By Ron McMahan
Industries and Environment
SGS North America Innovations
As I write, 35,000 delegates are tackling climate change issues in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference or COP27, November 6-18. With a global energy crisis, the war in Ukraine and inflation woes staring them down, I’m gratified that the delegates and world leaders, including President Biden, and even the protesters, are invested in the effort to reduce greenhouse gasses.
At the same time, I hope that lots of talk leads to action and it appears that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking some. Reuters reported that, “U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration plans to toughen a crackdown on oil and gas industry methane leaks as part of a ‘relentless focus’ on preventing planet-warming emissions.”
The EPA announced that it will expand its 2021 rule requiring oil and gas operators to monitor 300,000 of its biggest well sites quarterly to find and fix methane leaks, now requiring drillers to find and plug leaks at all, approximately one-million, US well sites, and not just the biggest ones. Amazingly, methane has more than 80 times the warming power of CO2 over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere. CO2 has a longer-lasting effect, but methane creates warming in the near term. Methane is the number two cause of climate change after CO2 and at least 25% of global warming is caused by methane from human activity.
With even more methane leaks to be detected, environmental professionals, quite likely including you, will be looking for the least complicated and most cost-effective way to yield highly reliable detection results. The SGS methane leak detection solution does just that with the best in real-time monitoring and reporting.
Our real-time, high-tech solution starts with the RKI AirLink 6900 Gas Detector, the latest leading-edge, battery operated, wireless technology in fixed gas detection today. It is a versatile, truly wire-free transmitter using low-power infrared sensor elements to detect a variety of gases, including methane. You can purchase or rent Airlink from SGS Galson based on the duration of your requirements. Airlink is used with our SGS SmartSense cloud-based monitoring and sampling initiation system and LiveView intuitive, SQL-compliant relational database application. LiveView software helps you organize and assemble both historical and current data streams into a single, accurate data set where you view your data to see exactly what’s going on at each sensor, location, or region. It also provides an instant text message and email for corrective action as soon as it’s detected.
As global representatives attempt to grind out solutions to climate change at COP27, SGS is ready to help you serve the needs of your clients. For methane detection, and the full range of air, water, soil, waste, and other environmental analysis, please contact me or your SGS representative any time to learn about our solutions and how they will meet your specific needs.
- Call toll-free at +1 888 432 5227
- Email [email protected]
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- Text in real-time to +1 888 432 5227
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