SOURCE:Enbridge, Inc.
DESCRIPTION:
Innovation takes time to grow and be nurtured. Just ask Duncan Meade. Meade helps to lead a group at Enbridge that is investing seed money to develop tomorrow’s innovative leak detection technologies.
“There are a lot of good ideas out there. We want to do our part to bring them from a nascent stage to something that can be commercialized and eventually implemented,” says Duncan Meade, Enbridge’s Manager of Alternative and Emerging Technology. Meade works with a six-person team to identify and invest in emerging, pre-commercial technologies in a number of areas that include leak detection as well as green energy.
“We’re a corporate venture capital group. Our job is to evaluate and invest in early stage technology and developer companies to the benefit of Enbridge and the industry,” says Meade.
In August, Alternative and Emerging Technology invested $1.5 million in Syscor Controls and Automation, a small Victoria, B.C.-based company, to help it develop a gas sensing technology for use on above-ground storage tanks. Enbridge hopes to use the sensor to help identify leaks in tanks and plans to demonstrate the pre-commercial technology at one of its operating sites in 2013. Once the technology has been refined, Syscor will make it available to all interested companies, helping to improve the industry.
“The company is progressing on the path to commercializing the sensor, and we’re very optimistic on the future of the technology,” says Meade.
Click here to read more.
Tweet me:Investing in tomorrow’s leak detection technologies #innovation http://3bl.me/m9ytn5 @enbridge
KEYWORDS: Oil & Gas, pipeline integrity, alternative and emerging technology, leak detection