vision
“No matter how many thermographers we have, how many troops on the ground, how many satellites we have in the sky, how many people with drones and planes, or all the other technology, if we don’t stop the methane gas, it doesn’t matter. It’s worthless.”
— Sharon Wilson, “Methane Hunter” and Director of Oilfield Witness
Spotlight
When I worked in satellites (my pre-journalism job), whenever I mentioned my work to people outside the space industry, the response was usually, “Wow, that’s amazing.” I was always amazed at how many people thought of space technology as something only astronauts and otherworldly, when in many ways satellites make modern life possible. But satellites enable GPS, weather forecasting, long-distance communications, and even Wi-Fi on airplanes. And a growing constellation of precision satellites is also enabling climate solutions, helping to spot and stop pollution.
Two weeks ago, a satellite designed to identify, measure and monitor greenhouse gas emissions around the world Launched into orbit According to SpaceX, the spacecraft, called Tanager 1, is a collaboration between NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Earth-imaging company PlanetLab, environmental nonprofit CarbonMapper, and others. Tanager 1 currently joins 23 other satellites in orbit operated by a variety of organizations and institutions, all of which can detect methane, a potent greenhouse gas that warms the planet 80 times faster than an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide for 20 years after it is emitted.
Navina Sadashivam and I recently reported on this new wave of methane-monitoring satellites, and as part of that coverage, we had the opportunity to speak with Carbon Mapper CEO Riley Duren. Duren previously worked as a principal systems engineer in the Geosciences division at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he drove the establishment of a climate research portfolio that included expanding the lab’s greenhouse gas monitoring capabilities. He knew that this monitoring could help not only study climate change, but also mitigate it.
“You can’t manage what you can’t measure,” Duren said.
Carbon Mapper itself, Duren said, emerged in 2020 as a “spin-off” of research he and other researchers at the lab were doing to study the sources of methane emissions from airplanes, identify the worst sources, and alert operators so they could take steps to fix any leaks the researchers found. They were having great success with these aerial monitoring campaigns, but “to do it in a sustainable, operational way, we needed satellites,” Duren said.
But no government agency had plans to build and launch such a satellite, so Duren began talking to climate philanthropists and raising funds for himself and Carbon Mapper to build their own spacecraft.
Tanager-1 and a similar constellation of satellites that Carbon Mapper plans to launch will work with MethaneSAT, another nonprofit mission that launched earlier this year, to better understand where the most valuable measures can be taken to curb methane emissions and leaks. Duren used the metaphor of bird photography to explain how the satellites can support each other’s efforts to monitor methane. MethaneSAT provides the equivalent of a landscape photo, and can point out where bird activity is high. Tanager-1 can zoom in and take a telephoto snapshot of the metaphorical bird and its nest. “Because Carbon Mapper is flying a constellation of satellites, it’s like an army of birdwatchers going out to keep track of what the landscape photographer has caught everyone’s attention,” Duren said.
Below is an excerpt from a feature article I co-wrote with Navina about MethaneSAT’s planned launch in March and the excitement and fears people will have as they watch. To learn more about the history of satellites being used to monitor greenhouse gas emissions, what this new constellation has to offer, and what possibilities researchers are opening up with this new and improved technology, read the full feature article here.
Siris Valentine
Spying from Space: How Satellites Can Help Identify and Curb Potent Climate Pollutants (Excerpt)
On a windy day in early March, a who’s who of methane research gathered at Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara, California. Dozens of people packed into NASA’s Mission Control Center. Others watched from cars parked along the road just outside the sprawling facility. Many more followed. Live StreamThey came from all over the country to watch the launch of an oven-sized satellite that can detect powerful global warming gases from space.
Atmospheric levels of methane, the main component of natural gas, have been rising steadily over the past few decades and are now nearly three times higher than they were before the industrial revolution. About one-third of methane emissions in the United States come from gas leaking from oil wells, pipelines, and other equipment during fossil fuel extraction. The rest comes from agriculture, landfills, coal mining, and other sources. Some of these leaks are large enough to be visible from orbit. Others are tiny, but contribute to a growing problem.
Identifying and repairing leaks is a relatively easy climate fix: Methane has about 80 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, so reducing its concentration in the atmosphere could help slow global temperature rise. And unlike other industries where the technologies for decarbonization are still relatively new, oil and gas companies have long had the tools and know-how to repair these leaks.
Launched in March, the gas detector, MethaneSat, is the latest in a constellation of satellites designed to detect methane. Led by the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the satellite, developed over six years, orbits the Earth 15 times a day and has the capacity to monitor the region where 80% of the world’s oil and gas is produced. Along with the others in orbit, the satellite is expected to bring about a dramatic change in how regulators and watchdogs monitor the oil and gas industry.
“Companies are complying with the law, but the law doesn’t go far enough,” said Daniel Fougere, president and chief counsel at As You Sow, a nonprofit that has used shareholder support to pressure fossil fuel producers to act on climate change. “So this change will increase the incentive to reduce methane emissions.”
There was a bit of nervousness among those at Vandenberg and those watching online. A lot could go wrong. The SpaceX rocket that would carry the satellite into orbit could explode. A week earlier, engineers had been worried about the equipment that would hold the $88 million spacecraft in place and launch it into space during launch. “That was a bit of a worry,” recalls Steven Wofsy, an atmospheric scientist at Harvard University and lead designer of the project with Steven Hamburg, the MethaneSAT lead scientist at EDF. Even if that went wrong, the satellite could fail to deploy or have trouble communicating with observers on Earth.
There was no need to worry. A few hours after the rocket lifted off, Wofsy, Hamburg and his colleagues watched their creation blast into orbit on a TV in a hotel about two miles away. Since many of the team members had traveled to Vandenberg with their partners, parents or children, it was a moment of jubilation. “Everybody just naturally cheered,” Wofsy said. [would’ve] “I thought your team scored a touchdown in overtime.”
The data the satellite will generate over the next few months will be made available to environmental groups, oil and gas companies, and regulators alike. All are interested in the information MethaneSat will transmit. Environmental groups want to use it to push for tighter methane emission regulations and hold negligent operators accountable. Fossil fuel companies, many of which do their own monitoring, can use the information to identify and repair leaks, avoiding fines and recapturing saleable resources. Regulators can use the data to identify hotspots, develop targeted policies, and catch polluters. For the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency is taking steps to allow third-party data to enforce air quality regulations, and is developing guidelines for using intelligence satellites like MethaneSat. The satellite is so important to the agency’s efforts that EPA Administrator Michael Regan and members of Congress were in Santa Barbara for the launch. Activists hailed the satellite as a much-needed tool to address climate change.
“This is going to fundamentally change the amount of empirically observed data that we have and will significantly increase our understanding of methane emissions that are occurring right now and what we need to do to reduce them,” said Dakota Raines, research and policy manager at the environmental nonprofit Earthworks. “Having that understanding will hopefully help us continue to shift the narrative in a better direction.” [the] “Phasing Down Fossil Fuels”
Now that the satellite is safely orbiting 370 miles above the Earth’s surface, the mission enters its crucial second phase. Over the next few months, EDF researchers will be tweaking the instruments and making sure the satellite works as planned. By next year, the satellite is expected to be transmitting a huge amount of information from around the world. The satellite’s success will depend on the quality of the data it can produce and, perhaps more importantly, how that data is used.
— Shirley Valentine & Navina Sadashivam
[Check out the full feature on the Grist site, here.]
Further exposure
Parting words
This image shows methane emissions from a landfill in Georgia, detected by aerial surveillance by Carbon Mapper aircraft (prior to the launch of the first satellite, Tanager-1). These imaging tools use spectrometers to reveal the infrared signatures the gas leaves behind, making the invisible visible.
Methane leaks from oil and gas infrastructure, including in the Permian Basin in Texas and on landfills in Georgia and Louisiana.
