A mission to map and observe international methane air pollution, a strong greenhouse fuel, is scheduled to launch right now after years of collaboration between among the greatest names in tech. It’s referred to as MethaneSAT, a satellite tv for pc that’s garnered funding and assist from Jeff Bezos, Google, and SpaceX, amongst others.
MethaneSAT is predicted to launch right now from Vandenberg Area Pressure Base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 2:05PM PT. Liftoff might be livestreamed on the SpaceX web site and on the corporate’s X profile. The nonprofit Environmental Protection Fund that developed MethaneSAT can also be promising a particular program beginning at 1:40PM PT with key consultants and “supporters” to speak in regards to the mission.
Methane air pollution is liable for round 30 % of world warming that’s elevating sea ranges and inflicting extra excessive climate disasters. The fuel comes from decomposing trash in landfills, methane-emitting microbes in rice paddies, and infamously from livestock burping and pooping. It additionally routinely escapes from oil and fuel fields, pipelines, and even residence home equipment. In spite of everything, so-called pure fuel is usually simply methane.
Orbiting Earth in 95 minutes, it’ll have eyes on oil and fuel fields that account for roughly 80 % of world manufacturing
It’s all that leaking fuel that the Environmental Protection Fund (EDF) plans to deal with with MethaneSAT. The group has documented huge quantities of leaking methane already. Between 2012 and 2018, it found that US methane emissions have been truly 60 % greater than the Environmental Safety Company’s estimates.
The group labored alongside 40 analysis establishments and 50 corporations to place collectively a extra complete image of methane emissions. It was painstaking work taking on-the-ground measurements straight from sources of air pollution, which they supplemented with aerial readings taken by plane.
MethaneSAT can cowl much more floor a lot quicker. It ought to take about 20 seconds to survey the identical space that may have taken an plane two hours to survey, in response to EDF. Orbiting Earth in 95 minutes, it’ll have eyes on oil and fuel fields that account for greater than 80 % of world manufacturing.
The purpose is to rapidly see how a lot methane is escaping and from the place, in order that measures could be taken to plug all these leaks. Methane is 80 instances as potent as carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels relating to heating the planet — however solely inside the first 20 years of getting into the ambiance, after which its efficiency declines.
Carbon dioxide, however, lingers within the ambiance and traps warmth for hundreds of years. Since methane is a strong however comparatively short-lived greenhouse fuel, stopping it from leaking is seen as one fast solution to have a big, fast impact on local weather change.
Google introduced a partnership with EDF final month to create a worldwide map of methane air pollution from oil and fuel infrastructure. The corporate is coaching AI to identify nicely pads, pump jacks, and storage tanks in satellite tv for pc imagery equally to the way it identifies sidewalks and avenue indicators for Google Maps. Matching that infrastructure to emissions information from MethaneSAT may be capable to assist regulators pinpoint the place there are leaks.
If this mission is profitable, it may very well be a game-changer by permitting policymakers to evaluate how a lot progress they’re making on local weather motion primarily based on real-world measures of air pollution fairly than estimates primarily based on corporations self-reporting their emissions.
“What we’ve realized over our decade of doing area measurements is that truly, while you measure precise emissions within the area, it seems that the whole magnitude of emissions coming from the business is far greater than what’s being reported by them utilizing engineering calculations,” Mark Brownstein, EDF senior vp of power transition, mentioned throughout a press briefing on Friday.
Constructing and launching the satellite tv for pc price $88 million, in response to EDF. The Bezos Earth Fund gave EDF a $100 million grant in 2020 to assist get MethaneSAT off the bottom, making it one of many undertaking’s greatest funders. MethaneSAT additionally marks the New Zealand’s Area Company’s first government-funded house mission.
If all goes to plan, MethaneSAT ought to begin publicly releasing some information by early summer season. A whole image of main oil and fuel basins all over the world isn’t anticipated till 2025, information EDF says might be obtainable on MethaneSAT’s web site and Google Earth Engine.
