Stay informed with free updates
Simply sign up to the Climate change myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.
A new satellite mission to track planet-warming emissions of methane gas is finally set to launch, now aided with artificial intelligence technology to help build a global map of oil and gas infrastructure and surveil it for leaks.
The MethaneSAT satellite was announced by the Environmental Defense Fund six years ago as a way to monitor releases of methane, an invisible gas that researchers estimate is responsible for almost a third of the emissions-induced increase in global temperatures since the start of the industrial era.
The satellite is now scheduled to blast into space in March aboard a rocket operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. On Wednesday, Google said it would provide the AI computing capabilities required to crunch vast amounts of data produced by the orbiting methane monitor.
MethaneSAT is the latest example of how satellites are used to detect methane emissions from oil and gas facilities, which is more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere over a 20-year timescale. Experts say reducing methane emissions is one of the most powerful short-term actions needed to address global warming.
The International Energy Agency this year found the global energy industry was responsible for 135mn tonnes of methane emissions in 2022, only slightly below record high levels of 2019. Existing satellites have detected more than 500 “super-emitting” events in 2022 from oil and gas operations, the IEA said, with a further 100 such events at coal mines, which can release methane during or after operations.
“We think this is a moonshot,” said Yael Maguire, vice-president of Geo Sustainability at Google. “We have a lot of optimism that we can help all of the scientists, researchers, public sector institutions, and the oil and gas industry build the cleaner future that we all want.”
MethaneSAT, which cost $88mn, is designed to measure methane emissions that other satellites cannot and spot problems where other detection systems are not looking. It can calculate total emissions, where they come from and how they change over time, providing a tool to regulators which are rolling out financial penalties for leaky infrastructure.
Patrick Barker, analyst at Wood Mackenzie, said other satellites typically offer very high sensitivity to emissions at fine spatial resolution or wide spatial coverage that allow the entire globe to be observed within a short time period.
“MethaneSAT is the first satellite of its kind to offer the ‘best of both worlds’ in both spatial coverage and sensitivity to emissions,” he said.
The project, which faced delays because of the pandemic and supply chain snags, can detect emissions as low as 500kg per hour from areas as small as 1 sq km, while simultaneously scanning a field of view 200km wide.
Awareness about the role played by methane in global warming has increased over the past decade.
More than 100 countries led by the US and Europe signed up in 2021 to a global methane pledge to cut emissions 30 per cent by the end of the decade. China, the world’s largest emitter of the gas, pledged last year to track and reduce emissions from methane but remains outside the pact, as do Russia and India, also among the world’s top emitters.
EDF said the tie-up with Google would enable the MethaneSAT team to use Google Cloud, AI, mapping and satellite imagery to provide the first comprehensive map that shows how different types of machinery contribute to methane leaks over time.
“By the end of 2025 we should have a very clear picture on a global scale from major oil and gas basins around the world,” said Steven Hamburg, chief scientist at EDF.
The oil and gas industry has begun taking steps to tackle methane emissions, as the US and other nations move to implement financial and other penalties.
At the COP28 climate conference in December, companies representing about a third of global oil and gas production including ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, BP and Shell pledged to stop routine flaring of excess methane and to eliminate nearly all leaks of the gas by the end of the decade.
Scientists using alternative satellite systems, such as the Tropomi instrument on board the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, to detect methane leaks said MethaneSAT would fill important gaps in the world’s current detection system.
“This satellite is purpose-built to detect methane and will put data into the public domain, so it is really an important next step,” said Ilse Aben, senior scientist at the Netherlands Institute for Space Research.
Climate Capital
Where climate change meets business, markets and politics. Explore the FT’s coverage here.
Are you curious about the FT’s environmental sustainability commitments? Find out more about our science-based targets here
