Williams’ Clean Energy Expo this week in Washington D.C. drew industry leaders, innovators and policymakers to showcase how Williams and the natural gas industry are delivering energy security and affordability while simultaneously reducing global emissions.

The event began with demonstrations from Williams and tech innovators of how the natural gas value chain is leveraging and developing cutting-edge and scalable technologies to reduce emissions – from responsibly growing NextGen natural gas to displace high-emissions fuels, to the deployment of methane-monitoring satellites, real-time leak detection with AI, and efforts to develop high-efficiency clean hydrogen solutions.

“At Williams, we believe that partnering with like-minded energy experts and innovators is the fastest and most pragmatic path to a clean energy future,” said Williams President and CEO Alan Armstrong. “Industry, government policymakers, innovators and investments must intersect to successfully advance our nation’s climate goals as demand for clean energy continues to rise.”

In a panel about emissions reductions progress, Chad Zamarin, Williams EVP, Corporate Strategic Development, touted the importance of U.S. natural gas for decarbonization.

“We have an incredible energy infrastructure and ecosystem here in the United States,” Zamarin said. “It’s the envy of the world, and we source 3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas stored below ground and we can deliver it when and where it’s needed. That’s a national treasure. We have to protect that. We have to invest in it.”

Context Labs was one of the companies to demonstrate their technology at the expo. The company deploys machine learning, artificial intelligence and cryptographic blockchain technologies to track and measure emissions across the value chain

“We may be looking at data from a flyover, data from a satellite, data from a point sensor, data from SCADA, all at the same time to get to ground truth of what was going on at a particular time, at a particular asset, around emissions,” said Context Chief Development & Strategy Officer Nathan Brawn.

In a conversation on the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast shortly before the event, Armstrong said natural gas is the most powerful tool to reduce global emissions by displacing coal and fuel oil. He said the Biden administration pause on approvals of new LNG projects is harmful.

“LNG really is such a powerful tool that the U.S. really needs to unleash,” he said. “I think we see it as a very unfortunate political move that really does stand in the way of progress of the U.S. being a bigger and bigger player in helping reduce emissions around the world.”