely years in Northern California when he was a postdoc in the Energy Resources Engineering department at Stanford University. In addition to his position at UT, Dr. Ravikumar is also a non-resident fellow with the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines.

His research and teaching focuses on technical and policy solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the global energy sector. They employ an interdisciplinary approach that integrates field work, modeling, and policy analysis to answer critical questions around our energy future across space and time. Their current geographic focus is on North America with a growing interest in its linkages to global energy trade. They welcome people from a variety of backgrounds including atmospheric scientists, engineers, economists, and public policy experts to push the frontiers of energy and climate policy research.

Panelist: Chris Romer, Chief Executive Officer, Project Canary

About Chris Romer:  Chris Romer is the CEO of one of the fastest-growing companies in ClimateTech, Project Canary. His history of public service, economics, and leadership in energy have all combined for his role at this Public Benefit Corporation focused on altering the course of climate change.

Chris spent 24 years developing energy infrastructure and public-private partnerships with investment banks, including JPMorgan & Citibank and was a leader in energy policy as a Colorado State Senator from 2006 – 2010.

He is also a co-founder and senior advisor at Guild Education, Denver’s top unicorn-status SaaS startup. At Guild, Chris helped Fortune 500 companies partner with leading universities to offer education as a benefit to increase employee satisfaction and retention. His background in energy, education, policymaking, B-Corp capital formation, and entrepreneurship is instrumental in achieving Project Canary’s mission-driven growth goals and customer service objectives.

Chris holds a BA in Economics from Stanford University. He can be found mountain biking in the Colorado mountains or doing yoga in a local studio when he’s not enjoying a Broncos game or spending time with his wife, children, or his grandchildren.

Keynote Speaker:

Presenter: John Hickenlooper, United States Senator for Colorado

Topic: Making Methane a Problem of the Past

About John Hickenlooper: As Colorado’s U.S. Senator, John Hickenlooper brings people together to address our nation’s toughest problems — whether rebuilding a stronger, more resilient economy, lowering the costs of health care and prescription drugs, or combating climate change and protecting our public lands. He started his career in Colorado as a geologist before being laid off and opening the state’s first brewpub. After successfully running a small business, John was elected Mayor of Denver and then Governor of Colorado, where he served for two terms from 2011-2019 and helped the state become the number one economy in the nation.

Keynote Speaker:

Presenter:David M. Turk, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy

About David M. Turk: Prior to his nomination as Deputy Secretary, Turk was the Deputy Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), where he focused on helping countries around the world tackle their clean energy transitions. He also directed reports on the digitalization of energy systems, the future of clean hydrogen, and a project tracking progress on a wide range of clean energy technologies.

During the Obama-Biden Administration, Turk coordinated international technology and clean energy efforts at DOE. During this time, he helped spearhead the launch of Mission Innovation—a global effort to enhance clean energy innovation.

Turk also served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director at the U.S. National Security Council, where he coordinated interagency legislative affairs efforts by the full range of national security agencies and provided legislative advice to National Security Council decision-making. He also previously worked at the U.S. Department of State, including as Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change and helping to coordinate New Start Treaty ratification efforts in the U.S. Senate.

Keynote Speaker:

Presenter: David Hayes, Special Assistant to the U.S. President for Climate Policy, White House

Topic: U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan

About David Hayes: David J. Hayes is a Special Assistant to the President for Climate Policy. He is a senior member of National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy’s White House team, which is advancing the Biden administration’s climate, conservation, and clean energy priorities. Immediately prior to joining the White House, Hayes was Executive Director of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at the NYU School of Law, where he worked with state attorneys general on climate, environmental and clean energy initiatives. He previously served as Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer at the U.S. Department of the Interior for Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. He was a climate policy advisor for the Biden-Harris Transition in 2020, and led the energy and environmental agency review teams for the Obama-Biden Transition in 2008. Hayes is a former Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at the Stanford Law School; a former Fellow at Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy and Woods Institute for the Environment; and the former Chairman of the Board of the Environmental Law Institute. Hayes is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Stanford Law School.