Have Ideas for Fast, Mobile, Low-Cost Solutions To Find Methane Leaks?

twa-2017-10-methanechallengebanner-hero.jpg

Stanford University’s Natural Gas Initiative and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) are calling engineers and technology developers to submit proposals for the mobile methane leak monitoring technology competition.

Submission deadline: 31 October

The oil and gas industry accounts for about one-third of all methane emissions in the US, but with natural gas prices at record lows—about $3 per million cubic feet—the economic incentive to employ expensive leak solutions is reduced. Therefore, in the co-sponsored Mobile Monitoring Challenge, Stanford University and EDF are calling for promising solutions for methane leak detection that are rapid, low-cost, and mobile.  This challenge will be an independent and peer-reviewed effort to test methane detection and quantification technologies.

Competition Details:

Selected teams will participate in single-partial blind study of controlled methane releases over a 3-week period in early 2018. Stanford University scientists will design and administer a series of large-scale controlled methane releases at a single location, and study teams will do their best to find and quantify the methane released. These technologies could either be ground-based (truck-mounted) or aerial (planes, satellites, drones, helicopters, etc.), with a key feature being the ability to assess leaks quickly while in motion and while off-site. A fraction of the controlled release data will be given to all the teams for calibration purposes, and teams will be expected to estimate the remaining release volumes. Following the experiment, Stanford scientists will independently analyze the estimates from teams and publish the results in open and peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Click here to learn more about the challenge and download the application: https://methane.stanford.edu/