WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced a $32 million investment in four projects aimed at reducing natural gas flaring at oil production sites. This move supports President Biden’s U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan, which seeks to cut methane emissions, protect workers, and promote job growth and technology innovation.
Natural gas flaring happens when excess gas from oil production is burned off, leading to significant greenhouse gas emissions. The selected projects will turn this wasted gas into useful products, helping to fight climate change.
Brad Crabtree, Assistant Secretary of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, emphasized the importance of these projects: “Flaring natural gas contributes to climate change. These new technologies will not only eliminate emissions from flaring but also turn these gases into marketable products like sustainable chemicals.”
The United States relies heavily on natural gas for various energy needs. However, each year, billions of cubic feet of natural gas are wasted through flaring. This happens because there’s often no infrastructure to transport the gas from production sites. The new projects aim to address this by providing practical solutions that can be used in real-world applications.hydr
Here are the four projects receiving funding:
- M2X Energy Inc. (Rockledge, Florida) will deploy a small modular gas-to-methanol plant in the Williston Basin of North Dakota to convert flared gas into low-carbon methanol.
- Pioneer Energy (Lakewood, Colorado) will test a new emission control technology at a well site in the Denver-Julesburg Basin of Colorado to eliminate almost all methane emissions.
- Prabhu Energy Labs (Mission Viejo, California) will develop a high-temperature heat exchanger to capture useful energy from flared gas at oil and gas sites in the Green River Basin, Wyoming.
- University of North Dakota, Energy & Environmental Research Center (Grand Forks, North Dakota) will demonstrate a technology to eliminate flaring at well sites in the Williston Basin of North Dakota.
These projects will be managed by DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). Each project team submitted Community Benefits Plans to ensure meaningful engagement with local communities and to provide tangible benefits, including job creation and promoting diversity and inclusion as part of the Justice40 Initiative.
The DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management focuses on reducing the environmental impact of fossil fuels and achieving net-zero emissions. Their priority areas include carbon capture, carbon conversion, carbon dioxide removal, hydrogen production with carbon management, methane emissions reduction, and critical minerals production.
By investing in these projects, the DOE aims to minimize the climate impact of fossil fuels and transform how natural gas is managed at oil production sites.
