Alumnus reducing methane emissions one well at a time

Among the plethora of emissions-reducing efforts happening worldwide, Climatebase Fellow Kapilan Tamilselvan’s (BSME 2018) efforts sound a bit different.

Earlier this year, Tamilselvan joined Tradewater, a mission-based benefit corporation that creates, develops, and implements high-value projects that reduce potent greenhouse gases, as an environmental project manager.

“We like to say that Tradewater is on a global scavenger hunt for greenhouse gases,” said Tamilselvan, explaining that the company primarily focuses on non-carbon dioxide gases such as refrigerants and halons. Tamilselvan’s team works on Tradewater’s more recent program to capture methane emissions, which have significantly increased in the United States since the Industrial Revolution.

Based on carbon dioxide equivalent emissions calculations, methane gas is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year timeframe. However, no scientific process currently exists to sequester methane gas particles that have been released into the atmosphere. Thus, efforts to reduce atmospheric methane levels must focus on permanently preventing future release from methane sources. Tamilselvan’s team targets a source that is sometimes forgotten—orphaned oil and gas wells, which do not have solvent owners.

Since drilling for fossil fuels first began, the standards surrounding the process for “retiring” a well have evolved significantly. In the United States, regulations today are determined by each state, with the goal of permanently plug the well such that no further emissions can escape. However, oil and gas industry economics can hinder or deter companies from properly plugging wells.

“Sometimes when a company goes bankrupt and dissolves, plugging the well properly is the last thing anyone thinks to take care of,” Tamilselvan explained. “It ends up either improperly plugged or, worse yet, not plugged at all, leaving the surface equipment to degrade over time. This leads to harmful gases leaking from the well.”

In the case where an open well is no longer owned by a person or legal entity, it is considered orphaned. Tradewater works with state registries and landowners to find these wells and evaluate whether they are a good candidate for their project type. A viable well’s sequence of test results will confirm that it is still emitting potent methane gas. Meeting the potency threshold qualifies the well for carbon credits, which fund Tradewater’s plugging projects.

“We put in long days in the field to identify a viable well, and then coordinate with local contractors to plug it,” Tamilselvan said. “We take a risk-based approach to our project development, building redundancy to ensure the permanency of the plug for the particular characteristics of the well.”

The methane emissions team has carried out plugging projects for several wells in Indiana and is researching candidates in other states.

“There are roughly 100,000 documented orphaned wells in the U.S., but there are likely to be many more that have not been documented,” Tamilselvan said, noting that current costs to properly plug one well can be anywhere between $10,000 to $100K. “The existing federal funding that we have would not nearly be enough to plug every orphaned well. We need private companies to come in with climate finance and do this work too.”

Tamilselvan’s stake in emissions reduction efforts dates back to his experiences as a young child in India.

“I grew up in a small town where we used to have 10 to 15 hours of power cuts every day,” he said, remembering hot nights when his mom would use a hand fan to keep him and his brothers cool. “We had cooking gas but once that ran out, we would use firewood to feed a family of eight. That really motivated me to study engineering and work in the oil and gas industry.”

For his junior year of college, Tamilselvan transferred to Illinois from Manipal University. “Illinois is one of the best engineering schools in the world,” he said. “The hands-on aspect of the design projects in [the ME design sequence] were really great.”

As a student, Tamilselvan became involved with the honor society Pi Tau Sigma, which he recalled as being a vibrant community. “The projects I was involved with [through Pi Tau Sigma] were crucial in terms of me developing a well-rounded skillset,” he said. After graduation, he worked for five years as a mechanical engineer for the oilfield services company SLB (Schlumberger Ltd) before joining Tradewater.

“I wanted to play an active part in the energy transition and climate economy,” he said of making the change. “I was admitted to the Climatebase Fellowship Program and the thing that stuck with me most was the stance taken by Project Drawdown—unless we drastically cut carbon emissions now, our other climate-related innovations will not be effective over the long term. I set out to see how I could use the knowledge, experience, and skills I gained from Illinois, my previous work, and the fellowship to work on climate solutions.”

Over the next few years, Tamilselvan and the team hope to increase plugging efforts both across the U.S. and internationally. “Our project is very much in the pilot phase and as a project manager, I’m working with our team to scale it to become an established program,” he said. “Once we’ve done that, we’re looking forward to expanding our work beyond the U.S. because orphaned well emissions are a global issue.”