Thanks so much everyone for tuning in tonight this morning or, or wherever you are. I am actually uh in Atlanta, Georgia right now, which is not my hometown, but um welcome to the Hilton in midtown Atlanta. My name is Anna Scott.I am the uh climate scientist by training uh an entrepreneur and founder, I guess by profession. Um And I'm the co-founder of a company called Project Canary. And what I wanted to share and talk about a little bit today is why we think quality data is so important to solving our energy and climate crisis. And I maybe wanted to start and share a little bit about that personal journey um by sharing why we bothered to start this company in the first place. And so I think it all really started with this idea that decarbonization begins with having accurate data. And this theme that if you're an emission intensive industry, you're not gonna be able to get to net zero using estimated data. Now, what do I mean by this? Well, we're living in the golden age of the measurement economy. And so if you think about it, we've got measurements everywhere. So you pick up your phone and you go to your home screen in the morning and you pop up and you have all of this very rich weather data, both quantitative and qualitative.

Um We've got engagement data, like probably more than we need on our social media feeds. And then we've also got data that like who would have ever thought that people would be paying for, you know, like I've got friends who, when we first started getting fitbits, they would talk about like their sleep data um in everyday conversations. But when it comes to some of the stuff that that matters, I mean, really matters, not that sleep is not important. Um but things like climate change and the wildfires and the droughts and the the increased hurricanes that we're experience I saw in my professional career as a scientist that there were some lacking measurements. Now, what do I mean by this? Well, we do have really, really great data about climate change. So this is a graph that you might have seen that looks at carbon dioxide concentrations over time um as measured at one station in Hawaii. And you can see that uh the the measurements go up over time. This is a, a really precise scientific instrument. It's run by a team of, of scientists by from some of the best institutions in the world. But if we take a look at where these measurements come from, it actually turns out, we don't have a whole lot of these.

And so that uh measurement in particular, I think we can see our mouse actually comes from over here in Hawaii. Um This is a map of other stations that, that research group also runs. There's other networks where we're measuring um emissions in the atmosphere. Um On the left, I'm showing uh a network in, in Europe. On the right, I'm showing one of the private networks that's being um spun up to, to check on measurements kind of at the the state or regional level. Um But when it comes to um certain types of emissions, uh when we look at where those emissions come from, uh it turns out that a lot of the sources of those emissions are occurring really far from where we measure it. So here I'm showing uh a little bit of a technical diagram, but this is something that we call a global methane budget. And so methane is a gas. Um I'll talk about in a little bit, it's a greenhouse gas. So when it's in the atmosphere, it warms the atmosphere. And if we look at where it comes from over here on the left, we've got both natural and human caused sources uh from fossil fuel production and use from agriculture and, and waste. That, that means things like landfills when you throw out your food, for example, um biomass and biofuel burning and then natural sources, things like wetlands. Um and other types of uh natural types of emissions.

And, and then of course, there's also things that, that eat up, um, that, that methane. But when we take a look at some of these, these big sources here, we know that they're occurring perhaps far away from where we'd have data and it turns out that has some consequences. So if you know to share why that matters to you, here's some, here, oops, here's a map of where some of those locations are again from estimates. So this is a, a figure that NASA put together of where emissions come from from fossil fuel exploitation. Again, this is estimated. Uh but you see there's kind of dots all over the world here. And if you think about overlaying that with those maps of where we have measurements there, there definitely um can be a little bit of a disconnect now. So you, you might be wondering why does this matter to me? Like uh you know, I, I don't know like this seems pretty far away. Well, let me, let me explain a little bit. Um And one of the reasons again, this is us specific, but uh in the United States, our primary source of energy comes from either natural gas or petroleum, two thirds of the energy sources.

Um I think specifically this graph also includes transportation usage, which as we know is, is, is a little bit different than when we switch on our lights or maybe heat up, uh, something with our gas stove. Um, and, and that's certainly something that we expect to see change in the coming years. So here I'm showing uh, the US predictions for our energy mix and how that might change over time. So here I'm showing on the left is, um, what we think that things are gonna look like, um, based off of, you know, today's world. Uh, and then in the middle is a scenario forecasting what that might look like. Um if renewables are have a low cost and you can see that natural gas here in blue um is projected to rise in this case, stay flat in this low renewable cost case. And on the right, um is a forecast of what that would look like if there's a high renewables cost. Um And, and you can see that there's this interplay between natural gas here and of course renewables um like wind and solar shown in, in yellow and green, but in any cases, if you were an average energy consumer.

So if you turn on lights, if you, um you know, well, if you're connecting over the internet, um and you're plugged in your laptop, you're probably getting uh some of that natural gas in, in your supply mix. And I didn't know this um before I started um working uh in, in this space. But um there is a really complicated way for some of that stuff to, to get to market. So stuff starts out um over here in, coming out from the ground. So uh fundamentally like oil and natural gas, a lot of that um exists in, in reservoirs beneath the earth formed millions of years ago, uh decomposed over time and when it comes out of the ground, like you're not done yet, right. So there's all this work that needs to happen. So it comes up, it's all mixed together, needs to get separated out. There's oil in there, there's water in there. Um, there's gas in there. Uh some of that gas ends up getting flared or vented, some of that gas ends up being processed. There's a whole lot of these processes that happened. If you try and take it to market, you've got to compress it, you've got to put it in uh a pipeline, um, deliver it to either um an energy company or a consumer's house, you might store some of it.

Um But in any case, this ends up being a little bit of a complicated supply chain. And in all of these cases, the number of engineering components that existed honestly, any one of these sites along the way is like, like it's like hundreds to thousands depending on the size of the site. And what I think is really what I found to be really interesting was that, um, it turns out that each one of these components represents a new opportunity for some gas to escape And so if, by the way, if you're wondering like what one of these sites look like since these aren't great pictures, um, on the left, I'm showing, uh, this is a production site, um, in, uh, Colorado, I believe.

And on the right is a, uh, very helpful selfie of me on, on, on an actual oil and gas site. Um, but the real, um, the, the issue with all of this very complex supply chain is that a lot of this production actually ends up getting lost or leaked on the way to get that product to market. And so what ends up happening is that there's a large discrepancy between the measurements of what we've seen going on from the few stations that we have available and the estimates that have uh previously been self reported. And so when folks go in and take actual measurements, they find that the actual site level emissions can be up to 10 times higher than estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency. And there's huge variation by the way, right, both from site to site, company to company location, to location. Um And if you look on the, the graph that I'm showing here is the percentage of product that's um measured or estimated to be leaked, uh broken down by um geo geologic formation. So that's like a region where the oil and gas is coming from.

And so you have some basins where you're, you're having like 5% of the gas that gets produced that's actually lost before ever ever gets turned into to energy. Whereas you have some regions where that, those numbers look quite, quite different. And this has phenomenal consequences on all of us on our planet because methane, which is the primary molecule that makes up natural gas warms the climate more than 86 times than carbon dioxide. Uh If you look at this over a 20 year period. And so this is a phenomenal challenge as we try and transition our energy system because, but on the flip side, it's also an opportunity because it means that if we can get the stuff out of the atmosphere really quick, uh We remove one of the more um more potent levers uh that of, of things that are warming our, our atmosphere.

Now, why this matters to the average consumer means that if we look at the overall life cycle of the carbon footprint of this gas, what that means is um that 86 times worse number means that if you look at um the overall footprint, the greenhouse gas footprint of that energy production, um the leaks end up causing anywhere from, you know, 10% to up to a quarter of the overall emissions footprint.

So if you're an energy company and you're looking to decrease your emissions, um you, you know, you've lost like 25% of your impact before you've even gotten your product into the the gates of your facility. But there, there is some good news here. So, um I took a look at this problem initially as AAA climate scientist, um I'd never, I'd never talked with anyone uh who was involved in uh production of energy. And so one day I went out to a field and I asked one of the guys whose job it is to do maintenance every day. He's been working in these fields for over, for over 20 years. Um, since Jason, uh, I'm hiding his last name for, for privacy. And, um, this is what he told me about how he fixes. Um, he think he gave me like 95% of, of the leaks that he encounters on a day to day basis. And step number one is that he hits it with a wrench, just takes out his wrench and like knocks it. If that doesn't get it, he'll kick it with his boot. Luckily, uh, wearing steel toed boots is standard in the industry. And then finally, if that doesn't get it, he'll pour a little bit of water into his water bottle cap. Hydration is important. He'll pour that. Um, and, and clear the debris. Uh, now if in all of that fails, uh, he'll move on to replacing the part.

Most of these parts are really cheap. O rings. Um, but sometimes they can be more expensive and then he'll just call in that part and, uh, oftentimes it'll be a third party that'll, that'll come in and, and replace it. So I took a look at this landscape and said, I think we can do better. Uh And I think that there's a better way of doing things and we created that product. So this is the sort of the, the first product that we came up with. This is uh a sensor that sits directly on facilities and it, it's an IOT enabled sensor. You can see a solar panel on this. Um It, it, it works out in the field. Um And uh it, it's solar powered, which means that it's on 24 7. And so, whereas previously, people did inspections on a like annual basis to a, you know, maybe never basis. Uh This allows people to actually get that data in um in near real time. Of course, it's not enough just to send a data stream. You also have to make that data useful. So this is a visualization of, of our online dashboard that shows a site map, it shows weather data, it shows uh the the actual concentration levels. And then of course, it sends out alerts in an automated fashion whenever a certain threshold is um is exceeded. And so altogether, this allowed our company to, to build a product that we think brings accuracy to environmental, social and governance initiatives within the energy industry.

Um where we uh look at the climate. Uh We do an assessment at the facility level, we pair that up with this, this data and then I'll give that all package that all up to our customers so that it can drive measurable outcomes. Um And what I think is super interesting about this is uh we got asked this question a lot of like, OK, well, like, can't you just like launch a satellite? Um, satellites are really cool. Uh I, I would love to launch a satellite. However, in this specific case, most of the emissions that we see are actually intermittent and they come from different sites, you, you might actually have two different sites that are run by two different companies that are really close to each other. So the satellite resolution, the satellites can't resolve that. Um because they've, you know, they're far away and they, they fly over only so much and there's actually a trade off by how much you can zoom in and how frequently you can see a site. So we're able to get this really uh high level facility level resolution and really pinpoint not only this is the site it's coming from, but um uh like which part of the site, you know, it's coming from like this separator from like this part of the, the patent, I think altogether what, what we're seeing and what we're aiming to have this do is have the site level quantification of emission of emissions, really enable traceability in the supply chain.

So we think it's not enough to simply stop by just working with the producers themselves, but we've started to actually get this information into the supply chain um and communicate with the end buyers of these products in order to help fundamentally reduce the emissions. So I promised that I would keep this to 15 minutes and um allow for questions. And so if anybody has any questions, um I love it. I love the comments. Uh Please drop those in the chat and I will go through and see, uh ask them and I, uh and unfortunately I'm gonna have to do this backwards so I can scroll up. But um Alisa says this is great and we actually tie in with the ESG accounting requirements. Um Yeah, we're really excited about all of the, the changes that we're seeing. Um I think the SEC is actually really, really interesting um because they're really pushing quite hard in terms of um asking for, for, you know, additional disclosures, additional requirements. Um and seeing that happen through the financial lens, I think is a really, really interesting trend that's really exciting.

Um You know, when I started out on this journey, um even just four years ago, I think the idea that we'd see the financial sector move to adopt really stringent um requirements on ESG was a little bit of a, a little bit slightly more out there idea, but it's definitely something that we've seen.

Um we've definitely seen change quite quite rapidly and I think that sector has been doing a really great job and in demanding um that they can have more information. And fundamentally, I think what, what we do and what I've presented here is really similar to what, um you know, what happens in, in the, the financial world every day, right? Like you can't submit a profit and loss report and just say, hey, I, like, I estimated my expenses this year. Like, I don't know, maybe that coffee cost me five bucks and like maybe I paid that person $25,000. Um There needs to be actual measurements. Um Alisa also pointed out Alama has been measuring emissions. Yeah, they've been doing a really, really awesome job with this. Um They've been focused a lot on just kind of the city level. I think that's, that's really great. Um because um similarly to kind of the the oil and gas world, a lot of emissions in, in the urban environment are can be small, it's hard to account for them. Um There have been laws on the books for a while that have uh power companies and generation measure their emissions. But in a city we've got all of these mobile sources, people, things are moving around, things are turning on and off and that makes it really complicated.

Um So uh you know, really excited about these, these ground based measurements and especially like mo mobile measurements. Um we just acquired a sensor company um called AIS that uh does a really, really awesome job um providing the technology that that makes some of these, these mobile measurements happen um for utilities and it's, it's such an exciting um such an exciting space to, to work for.

Um also talked about um gas phase outs in in new buildings. Yeah, I think this is a really interesting trend that, that we're seeing happen, you know, as I shared in some of those energy projections. Um you know, one of the, there's like some big error bars on, on what the demand for this is going to be uh uh in, in 20 years. Um I think what's so interesting about like this specific problem though is, is even if all of the cities, you know, in the world were to phase out gas, we actually would still be dealing with some of a lot of these oil and gas emissions. Um because, uh you know, a lot of it comes from a, a leaky system. And so, uh you know, even just turning off the, the taps doesn't really, unfortunately solve that problem. Also, we've got a question about um pipe in infrastructure. You need to know where the leaks are and that's the tricky part. Yeah, absolutely. I think this goes back to, you know, like we, we, it's not enough just to like give you data and saying like this is a problem, you have to have the answer in it of how to solve.

Um And so, you know, uh certainly um this can be really different on like a distribution system or, you know, a pipeline. Uh But uh when, when we go in and install um sensors around the facility, we'll put those around the fence line and, and we've developed algorithms that can, can map out where uh we think that those uh emission points are coming from. There's obviously some error bars in there. But uh you know, it's, it's pretty precise when we compare it to like the next best uh available thing. Um And so, you know, that allows folks to decide. OK, hey, like, do I need to send someone out? And, and if so which, which urgency? Um Yeah, we have a combination of, of different um uh different algorithms that, that kind of power this um in terms of, of uh how, how we do like the localization and quantification. Um It, it turns out that, you know, you can actually get pretty good um just like triangulation um by putting things together on the site. But then we of course layer um you know, fancier algorithms on top of that to enhance that. Well, thank you everyone so much for coming by. I think that's all the time I have and I think they're gonna kick me out. Um But would love to continue the conversation on linkedin or over social media um to answer Serge's question.

Um No, we don't specifically focus on measuring water. Um We do look at like the water impacts um and water processes that companies have in, in place. Um We, you know, so active area of discussion and research. Thanks again, everyone. I really appreciate it and uh enjoy the rest of the talks.