A University of Calgary research team, in its efforts to detect leaks of a potent greenhouse gas from oil and gas facilities, literally rose to the challenge during testing by Stanford University.
The UCalgary team’s technology — the Portable Methane Leak Observatory (PoMELO) — was the only entry from any university to take part in the recent Mobile Monitoring Challenge, which was hosted by Stanford’s Natural Gas Initiative and the U.S.-based Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).
“It was a great opportunity to do what the University of Calgary does best – bringing together science and technology to work on an important industrial problem whose solution will be very beneficial to the environment,” says Thomas Barchyn, a research analyst in the Department of Geography in the Faculty of Arts.
Methane, or natural gas, is at least 70 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas over a two-decade period. As much as a third of all methane released in the U.S. alone is from oil and gas facilities such as pipelines and well sites.
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Image via University of Calgary.