How GTI Energy is Evolving Today’s Natural Gas Infrastructure to Accelerate Energy Transitions
At GTI Energy we think a lot about the importance of leveraging existing infrastructure in transitions to low-carbon, low-cost energy systems. The United States is poised to invest more than half a trillion dollars into clean energy and climate action over the next decade. Meeting growing demand for affordable energy while slashing emissions will require combining what we know works with innovations to prove new solutions. And putting these new solutions to work will require all sorts of infrastructure.
Multiple U.S. economy-wide net-zero analyses indicate that liquid and gaseous fuels will continue to have a meaningful role in low-carbon, low-cost energy systems, with gaseous and liquid fuels accounting for roughly half of final energy demand.[1] We will work to decrease the carbon intensity of those molecules and to find ways to put them to use without creating air emissions, but they will continue to serve a vital role in producing energy, fueling industry, manufacturing, and transportation in our economy.
In the U.S., we have a century’s worth of pipeline infrastructure in place. Nearly three million miles of existing gas pipelines in the United States help transport and deliver almost a third of the country’s primary energy supply. [2] They were built over decades with billions of dollars invested in their development and maintenance. Repurposing this investment presents an opportunity to combine something proven with innovations to create lower-carbon energy solutions at a lower cost and faster pace.
To do so, we need collaborative research to explore and understand the possibilities for moving, storing, and delivering increasingly low-carbon molecules using existing gas infrastructure. That is why GTI Energy created the Net Zero Infrastructure Program (NZIP), a multi-stakeholder research effort designed to pursue those answers. NZIP will identify and quantify how we can leverage our existing natural gas infrastructure through research that starts with questions such as, what role does our gas infrastructure play in our energy and economic systems currently? What and where are the short-term decarbonization opportunities for our natural gas systems? What are the research and development gaps that will catalyze and scale these opportunities?
Thoughtful Answers to Vital Questions
Communities rely on these existing systems and operators to provide reliable, safe, affordable energy services to provide comfort in their homes and the productivity needed for their local economies. Maintaining that deliverability while adding new performance requirements — like lowering air emissions — is a complex challenge.
By focusing on the complete systems around existing infrastructure — the facilities and equipment already in place along with the expertise that builds and maintains it, by convening diverse experts to conduct thoughtful and credible analysis, and by engaging the communities that these systems serve we aim to create solutions that can lower emissions and enable economic growth. The NZIP community will identify and work to close the research and technology gaps to inform understanding of how and where existing infrastructure can accelerate decarbonization. Through industry collaboration, stakeholder workshops, peer-reviewed whitepapers, educational webinars, and data assessments, we intend for NZIP to provide a trustworthy assessment of the opportunities, risks, and costs of energy systems transitions.
Collaboration unlocks the expertise, resources, and innovative ideas necessary to tackle the complex and interconnected challenges of energy transitions. This is well understood by NZIP partners, including Atmos Energy, CenterPoint Energy, Con Edison, Duke Energy, Entergy, National Grid, and ONEOK. We are also working with regulators, investors, policymakers, academia, and eNGOs to better understand their priorities and concerns, and we are talking to community organizations that will be most affected by new or repurposed infrastructure.
Transparency plays a pivotal role in cultivating trust among a diverse community of stakeholders, which is why it is fundamental to NZIP’s research and development methodology.
Renewing our existing energy systems to be low carbon and low cost is an all-hands-on-deck challenge, and there is a great opportunity to combine strengths to make progress. I am excited about the community that NZIP is building. If you are interested, check out the hub we are building for sharing publications and data.
[1] Net-Zero 2050: U.S. Economy-Wide Deep Decarbonization Scenario Analysis | An Open Energy Outlook: Decarbonization Pathways for the USA | Annual Decarbonization Perspective 2022 | Net-Zero America: Potential Pathways, Infrastructure, and Impacts | Pathways to Net-Zero Emissions
[2] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/natural-gas/use-of-natural-gas.php | https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/natural-gas/natural-gas-pipelines.php
