The central topic of this seminar is modeling approaches to facilitate resource conservation and a just energy transition. Potential subtopics are an emerging technology’s potential for scaling, life-cycle assessment for measuring social and environmental impacts, uncertainty quantification, and economic modeling for the energy transition. Our goal is to create an intimate, collaborative space for students, postdocs, scientists, and PIs within the Stanford techno-economic modeling and systems modeling community. These seminars will provide an opportunity to disseminate insights from your studies, connect with fellow researchers, and strengthen bonds across the community.

This week's speaker is:

Zhihao Spencer Zhang, Ph.D. Student, Stanford University
"Detailed life-cycle carbon intensity of United States natural gas including extraction, processing, and transmission"

This talk will explore the state-of-the-art methodologies for assessing carbon emissions across the lifecycle of natural gas production in the U.S. The difficulty in providing a reasonable carbon intensity (CI) numbers for the US natural gas lies in unorganized production facility data reportage and long-standing underestimates of super-emitter activities in our methane emission estimation models. This talk, as one of the first studies to systematically include the methane super-emitter activities in O&NG life cycle assessment, will explain how much emissions we were overlooking by integrating the latest aerial and satellite measurement data into the analysis. This talk will also walk us through how we leverage high-resolution spatial data analysis to harmonize various public and proprietary oil and natural datasets, offering a detailed look at carbon intensity variations from exploration to transmission. This research provides valuable insights for policymakers, industry leaders, and researchers aiming to reduce the environmental footprint of natural gas production while ensuring energy security.