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New Method for Tracking Down Methane Emissions on Oil and Gas Sites 3/27/2024

New Method for Tracking Down Methane Emissions on Oil and Gas Sites

Payne Institute Student Researcher William Daniels, Faculty Fellow Dorit Hammerling, and Director Morgan Bazilian write about how reducing methane emissions is a key component of short-term climate action.  Empirical data and transparent models are key pillars of emission reduction efforts.  Payne Institute researchers William Daniels, Meng Jia, and Dorit Hammerling have developed a completely open-source analytical framework for detecting single-source methane emissions, determining the source location, and estimating an emission rate using data from continuous monitoring systems (CMS).  March 27, 2024.

Biden’s Clean-Industry Grants Punch Above Their Weight 3/26/2024

Biden’s Clean-Industry Grants Punch Above Their Weight

Payne Institute Fellow Liam Denning writes about how one measure of success for President Joe Biden’s green energy agenda is that $6 billion of funding for new projects doesn’t even sound like that much anymore. The conditional grants announced this week for 33 projects aimed at decarbonizing industrial processes are equivalent to perhaps 1% of the headline clean-energy budgets of the Inflation Reduction Act and bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. March 26, 2024.

Energy Dept. Awards $6 Billion for Green Steel, Cement and Even Macaroni Factories 3/25/2024

Energy Dept. Awards $6 Billion for Green Steel, Cement and Even Macaroni Factories

Payne Institute Director Morgan Bazilian contributes to this article about how industries produce 25 percent of America’s planet-warming emissions but so far have proved very hard to clean up. The Biden administration is trying by with plans to spend up to $6 billion on new technologies to cut carbon dioxide emissions from heavy industries like steel, cement, chemicals and aluminum, which are all enormous contributors to global warming but which have so far been incredibly difficult to clean up.  March 25, 2024.

Energy, material, and resource efficiency for industrial decarbonization: A systematic review of sociotechnical systems, technological innovations, and policy options 3/25/2024

Energy, material, and resource efficiency for industrial decarbonization: A systematic review of sociotechnical systems, technological innovations, and policy options

Jinsoo Kim, Benjamin K. Sovacool, Payne Institute Director Morgan Bazilian, Fellow Steve Griffiths, and Minyoung Yang write about how efficiency stands out as one of the most important options for achieving industrial decarbonization. In addition to carbon emissions reductions, improving energy, material and resource efficiency can bring many desirable benefits, such as cost savings, increased energy and resource security, and higher productivity. We conducted a comprehensive and systematic review through a socio-technical lens of more than 2.8 million references and 380 selected studies on industrial decarbonization.  March 25, 2024.

SENATE COMMITTEE EXAMINES PFAS AS HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES AMID RISING GLOBAL CONCERN 3/25/2024

SENATE COMMITTEE EXAMINES PFAS AS HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES AMID RISING GLOBAL CONCERN

Payne Institute Communications Associate Kristin Ziv, Student Researcher Isabel Guajardo Retamales and Director Morgan Bazilian write about how on March 20, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) convened a pivotal hearing titled “Examining PFAS as Hazardous Substances.  The session focused on the risks associated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a group of synthetic chemicals found in various industrial and consumer products. March 25, 2024.

Review of Policy Research Special Issue March 2024 3/21/2024

Review of Policy Research Special Issue March 2024

Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Dr. Kathleen J. Hancock is the editor of this March 2024 edition of the RDR Special Issue on Energy Regionalism. The Special Issue’s focus on energy regionalism stems from increasing academic interest in how geographic regions compare with each other and across issues areas as well as growing interest in a wide range of energy issues, often seen through lenses other than the traditional security one and including non-state actors. Understanding how regionalisms—players, processes, institutions, and organizations—intersect with energy is directly linked to domestic and international energy policies and outcomes. The contributions cover sub-Saharan Africa, the East Mediterranean, Central America, Russia, Europe, and North America.  March 21,2024.

Detection, localization, and quantification of single-source methane emissions on oil and gas production sites using point-in-space continuous monitoring systems 3/20/2024

Detection, localization, and quantification of single-source methane emissions on oil and gas production sites using point-in-space continuous monitoring systems

Payne Institute Student Researchers William S. Daniels and Meng Jia, and Faculty Fellow Dorit M. Hammerling write about how they propose a modular framework for methane emission detection, localization, and quantification on oil and gas production sites that uses concentration and wind data from point-in-space continuous monitoring systems. The framework leverages a gradient-based spike detection algorithm to estimate emission start and end times (event detection) and pattern matches simulated and observed concentrations to estimate emission source location (localization) and rate (quantification). March 20, 2024.

Nuclear Power is Tribal Power 3/19/2024

Nuclear Power is Tribal Power

Payne Institute Native American Mining and Energy Sovereignty (NAMES) Initiative Program Manager Rick Tallman, Fellow Richard Luarkie and Director Morgan D. Bazilian write about how with the newly found bipartisan political will for American nuclear power, the U.S. is poised for a uranium mining boom once again. As the inevitable debate ensues, what is often not appreciated is the essential need to gain support from our Native American communities from the very start and through the developments.  March 19, 2024.

Projecting demand for mineral-based critical materials in the energy transition for electricity 3/18/2024

Projecting demand for mineral-based critical materials in the energy transition for electricity

Payne Institute Student Researcher Gabriel Collins, Faculty Fellow Carol A. Dahl, Student Researcher Maxwell Fleming, Student Researcher Michael Tanner, Student Researcher Wilson C. Martin, Kabir Nadkarni, Fellow Sara Hastings-Simon and Director Morgan Bazilian write about how mapping the changing energy landscape toward net zero and understanding the critical material needs to support the transition are essential for demanders and suppliers as well as policy makers seeking to orchestrate the transition. They provide such decision makers for electricity markets with a transparent tool that can be easily understood and modified as our transitional knowledge improves.  March 18, 2024.

The Rise of Great Mineral Powers 3/12/2024

The Rise of Great Mineral Powers

Payne Institute Director Morgan Bazilian and Communications Associate Gregory Wischer write about how minerals play a crucial role in bolstering a state’s military capabilities, defining its “mineral power.” This study assesses a state’s mineral power by evaluating its access to secure mineral supplies from four key sources: domestic production, government stockpiles, overseas production by domestic companies, and imports from aligned states. March 12, 2024.

The path to net-zero emissions runs through industry 3/12/2024

The path to net-zero emissions runs through industry

Payne Institute Director Morgan Bazilian, Payne Institute Fellow Steve Griffiths and Benjamin K. Sovacool write about the recent COP28 United Nations climate conference and how leaders faced a monumental task: tackling the decarbonization of the industrial sector, responsible for over 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve emission reduction targets, urgent action is needed to curb emissions from carbon-intensive industries such as steel, cement, and chemicals. March 12, 2024.

Changing the relationship between mining and Native American Tribes 3/11/2024

Changing the relationship between mining and Native American Tribes

Payne Institute Native American Mining and Energy Sovereignty (NAMES) Initiative Program Manager Rick Tallman, Director Morgan Bazilian and Daniel Cardenas write about how the Native American Tribes stand to benefit greatly from mining and processing the critical minerals needed to drive the energy transition in the United States — but only if we acknowledge the sordid history of mining on tribal lands and properly remediate legacy issues while forging a new approach that is transparent, fair and centered on Tribal sovereignty. March 11, 2024.

Michael McGuirk Wins Negative Emissions Scialog Award 3/7/2024

Michael McGuirk Wins Negative Emissions Scialog Award

Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Mike McGuirk has won a $50,000 award from the Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement’s (RSCA) Negative Emissions Science Scialog program to conduct research exploring opportunities to replace petroleum in this process with polyolefin waste, the largest type of post-consumer plastic.  March 7, 2024.

Mines’ Potential Gas Agency provides guidance for assessment of natural gas supply and demand 3/6/2024

Mines’ Potential Gas Agency provides guidance for assessment of natural gas supply and demand

Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Stephen Sonnenberg led the most recent biennial assessment of the United States’ estimated natural gas resource base for the Potential Gas Committee.  The assessment reports the nation’s natural gas recoverable supply, which ensures we have the knowledge to make well-informed decisions about current natural gas usage and how it fits into the nation’s future energy strategy. March 6, 2024.

Navigating Energy’s New Frontiers: The IEA at 50 3/6/2024

Navigating Energy’s New Frontiers: The IEA at 50

Payne Institute Director Morgan Bazilian and Fellow Thijs Van de Graaf write about the International Energy Agency (IEA) marking its 50-year anniversary. From its origins as a relatively unknown analytical body primarily focused on oil security for a select group of OECD members, it has evolved significantly. March 6, 2024.

Biden Cracks Down on Chinese Electric Vehicles 3/1/2024

Biden Cracks Down on Chinese Electric Vehicles

Morgan Bazilian, the Payne Institute Director, contributes to this article about how the Biden administration on Thursday ordered the U.S. Commerce Department to investigate the potential national security threats posed by Chinese-made “connected vehicles,” marking Washington’s latest push to de-risk ties from Beijing and tighten the screws on China’s tech industry. March 1, 2024.

TAKING THE STAND 2/29/24

TAKING THE STAND

Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Christopher Higgins contributes to this article about how science is a regular guest in U.S. courtrooms. Hydrologists and toxicologists testify routinely about the sources and consequences of groundwater contamination. Structural engineers assign blame for collapsed buildings. In criminal cases, scientists explain DNA evidence, or the limitations of prosecutorial tools such as fingerprints or eyewitness identification. February 29, 2024.

VIIRS SENSORS SHOW BREADTH OF TEXAS WILDFIRES 2/29/2024

VIIRS SENSORS SHOW BREADTH OF TEXAS WILDFIRES

Payne Institute Research Associate Mikhail Zhizhin, Senior Research Associate Christopher Elvidge, Communications Associate Kristin Ziv, and Director Morgan Bazilian write about how using the VIIRS Nightfire satellites, the Earth Observation Group at the Payne Institute for Public Policy has calculated the temperatures and spatial extent of active burning in the Texas Panhandle with their Nightfire algorithm applied to data collected by NOAA’s Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer Suite (VIIRS). February 29, 2024.

LNG exports, pauses, climate impacts: Are we having the wrong debate? 2/26/2024

LNG exports, pauses, climate impacts: Are we having the wrong debate?

Payne Institute Fellow Arvind Ravikumar shares his perspective on the way we should be thinking about the future of US LNG exports.  The US Department of Energy in late January hit “pause” on its work issuing key LNG export permits. About 30 million mt/year of probable export capacity additions in the US and Mexico are at risk because of the permitting hold. February 26, 2024.

The Payne Institute experts are regional, national, and international leaders in applied research in natural resources, energy, and the environment. Our team is involved in a wide variety of research projects in these fields, and are committed to sharing these results with academic and professional audiences.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed are those of the author alone and do not reflect the opinions, beliefs, viewpoints, or official policies of the Payne Institute or Colorado School of Mines.