Greetings!

I trust our fall newsletter finds you well. As we head into the holiday season, I’d like to take a moment to express gratitude to all our members and friends for supporting our program this year. I would also like to welcome our new affiliate members, National Grid and Aramco!

As we close out this calendar year and head into the holidays, it’s a good time to reflect on our accomplishments over the last academic year. The NGI research portfolio continues to thrive with work on a wide range of topics related to natural gas including methane emissions detection and mitigation, the integration of gas and renewables, and the conversion of methane to high value products like hydrogen and synthetic fuels. We hope you have all benefitted from us sharing this valuable research through our website, newsletters, and events.

NGI continues to be a prominent builder of community too. This past year we hosted five symposia, participated in the Stanford Energy Expo, the Precourt Open House and the popular bi-weekly Methane Emissions Technology Alliance Seminar Series as well as participating in many podcasts and industry-wide events such as NY Climate Week. We look forward to closing out this year with a discussion of LNG for energy security at the Hoover Institute and attending the North American Gas Forum in Washington, DC. As we look ahead to 2025, we already have a number of events on the schedule including our Annual NGI Symposium in the fall of 2025.

The NGI website contains all our latest news, publications, and event information, and a short summary of recent and upcoming events may be found below. The NGI program office moved into the Precourt Institute for Energy Suite within the Yang and Yamazaki Environment and Energy (Y2E2) Building (see below for our new mailing address). Our new location brings a wide range of opportunities to collaborate with our colleagues on sustainability projects related to natural gas. For our members, we would like to inform you that all Stanford energy-related affiliate programs, including NGI, have aligned membership tiers. For NGI sustaining and corporate membership levels, the annually rate remains unchanged but for basic members, please note the annual rate has been reduced from $35,000 to $25,000.

We are grateful for your continued support and we welcome you to contact us any time with questions, comments, and suggestions.

Wishing you all a holiday season full of happiness and joy and we look forward to seeing you all again in the new year.

Best,

Naomi

Naomi Boness

Managing Director, Stanford Natural Gas Initiative 

"Energy security for a more-sustainable world".  Aramco traces its beginnings to 1933 when a Concession Agreement was signed between Saudi Arabia and the Standard Oil Company of California (SOCAL). A subsidiary company, the California Arabian Standard Oil Company (CASOC), was created to manage the agreement. Committed to driving  and addressing the global emissions challenge. And as the world their our part to reliably and sustainably provide the energy products that enable people to seize opportunities that can transform our world.

"Investing in entrepreneurs with capital, resources, connections and know-how".  Launched in 2018 as the corporate venture and innovation arm of National Grid, is one of the  world’s largest investor-owned energy companies. To date, the have invested in dozens of companies that are making the power grid safer, cleaner, and smarter. The National Grid team combines 100 years of investing experience and 125 years of utility operations. And they are the only VC firm that’s built an alliance of over 120 global utilities. 

October 2024 -  Stanford researchers in the Brandt group, in collaboration with partners at the University of Michigan, wrapped up the initial stage of a multi-phase study of large-scale controlled releases for space-based methane detection. The controlled release methane study, which will span at least through summer 2025, builds on half a decade of ambitious testing of methane detection technologies. This test will be the most extensive to date, including testing of 12 satellite observing platforms and 15 analyzing teams. And it includes the first-ever ground-truth testing for several prominent and recently launched platforms, including Carbon Mapper, MethaneSat, EMIT and Orbital Sidekick.

The initial stage of the study took place in Evanston, Wyoming (top right), where the Brandt team worked with partners at Rawhide Leasing to upgrade experiment equipment. The new set-up is solar-powered, fully automated, and remotely operated, allowing Stanford researchers to conduct a prolonged experiment and achieve higher sample sizes over the course of a year. The Brandt team also installed improved wind monitoring equipment, including a sonic anemometer mounted 10 meters above ground level (top left). As shown in recent Stanford studies, good wind characterization is important for accurate leak quantification.

After wrapping up in Wyoming, the team relocated the equipment to Arizona (pictured bottom right) where the next stage of the study is underway. Already, more than 80 controlled releases with concurrent satellite overpasses have occurred in both WY and AZ. In 2024, all ground measurements are shared out quickly and openly in a collaborative format designed to foster algorithm R&D for teams participating in the study. Single-blind testing will begin in January 2025.