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Mitigating Oil and Gas Methane Emissions Means Economic Growth
- Updated: October 17, 2014
Texas Among States with Most to Gain
by John Michaelson/TNS
HOUSTON – As concern around oil and gas methane emissions continues to grow, those companies in Texas and across the country that provide solutions to reduce this industry’s pollution can also help spur economic growth
A new analysis released by the Environmental Defense Fund identifies 76 companies with more than 500 locations nationwide that manufacture methane controls or offer related services, according to Marcy Lowe, president of Datu Research, the company that conducted the analysis.
“Over 100 of them were for manufacturing and assembly, 344 of them were for services and then more than 50 for sales,” says Lowe. “There’s really quite a lot of locations, and they span 46 different states.”
As the federal government considers new limits on methane emissions, Texas is among the 10 states in the nation with the most to gain economically from the emerging methane mitigation industry. Photo: Alex/Flickr.
Lowe says among the 10 states with the highest concentration of such companies, and the most to gain economically from future growth, is Texas.
Among those highlighted specifically in the report is Heath Consultants Incorporated of Houston, with annual revenues exceeding $100 million and more than 1,200 employees. The jobs, like others in the methane mitigation industry, are high quality, says Laura Spanjian, director of the Office of Sustainability for the City of Houston.
“These are really highly skilled jobs with good pay,” says Spanjian. “It’s worth noting that as the attention to methane increases, this is an opportunity for really good jobs and they’re not the type of jobs you can outsource.”
The report also found increased use of these methane mitigation solutions can save the oil and gas industry more than a billion dollars in lost product, while greatly reducing harmful emissions. Lowe says that’s key as the federal government is now contemplating standards to limit them.
“Methane actually has a very high warming potential, much higher than carbon dioxide,” says Lowe. “For the first 20 years methane is in the atmosphere, molecule for molecule, it has 84 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide so, it’s a really powerful greenhouse gas.”
It’s estimated oil and gas operations emit 7.7 million metric tons of methane per year; and absent industry-wide adoption of new control measures, that will increase at least five percent through 2018.