NEWS RELEASES

The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency have awarded $326 million to three Colorado State University research projects that aim to improve U.S. oil and gas operations and reduce methane emissions nationwide.

The EPA’s Methane Emissions Reduction Program is providing the funding to the CSU Energy Institute and faculty working across multiple departments in the Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering, with the goal of helping oil and gas operators improve operational efficiency and manage emissions. The efforts will also support activity to build an inventory of methane emissions, improve air quality and offer workforce development.

Made up of a four-man team that has been conducting research together for decades, Professor B. Don Russell and Principal Research Engineers Carl Benner, Jeffrey Wischkaemper and Karthick Manivannan are working on a nearly $3.2 million Department of Energy (DOE) project titled “Preventing Wildfire Ignition from Powerline Equipment Failures Using ML-Based Classification of Real-Time Electrical Measurements.” What started as a focus on failure diagnosis of mechanisms on power lines evolved into wildfire and power outage prevention caused by power lines.

The Universe really seems to be expanding fast. Too fast, even. A new measurement confirms what previous — and highly debated — results had shown: The Universe is expanding faster than predicted by theoretical models, and faster than can be explained by our current understanding of physics. This discrepancy between model and data became known as the Hubble tension. Now, results published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters provide even stronger support to the faster rate of expansion.