Whether and to what extent natural gas is better than coal or oil with respect to climate impact depends on how much of it escapes into the atmosphere during extraction and transport. Unfortunately, little is known about “fugitive” methane emission rates. With this gap in mind, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), partnering with about 90 industry and academic partners, has launched 16 studies that aim to increase our understanding of methane emission rates from key elements of the natural gas system. This grant provides supplemental support for this series of studies, enabling EDF to compare and contrast the relative accuracy of a wide range of methodologies used to quantify methane emissions, and to assess existing and emerging methane monitoring technologies. Their findings, to be published in a final report, will aim to provide an impartial, evidence-based evaluation of the most promising technologies and methodologies for measuring fugitive methane emissions, identify additional research that is needed, and chart a path towards the commercialization and large-scale deployment of well pad methane monitoring systems.

The Bakken Shale in North Dakota and the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas are currently producing well over a million barrels of shale oil per day and have been largely responsible for the recent increase in U.S. domestic oil production and the reduction in U.S. oil imports. Understanding the productive capacity of these plays is essential to understanding how shale oil is likely to shape the future of U.S. energy production. Funds from this grant support a project by the University of Texas at Austin’s Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) to model the current and future productive capacity of the Bakken and Eagle Ford shale oil plays. Using government and industrial data—some public, some proprietary—the BEG team will conduct a well-by-well analysis to determine the total oil and gas resources in each play, perform decline analyses; calculate current technically recoverable resources; assess acreage drained by existing wells and locations remaining to be drilled; and build a production outlook model that projects the development of acreage and economic reserves over the next 20 years in each basin, given a variety of assumptions about the pace of technology improvement, logistical constraints, and well economics.

This grant provides three years of continued support to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) for its Project on Energy and National Security, a research initiative that focuses on increasing our understanding of issues at the intersection of energy, economics, and international security. Led by CFR’s Michael Levi, the project will examine a diverse array of issues, including how national oil companies make investment and production decisions, how infrastructure constraints cause divergence in regional oil prices, the economic and security implications of a significant drop in global oil prices, the consequences of the shifting trade in liquid fuels, and evaluating the effectiveness and consequences of international sanctions against petro-states. Additional grant funds support an annual workshop to discuss ongoing projects and findings, and outreach activities to engage policymakers, regulators, thought-leaders, industry, and the public.

Funds from this grant support efforts by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) to build broad-based support from multiple stakeholder groups on options to address the nation’s nuclear waste challenges. To guide the overall effort, BPC will convene a high-level advisory council to provide project direction and serve as representatives when meeting with congressional and executive branch leadership. The three-to-five-member advisory council will be composed primarily of former members of the Secretary of Energy’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future and include individuals that span industry, nonproliferation, and environmental perspectives. Under the leadership of the advisory board, BPC will assess the level of support for and opposition to implementing the various proposals on nuclear waste management and disposal by hosting three full-day regional workshops, one in Washington and two elsewhere, to engage policymakers and stakeholders on the issues surrounding nuclear waste. Each workshop will begin with a brief stage-setting presentation by experts on the substance and status of the various proposals and then move to a structured discussion. Throughout the project, the BPC project team will also stand ready and, if requested, will assist legislators, regulators, and policy developers to better understand both technical and policy issues and stakeholders’ views.The project has been carefully designed to stay well clear of endorsing any particular policy proposal.