Source: 3-D model via MtaneSAT and Fair Worlds
Six years ago, scientists at the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund were wrapping up a major research project to measure methane leaks from oil and gas sites across Texas. Everywhere they looked โ using planes, drones, ground measurements, and even handheld devices โ they found the gas was leaking at a much faster rate than the companies had revealed.
What if that was happening all over the world?
Scientists knew there was only one way to understand the big picture: build a satellite to track methane on a global scale, something the group had never done before. As far as they knew, no nonprofits had done it, only governments or private companies.
"Everyone thought it was crazy," said Steven Hamburg, the EDF chief scientist, who led the project. "To be honest, I thought it was crazy."
Over the next few months, EDF assembled a team of about 70 scientists and engineers from the academic, commercial aerospace, and defense industries. And it raised about $88 million from philanthropic donors, a small budget given the scope of the project.
The satellite was scheduled to blast off into space on Monday on a Space X rocket.
Methane, a colorless, odorless gas, is the main ingredient in natural gas, which is burned in power plants and factories around the world, as well as in homes (think: gas stoves). Gas is much cleaner to burn than coal, but it has a big problem: it leaks notoriously. It leaks from oil and gas drilling sites. It leaks from the pipes that carry the gas where it needs to go. And some operators simply release it into the air rather than investing in the infrastructure to capture it all.
And that is accelerating climate change.
When methane escapes into the atmosphere, it acts like a heavy blanket in the sky, trapping the sun's heat and warming the world. And in its first 20 years in the atmosphere, methane captures more than 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. (Fortunately, methane doesn't stay in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide.)
Scientists estimate that human-caused methane emissions are responsible for up to 30 percent of the global warming experienced today.
Figuring out where methane emissions occur, how big they are, and who is responsible has been a challenge. Many drilling sites are unmanned. Some companies do not invest enough in leak detection technology. Or they don't welcome inspectors who take action.
Enter MetanoSAT.
The washing machine-sized satellite carries precision instruments, including a spectrometer that uses light reflected from Earth's surface to identify and calculate the amount of methane in that portion of the atmosphere.
Several satellites already monitor methane, but they scan broader areas at lower resolutions or pinpoint specific targets without broader context. MtaneSAT's capabilities fall somewhere in between. (Some commercial companies also detect methane, but their data is proprietary.)
MtaneSAT can detect changes in gas concentrations as small as three parts per billion in the atmosphere, according to EDF scientists, allowing it to detect smaller emissions sources than other satellites. But it also has a wide sweep, with a field of view of about 125 miles by 125 miles, allowing it to detect larger emitters, sometimes called "super-emitters," where other satellites might not be looking.
โIt basically allows us to put on a pair of bifocals so we can see things on both a small scale and a larger scale,โ Dr. Hamburg said. The new satellite is also designed to track emissions over time, to see if they increase or decrease and by how much.
Scientists on Earth will analyze that data using cloud computing and artificial intelligence technology developed by Google, a mission partner, and make the data available to the public through Google. ground engine platform.
In total, MtaneSAT aims to "see" between 80 and 90 percent of global oil and gas production as it makes its 15 daily rotations around the Earth, EDF scientists said. This should cover a significant portion of man-made methane emissions. (Other major sources of methane release are landfills and cow burps.)
EDF will make MtaneSAT data freely available early next year, allowing oil and gas companies or environmental regulators to find and fix leaks more quickly, EDF scientists said. They also hope to allow a broader group of elected officials, investors, gas buyers and the public to more easily understand who is responsible for the leaks so they can be held accountable.
"It's a big step in a useful direction," said Drew Shindell, an earth sciences professor at Duke University who was not involved in MtaneSAT. He said he hoped the project "will be the gold standard for using remote sensing data to trigger agency and industry action on leaks."
The big question, he said, is whether oil and gas producers will be forced to act. "There is no guarantee that this information will lead to a change in behavior," he said.
The satellite launch coincides with efforts around the world to better regulate methane. New European Union rules, for example, impose methane emissions limits on oil and gas imports, putting pressure on major producers abroad. Regulations adopted by the Biden administration Last year, it will require U.S. oil and gas producers for the first time to detect and repair methane leaks. At last year's global climate talks, a coalition of 50 oil and gas companies pledged to reduce their methane emissions by 80 to 90 percent by the end of the decade.
The good news is that methane leaks from oil and gas infrastructure should be relatively inexpensive to repair. And, in theory, capturing that methane instead of letting it escape could pay for itself by allowing companies to sell more gas. Some companies have already started using other satellite data to better track their methane emissions.
"We welcome the development, because we share the same goal as EDF," said Bjorn Otto Sverdrup, president of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, a group of twelve of the world's largest oil and gas companies that has committed to reduce methane emissions. "I would like to wish them the best of luck."
More challenging is addressing emissions from landfills or agriculture, specifically livestock, although some scientists are trying to do this through modifying the cows' diet. Methane also leaks from natural sources, such as flooded wetlands, but the majority of current methane emissions come from human activity.
A concerted effort to control methane from fossil fuels, agriculture and landfills could reduce methane emissions by up to 57 percent by 2030, helping reduce the rate of warming by up to 30 percent, according to scientists have estimated. One of MtaneSAT's main goals is to help achieve that change.
โOur only measure of success is: do emissions go down? That is our North Star,โ said Dr. Hamburgo.
