Submitted Photo A jet plane, sitting in a hangar, will fly over the Bakken and other major oil basins in the United States this summer and fall to collect methane emission data as part of a project called MethaneAIR.

Measuring methane emissions has been a focus of environmental and governmental monitoring groups for some time.

A number of scientific studies have been done on oil-field equipment emissions, and the Environmental Defense Fund has been working to get a better handle on methane emissions from oil and gas development for about a decade, said Jon Goldstein, senior director of Regulatory and Legislative Affairs for EDF.

Early next year, in cooperation with other research groups, EDF plans to launch MethaneSAT, a satellite with technology that will collect methane emission data.This year, a project called MethaneAIR, using the same technology mounted on a Lear 35 jet aircraft, will fly 50 high-altitude flights over U.S. oil fields, including North Dakota’s Bakken, over the next four months.

“Throughout the summer and fall, we’re going to be trying to take a look at the major oil and gas basins across the U.S., and our hope is that we’ll be able to capture a snapshot of what’s going on across 80 percent of their production,” Goldstein said. “It’s definitely to get a better handle on the problem and to help catalyze action to address this pollution.”

There have been previous flights over oil fields with detecting equipment, but the MethaneAir technology is known for its sensitivity.

“What’s particularly exciting about this is it will obviously be able to capture the really big – what are sometimes called – super emitters, and those are definitely a problem that we want to see addressed as quickly as possible,” Goldstein said. “But this device is also sensitive and precise enough that we think it will also give us a good estimate of what’s coming from the smaller leaks that may, individually, be not as large but across an entire basin can really sum up to a substantial part of the problem. So that’s going to give us a really good sense, too, I think, of the importance of the smaller leaks.”

Methane, a greenhouse gas, is 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in driving climate change, Goldstein said. Methane leaks also are linked to leaks of other harmful chemicals that can damage the ozone, create smog or cause cancer, he said.

“Getting after these methane leaks also helps prevent those public health-harming forms of pollution from escaping. Because methane is natural gas, capturing these leaks and preventing that problem from happening also significantly can increase the tax and royalty revenue that a state will collect, like North Dakota, because you’re not wasting those energy resources,” he said.

State Rep. Lisa Finley-DeVille with Fort Berthold Protectors of Water and Earth Rights and Dakota Resource Council, said she is glad to see the work being done by EDF, having worked on the pollution issue since 2010. In cooperation with Earth Justice, methane monitors recently were installed at Fort Berthold, but Finley-DeVille said more needs to be done.

“We need more than one study,” she said, calling the MethaneAir project important to the overall information collection. Studies are important for policy development but their data also can hold companies accountable, she said. The importance of policies and accountability can’t be understated when people’s health is at risk, she added.

Goldstein acknowledged concerns about methane and flaring on Fort Berthold Reservation and the loss of revenue in failing to capture that resource.

Goldstein said an examination of flaring has found that the pollution is significantly greater than engineering estimates say it should be.

“Doing things to curtail that flaring as much as possible is one really important way to try and limit methane pollution,” he said.

Oilfield equipment leaks also are a concern, he said. The Environmental Protection Agency and Bureau of Land Management have proposed rules to address the issue that are expected to become final later this year.

North Dakota regulators implement federal regulations on methane emissions. Jim Semerad, director of air quality with the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality, said oil companies must engage in a labor-intensive reporting process, but the state also conducts its own inspections to ensure reports are corroborated and that companies have the right equipment and maintain that equipment.

Although flaring is a concern due to the waste of an important resource, when efficiently burning natural gas at 98-99%, flaring provides pollution control, Semerad said.

“You don’t want the methane leaks. You want it flared,” he said. “It’s most important not to vent, from a pollution perspective.”

Semerad added that different methane measurement tools each have their own advantages. Satellite data is valuable from a global perspective, and that data ultimately can make its way into regulations that impact the environment over the longer term. On the other hand, site-specific monitoring done by oil companies offers immediate feedback that allows quick corrective action to be taken if necessary, he said.

The MethaneSAT satellite is being built and tested by Ball Aerospace and Blue Canyon Technologies. It will be carried into orbit by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The Mission Control Operations Center is built by Rocket Labs. Partners include the government of New Zealand, providing both support and scientific expertise.

The core group behind MethaneSAT consists of more than 40 people from EDF, Harvard University and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, backed by a prestigious group of senior scientific and technical advisors.

EDF is developing a platform to house data from MethaneAIR and the data that MethaneSAT will start collecting next year. That platform could be ready as soon as late 2023. In the meantime, reports, analyses and other findings and evaluations will be posted at MethaneSAT.org and in the “Updates” section at EDF.org/Methane.

In addition to making data available to the public, the information will be shared with policymakers and oil and gas companies.

“All three of those constituency groups are going to be really important to get the changes happening that need to happen,” Goldstein said.