Methane seeps into the atmosphere from leaks along the natural gas chain, and reducing these fugitive emissions represents one of the least costly solutions for limiting greenhouse gases in the short term. Each cubic foot of leaked gas constitutes wasted value from fixed assets failing to serve consumers. Federal regulations for methane emissions are evolving, and innovators are developing creative new tools for efficient, comprehensive monitoring of natural gas leaks; the challenge now lies with facilitating their deployment.

Developing and sharing digital tools that help optimize the location of new distributed energy resources (DERs) will allow utilities and developers to minimize the need for upgrades to transmission and distribution (T&D) infrastructure. Being strategic about where we site DERs — and empowering developers with the data to make those assessments at the start of their planning process — can decrease wait times in the interconnection queue, convert a greater percentage of proposals into completed sources of generation, and clean the grid for less.

Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) and Direct Air Capture (DAC) technologies could offer powerful solutions for removing carbon dioxide from emissions sources and even the ambient atmosphere. But to enable CCUS and DAC to achieve their full potential and tap into the practically limitless supply of incoming and atmospheric carbon, we also need to think about demand for the captured product. Developing new end applications for captured CO2 can spur an external demand shock that drives wide and profitable deployment of the technologies.