MORGANTOWN – With natural gas a growing part of West Virginia’s energy sector, one of the state’s universities has been tapped by the U.S. Department of State to make its knowledge global.
The State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources has collaborated with West Virginia University (WVU) to create the International Forum on Unconventional Gas Sustainability and the Environment (INFUSE). The technical program works with countries around the world on developing best practices for unconventional gas resource development by focusing on issues such as emissions and engineering.
For the INFUSE program, students from WVU are brought into the field to see firsthand the natural gas exploration in another country. Providing a mix of classroom and field learning, WVU students share their knowledge and experience with a group of international delegates. They discuss proper development and management of natural gas resources to decrease environmental risks and work to create sustainable resource development.
The INFUSE program came about by the involvement of Tim Carr, a professor for the department of geology and geography at WVU, with the State Department. “I worked for the State Department dispensing shale gas in various places – Chile, Jordan, Mongolia,” Carr told The West Virginia Record. “They said they were interested in actually bringing over delegations to see it. We sort of combined talking about it with going out and seeing the rig and seeing the compressor station.”
The program is part of WVU’s Energy Institute, housed within its Eberly College of Arts and Sciences. The university has partnered with Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources; Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design; the College of Law School of Public Health Regional Research Institute; and the West Virginia Water Research Institute.
“I think it helped bring it all together,” said Carr. “We’ve done a lot of work in terms of unconventional resources from all kinds of aspects – engineering, emission. We’ve got a number of projects. We’ve got this MSEEL (Marcellus Shale Energy and Environmental Laboratory) with the Department of Energy, which I often refer to as 'transparency well.' It helps us bring it all together. Also, these are people that are interested in doing it right. I can see other interactions with other countries.”
WVU’s MSEEL program has been collecting data from a science well and a two production wells to research and evaluate the life cycle from drilling to production of natural gas sites. It has partnered with Ohio State University, Northeast Natural Energy and the National Energy Technology Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy for the project.
As part of the three-day INFUSE program, students and professors have worked with natural gas sites in Mexico, Colombia, Morocco and Lithuania. The program is designed to visit one country a quarter with new locations being in fall.
“We bring them for three days,” said Carr. “We try to break it up with talks in the morning and go out in the field in the afternoon. I have a number of instructors talking about emissions, relations, engineering and economic impacts. They learn a lot and I do too.”