Stories of Innovation: Detecting and Measuring Methane Emissions

Nicolas Huet, AUSEA Project Manager: People talk about methane but do we really know about its properties and how we can track methane emissions in the atmosphere? I can explain all that in one minute!

Welcome to Stories of Innovation, a series of podcasts from TotalEnergies. In each episode, our employees explain how the innovations that have changed the world of energy came to light. Want to find out more? Let's go!

Nicolas Huet: Let’s start with the basics: methane is the simplest hydrocarbon: at normal temperature and pressure it’s a gas that, when released into the atmosphere, has a warming potential which is 30 times more than carbon dioxide. That’s why TotalEnergies aims to reduce those emissions by 80% between 2020 and 2030. The first technology we can use is satellites. Satellites can identify “superemitters”: industrial and agricultural sites that emit over 100 kg of methane per hour. We work with GHGSat, a Canadian company with twelve satellites orbiting the Earth. If we zoom in a bit, we see that methane detection is not new for our sites. It’s actually a safety pillar for our operators. But to get to zero , you need to be more precise, so the Company has invested in new tools. First, infrared cameras, used in refining and now also in Exploration & Production. Then, fixed sensors were introduced in Texas and Italy for continuous surveillance. These sensors are now being deployed across all our operated sites. In addition to detection, TotalEnergies has started quantifying its methane emissions, using its AUSEA technology: a drone-mounted gas analyzer, developed in partnership with the University of Reims and the CNRS research center. After two years of testing the prototypes, OneTech launched the industrialization phase, in two parts: the gas analyzer and cloud data processing.

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