Energy For A Cleaner Environment

Jessica Lutz
Posted January 16, 2019

Welcome to America’s Generation Energy – Americans from all walks of life who have unique opportunities for work, prosperity, health and quality of life thanks to abundant U.S. natural gas and oil.

Our industry is helping lead the way. We’re delivering record volumes of the natural gas and oil that power and support modern life, and we’re doing so with lower emissions and cleaner, more efficient products and operations. 

This was a major theme throughout API’s State of American Energy event last week and evident in our latest video, a spotlight on America’s Generation Energy. Take a look:

As heard in the opening line of the video, the people of America’s natural gas and oil industry are “doing what is effectively thought to be impossible.”  We profiled 13 innovators from America’s Generation Energy as part of the 2019 State of American Energy report to showcase the seemingly impossible work they advance every day to make our world cleaner, safer and more productive.

In the report you learn about Karen, who is implementing technologies in the Permian basin to recycle water used in hydraulic fracturing; Mike, who is part of a team exploring how to make advanced biofuels from algae; and Alex, a geoscientist working to locate the most elusive reservoirs, along with engineers figuring out how to draw from them with ever-greater precision, to reduce industry’s surface footprint.  You’ll also learn about Fred, a chemical engineer focused on developing ever-cleaner transportation fuels; and Drew, a research scientist whose company is perfecting technology to detect and reduce methane emissions -- deploying sensor technology carried by planes, helicopters and satellites.

From the report:

Cleaner operations, facilities and products – all are part of the natural gas and oil industry’s commitment to improve its environmental performance and accelerate society’s climate goals while producing the energy required by a modern economy. Developing natural gas and oil is an industrial process, yet its impacts can be managed using advanced technologies to protect the environment, our workers and the communities that host our operations.

At last week’s event, remarks from API President and CEO Mike Sommers reiterated the industry’s commitment to environmental progress:

“[L]et me state three things plainly: The risks of climate change are real. Industrial activity around the globe impacts the climate. And America’s natural gas and oil industry is meeting the climate challenge head-on.”

Perhaps this is why 88 percent of Americans favor energy companies helping meet environmental challenges. 

We’ve talked at-length about the ways in which industry is advancing environmental progress, and how the U.S. is leading the way and forging a path for others to follow. All of this while leading the world in production and emissions reductions. But, in case you missed the event last week, let me leave you with a few more excerpts. Sommers:

“Consider just a few basic numbers that show how this industry is meeting serious problems in serious ways. Between 1970 and 2017, GDP in this country rose more than 260 percent.  Energy use increased about 44 percent.  Vehicle miles traveled nearly tripled.  And yet for all of this, combined emissions of the primary air pollutants went down 73 percent. 

When it comes to carbon, no nation has reduced emissions more than America has over the last decade.  Smart policy explains only part of that progress.  The single greatest factor is clean natural gas.”