DOE, EPA Announce $850 Million for Methane Emissions Monitoring and Mitigation

A natural gas flare from an oil field in Irion County, Texas. These flares release methane, a greenhouse gas with a high global warming potential.
Jonathan Cutrer
The Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency opened applications
Of the various greenhouse gases, methane has been a top target of the Biden administration. Though methane made up only 11.1% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2022,
The $850 million in funding comes from the Methane Emissions Reduction Program
Of the total funds, the agencies anticipate allocating about $100 million to projects developing consistent and accurate approaches to region-wide methane emission measurement and data dissemination. This includes improving emissions data associated with specific sources, such as distribution pipeline damage and natural gas venting, and drawing on both activity-based and atmospheric-based methane assessments to make more informed estimates.
Activity-based calculations estimate emissions by multiplying the frequency of an activity by a factor indicating how much methane the activity emits. Researchers are also developing estimation methods that use airborne or satellite measurements along with information about atmospheric transport and chemical processes. For instance, NASA has used a spectroscopy instrument
The activity-based approach is more widely used but often underestimates in comparison
The new methane funds are open to applications from groups in industry, academia, DOE national labs, state and local governments, Tribes, and non-governmental organizations. All applicants must demonstrate how they will engage with and benefit local communities.
Their projects will build on the National Strategy to Advance an Integrated U.S. Greenhouse Gas Measurement, Monitoring, and Information System,
“There are a lot of different actors at the state and federal level that are looking at methane, but they have not been, at least not yet, creating a sum-greater-than-the-parts proposition by joining forces,” said William Collins, head of the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, in an interview. Collins was a lead author of a 2022 joint report
Collins said the new funding opportunity represents an important partnership between DOE and EPA. “The Department of Energy can bring to bear some really powerful measurement techniques that otherwise might not have been as easy for EPA to pursue in this context. It’s essentially science informing regulation in a way that we hope will be really promising going forward,” he said.