The environment and sustainability cross-functional team considers the monitoring and management of spills and emissions, preventative maintenance opportunities to prevent future events, and assessing, monitoring, and mitigating environmental impacts and risks.
Team Leads
The team leads are:
- David Allen (The University of Texas – Austin)
- Mahmoud El-Halwagi (Texas A&M University)
- Jodi Lutkenhaus (Texas A&M University)
- Lara Aston (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)
- Rebecca Green (National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
Focus Areas
The team’s focus areas are:
- Spill management: The team’s experience in monitoring autonomous devices powered by renewable energy and marine energy, as well as real-time management systems, data-driven models and decision-making tools, modular and deployable technologies and careful use of chemical dispersants according to the United States Coast Guard regulations will help in monitoring and managing spills.
- Fugitive emissions modeling and management: The team has extensive experience designing air quality measurement campaigns, developing inventories of emissions from oil and gas operations and performing atmospheric modeling of the photochemistry of emissions from oil and gas sources. Using a combination of measurements and modeling, we will examine emissions of volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, particles and greenhouse gases from offshore production and support operations.
- Produced water treatment and deployment of mobile and modular units: In addition to stationary treatment systems, the team will also explore the development of modular treatment systems that can be deployed for abnormal situation management, such as an emergency response to spills. We will adapt and update recent advances in modular, mobile and renewable energy-driven treatment systems as well.
- Environmental protection: The team will focus on three primary environmental protection issues that are critical for the development and operation of ocean energy systems, including:
- Ecological assessment of the positive and negative impacts of ocean energy systems on marine mammals and species, birds and bats.
- Development and evaluation of technologies and protocols for monitoring responses of marine organisms to ocean energy systems.
- Potential to enhance habitats for marine organisms at ocean energy facilities.
By using a unique blend of monitoring equipment, combined with at-sea surveys and spatial modeling, we will identify marine organisms’ spatial and temporal patterns and their critical habitats. These data are critical for citing ocean energy systems and meeting environmental regulatory review requirements.
