The world tide of scientific and technological innovation
"Applying AI to environmental protection and emission reduction has the potential to increase global GDP by 3.1 percent to 4.4 percent by 2030, while reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by about 1.5 percent to 4.0 percent."
With the worsening situation of global warming, energy conservation and emission reduction have become one of the strongest voices of The Times. Artificial intelligence (AI) technology could help the oil and gas industry find ways to drastically reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions if it wants to survive in the second half of the 21st century.
Grim situation in emission reduction
According to a report on the impact of atmospheric CO2 on climate change released by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in August 2020, global CO2 concentrations, mainly caused by fossil fuel burning, rose to about 410 parts per million (one part per million) in 2019, the highest ever recorded.
"This is not only the first time in recorded history, not only since the emergence of agricultural civilization 10,000 years ago, but also since the emergence of humans millions of years ago," US meteorologist Eric Holthus said on Twitter. We've never seen earth like this."
In this grim situation, oil and gas companies, especially large international companies, are facing increasing pressure to save energy and reduce emissions. To meet the Paris goal of limiting global warming to 2 ° C (preferably 1.5 ° C) below pre-industrial levels, many of the biggest players in the field have set carbon reduction targets. Bp and Royal Dutch Shell, for example, have vowed to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Exxon Mobil is focusing on more modest short-term climate targets, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions from its upstream operations by 15 to 20 percent by 2025 compared with 2016 levels.
AI can play a big game
AI's ability to harness data from many different sources not only promises to improve the efficiency of global oil production, but also to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent report by Microsoft and PWC. "Applying AI to environmental protection and emission reduction has the potential to increase global GDP by 3.1 to 4.4 percent by 2030, while reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 1.5 to 4.0 percent," the report states.
"These AI technologies can better monitor and allocate energy and resources, helping the industry optimize energy management efficiency and deliver better predictive results," said Daryl Willis, Vice president of energy at Microsoft. They can also be used to create visual simulations, improve decision-making, reduce operational costs, and manage and extend the life cycle of physical assets."
Morag Watson, BP's chief digital innovation officer, has also said that AI will be one of the most critical digital technologies to drive industry performance to the next level. The company is investing millions of dollars to develop big data technologies to improve resource efficiency and increase the safety and reliability of oil and gas production, refining and extraction.
Multi-faceted efforts to help reduce emissions
Specifically, exploration and production companies in the oil and gas industry are using AI to reduce their carbon footprint in a variety of ways, from predictive monitoring of carbon emissions from a particular field, to analyzing the production potential of a particular field to reduce the number of Wells that need to be drilled, to optimizing CO2 storage. As a result of enhanced oil recovery, companies store CO2 deep underground rather than releasing it into the atmosphere.
"Not only does it pay a monetary dividend, but it also reduces CO2 emissions per barrel of oil," said Mike Cross, a senior manager at UK AI software developer Beyond Limits. The company received a $20 million investment from BP in June 2017.
For oil producers such as Shell, AI devices can help companies better monitor their systems, predict and fix potential failures in advance, and reduce their carbon emissions. As shell data science department general manager Dan jevons, puts it: "if we can be more proactive to predict when it will be a problem, can reduce the possible accident, better control of spare parts of the deployment, reduce people to get to the field trip, thermal spray, etc., and all these will have an effect on CO2 emissions."
Shell has added AI to its new lines of business. For example, its Quest carbon capture and storage facility in Alberta, Canada, uses AI on a large scale. The facility began operations in 2015, and as of May 2019, Quest had captured and stored more than 4 million tons of CO2 deep underground, roughly equivalent to the emissions of 1 million cars.
Jevons says the company is also using AI to optimize its wind farm operations -- which provide carbon-free energy to many parts of the world.
In addition, AI will help oil and gas companies reduce their carbon emissions in the future by accurately measuring their greenhouse gas emissions throughout their entire operations, said RON Baker, energy director at Boston-based AI technology company AspenTech.
Big oil and gas companies such as ExxonMobil, for example, are using AI to collect huge amounts of data to categorise through sensors they deploy around the world. The company is also using AI to reduce its methane emissions, a powerful greenhouse gas.
The company's engineers, scientists and analysts can use data collected and stored in the cloud to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lower costs and increase oilfield production, according to the company's website.
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