John M. Beath, P.E. (TX), LCA‐CP

CEO and Founder

John M. Beath, PE (Texas), LCA‐CP - LLC Manager, Senior Technical Consultant and Environmental Coach - John Beath Environmental

John Beath has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Georgia Tech and more than thirty years combined engineering and environmental experience. His industry assignments have included process engineering, planning and environmental positions at a refinery (including as environmental superintendent), as well as a role as a corporate regional manager for remediation.

Following his industry assignments, he led program implementation at a major consultant company for eighteen years, including leading MACT implementation, Title V permitting, compliance assurance, RCRA permitting, emissions estimation, BWON, and LDAR support. He has worked in more than 16 refineries (including China and South Africa).

Since forming JBE in 2015, John added to his leadership role in developing environmental deliverables for clients by recruiting and collaborating with a team to deliver life cycle assessments and sustainability inventory and reporting projects. His own efforts have led to a detailed methodology for EV effectiveness evaluation, the development of an LCA for carbon capture, a GHG reduction study for the refining sector, and the carbon footprint of construction operations and the materials used to construct commercial solar arrays and wind farms. 

He currently serves as JBE’s representative and the co-chair for the Membership Committee for the American Center for Life Cycle Assessment (ACLCA).

 

Key Project Work in the Sustainability Practice

  • Life Cycle Assessment - Comparison Between Electric Cars and Gasoline-Powered Cars (AFPM) - Performed a streamlined LCA that compared cradle-to-grave GHG and criteria pollutant impacts that was used as the basis for comments prepared for government officials as part of the public forum on proposed EV sales mandates for Colorado and Minnesota.

  • Carbon Footprint (city) – Working with a government staff with very little available time developed a detailed inventory of energy usage over a period of several days. The result was an excellent tool for comparing potential future projects in terms of their carbon footprint potential. The project identified the most significant cost reduction opportunities as recycling within city government assets and sale of landfill gas.

  • Carbon Footprint (refinery) – Developed a process which led to the carbon footprint of several oil recycling scenarios (including landfill, distillation for use as fuel, and re-refining to make a recycled version of the original product).  Each of these was balanced to constant market demand for the material being recycled, as well as the co-products of its manufacture. The process identified the tipping point for re-refining versus use of used oil as fuel. This led to involvement in additional work by the American Petroleum Institute.

  • Carbon Footprint (refinery) – Developed a comprehensive infrastructure estimate for a refinery and estimated the carbon footprint of the energy required to produce the required steel and concrete. These first-of-their-kind results were incorporated in the GREET GHG fuel cycle model maintained by the Argonne National Laboratory and used for government and industry for transportation policy decision-making.

  • Carbon Footprint (upstream) – Led a team that performed a comprehensive review of well production data and connected it to EPA GHG reporting by platform to generate the carbon footprint of platform operations. The team developed a “from-the-ground up” inventory of steel in platform superstructure, subsea wells and subsea gathering and delivery pipelines that was the basis of a determination of the carbon footprint of extracting and fabricating that steel (as an increment to the operational carbon footprint). This was one of the first such efforts to describe US upstream offshore operations from a carbon footprint perspective. Results were published by Argonne National Laboratory.

  • Water Use (refinery) – Performed a comprehensive water use study for both a former refinery and one currently operating to determine how to allocate water to the various products produced.  The results from the former refinery study were presented at the October 2017 National AFPM Meeting.

 

Key Project Work in Microsoft Excel Tool Development

  • Air Emissions - Refinery VOC Calculator (Argonne National Laboratory) – Led the development of a set of two Microsoft Excel tools now publicly available called RP-VOC) that calculates VOC emissions from the well-to-pump sources. The tool incorporates the detailed calculations set for in EPA’s AP-42 and is one of the first publicly available tools to provide a platform using the latest version of AP-42 (EPA discontinued its support of its tool called TABKS 4.09 a number of years ago).

  • Carbon Footprint (manufacturing) – Designed a tool now in active use to calculate the carbon footprint of various configurations of synthetic turf soccer fields that supported the development of an estimation of carbon credits. The tool was unique in that specific required credits could be estimated as part of a sale transaction.

  • Compliance - Sustainable Release Reportable Quantity (RQ) Tool (confidential client) – Led the development of a tool designed to extract chemical onsite inventory data from the facility GHG report and process stream speciation data from the RMP Maximum Intended Inventory (MII) to calculate the amount of any purchased chemical or process stream based on its speciation that would be reportable under CERCLA, SARA or CWA requirements.

 

Key Project Work in the Compliance Practice

  • Air Emissions – LDAR (chemical plant) – Led one of the first practical LDAR demonstration projects in China with a unique focus on hydrogen to reduce the potential for fires and explosions. The entire effort to tag, monitor, repair leaking sources, develop emissions estimates and make recommendations was delivered in four weeks on site.

  • Compliance Assurance – Policy (major oil and gas corporation) – Served as principal outside advisor to a corporate team developing the compliance assurance process for an oil company. Guided the writing of policy and was a key resource during the pilot gap analysis process. Subsequently led various implementations for refining, lubricants, and upstream on three continents.

  • Compliance Assurance (refinery) – Worked with EHS staff at a large refinery in Africa to implement a compliance check process to comply with global corporate standards and help the facility deal with newly created air emissions regulations. As part of this effort, worked with managers at all levels to explain the program benefits, discuss and fine-tune how the program would work, and obtain buy-in. By distributing the check process widely, no part of the organization was over-burdened with their share of checking for compliance.

  • Waste Minimization (refinery) – Led the comprehensive review of waste management at a refinery that resulted in the identification of ~ $2 MM per year in potential savings. A key aspect of this project was the development of a business process to track and evaluate all aspects of the waste cost (containerization, treatment, transport and disposal) in one place. This enabled managers to see the big picture at a glance and prioritize appropriately. 

 

Key Publications – Sustainability

  • “Application of Life Cycle Assessment and Tax Credits to Carbon Capture Projects,” J. M. Beath, P. Vosmus, S. Backes, V. Rybl, M. Aronson, American Center for Life Cycle Assessment Annual Meeting Presentation, September 2023

  • “On-Demand Carbon Footprint for Artificial Turf Fields to Support Carbon Offsetting,” J.M. Beath, E. Habib, American Center for Life Cycle Assessment Annual Meeting Presentation, November 2022

  • Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) 102: Electric Vehicle (EV) Global Warming Benefits – A Comprehensive Methodology for Evaluation, J. M. Beath, Self-Published on Amazon.com https://www.amazon.com/Life-Cycle-Assessment-LCA-Comprehensive-ebook/dp/B09PKT1VY9

  • “Putting Refinery Sustainability Into Perspective - A Practical Toolkit for Understanding What Can Be Done,” J.M. Beath, L. McGuire, J. Mulkerin, J. Develasco, American Fuels and Petrochemicals Manufacturers Annual Meeting, April 2021

  • “RP-VOC: A New Tool for Calculating the VOC Emissions of the Refinery Supply Chain,” J.M. Beath, P. Vosmus, R. Kazanski, T.R. Hawkins, G. Zaimes, American Center for Life Cycle Assessment Annual Meeting presentation, September 2020 https://greet.es.anl.gov/tool_rp_voc

  • Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) 101: A Simplified Guide to Developing a Carbon Footprint Estimation For Your Farm, John Beath, Book available on Amazon.Com for Kindle (December 2018). https://www.amazon.ca/Life-Cycle-Assessment-LCA-101-ebook/dp/B07MHDM2MR

  • “Contribution of Infrastructure to Oil and Gas Production and Processing Carbon Footprint,” John Beath, Marjie Boone, Nyx Black, Brandy Rutledge, Amgad Elgowainy, Michael Wang, Argonne National Laboratory Technical Papers, 2014. https://greet.es.anl.gov/publication-oil-gas-prod-infra

  • “Lessons Learned from a Comprehensive University Carbon Footprint,” June 2012, Air and Waste Management Association Annual Meeting, J.M. Beath and M. Tadmor

 

Key Publications – Compliance

  • “Applicability-Based Management of Change (MOC)”, Air and Waste Management Association, J.M. Beath, C. J. McCarthy, B. Jurkowski (2006).

  • “Unique Compliance Data Handling That Finally Gives Environmental Staff What They Want, and What They Need!”, Air and Waste Management Association, J.M. Beath, R. S. Tallent, W.E. Beck (2005).

  • “Use Periodic Checks to Demonstrate Title V Compliance,” J.M. Beath and C. McCarthy, Chemical Engineering Progress, February 2004.