Scientific Rigor above all else
Technical and scientific rigor are at the heart of everything Project Canary does. We're committed to full transparency surrounding the performance of our technology and the detail underpinning our environmental assessments.
TRANSPARENCY
We believe transparency is fundamental to a sustainable energy transition. All molecules are not created equally – precise measurement and rigorous data reporting, auditable by outside third parties, help us truly quantify environmental impacts.
- TrustWell 2.0: We have published all of the underlying assessment questions and created a simulator to help users understand how individual assets are scored. You can even hear about what goes into the TrustWell process directly from our engineering team.
- Low Methane Rating (LMR): The entire framework for the LMR (our assessment that allows you to transparently measure, report, and evaluate methane emissions) is publicly available and can be downloaded here.
- METEC ADED Testing: Project Canary is the only company to publicly disclose its participant identity, Solution F, in the 2022 peer-reviewed ADED report. We have also published our results from every individual experiment (254 in total) for ADED 2023 testing.
Approach
Project Canary doesn't want to set standards. We believe standards should be set and administered by other groups pushing for high-fidelity measurement. That's the best mechanism to drive real change.
- We brought the TrustWell product to market because we believe in granularly measured, differentiated commodities
- Our goal is to distinguish low-environmental risk operations that produce lower-impact commodities across attributes pertaining to air, water, land, and community.
- Our approach is technology-inclusive, and we're proud to partner with other technologies focused on granular and high-fidelity methane measurement.
TECHNOLOGY
We've learned a lot in our three-year journey – we've changed our approach, discovered new strengths, and, most importantly, identified and fixed our shortcomings. With almost a year of controlled release testing and working with operators to quantify 200+ operating facilities, we believe we've built a best-in-class methane emissions monitoring system.
- Dispersion Simulator: Project Canary has published a simulator of our forward direction model for the general public to explore and experiment with.
- High-Fidelity Data Collection: We pioneered the large-scale deployment of accurate laser spectroscopy point sensors, opting for higher-resolution data than lower-fidelity alternatives.
- Aeris Technologies: Project Canary is committed to raising the measurement bar higher, evidenced by our acquisition of Aeris, which manufactures 1ppb (parts per billion) sensitivity methane devices.
- Leading Quantification Algorithms: Project Canary conducts extensive testing at METEC and other controlled release facilities, and transparently shares outcomes and explanations of the models we create.
Correcting the Record
Project Canary’s technology team reviewed the captured events and found that Earthworks made completely inaccurate claims. The Canary S units performed as designed, detecting emissions in the vast majority of cases identified.
- When our team compared Earthworks’ claims to the data, we discovered that our Canary S monitors detected emissions increases in 10 of the 14 identified events.
- In three additional instances where Earthworks concluded that they saw a great deal of some gas or other, there was no actual measured increase in VOC emissions. The most likely explanation is that Earthworks observed a gas other than VOCs, perhaps steam, perhaps combustion exhaust containing low levels of VOCs, or possibly even methane.
- One of the four “misses” was due to equipment maintenance issues.