Google will help monitor methane leaks – 02/14/2024 – Environment

A new satellite mission to track emissions of methane, a gas that contributes to global warming, is finally ready to launch, now with the help of artificial intelligence technology to build a global map of oil and gas infrastructure and monitor it. check for leaks.

The MethaneSAT satellite was announced by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) six years ago as a way to monitor emissions of methane, an invisible gas that researchers estimate is responsible for nearly a third of the rise in global temperatures since the start of the industrial era. .

The satellite is scheduled to be launched into space in March aboard a rocket operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. This Wednesday (14), Google announced that it will provide its computing structure for artificial intelligence, necessary to process large amounts of data produced by the methane monitor in orbit.

MethaneSAT is the latest example of how satellites can be used to detect methane emissions from oil and gas facilities, which are more than 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere over a period of time. 20 years.

Experts say that reducing methane emissions is one of the most powerful short-term actions to combat global warming.

The IEA (International Energy Agency) said this year that the global energy industry was responsible for 135 million tons of methane emissions in 2022, slightly below 2019’s record levels.

Satellites have detected more than 500 “super-emission” events in 2022 from oil and gas operations, the IEA said, as well as another 100 such events from coal mines, which can release methane during or after operations.

“We think this is a big challenge,” said Yael Maguire, vice president of Geo Sustainability at Google. “We are very hopeful that we can help all scientists, researchers, public sector institutions and the oil and gas industry build the cleaner future we all want.”

MethaneSAT, which cost US$88 million (about R$437 million), was designed to measure methane emissions that other satellites cannot detect and identify 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 for regulators who are implementing financial penalties for leaky infrastructure.

Patrick Barker, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie, said other satellites generally offer high sensitivity to emissions with high spatial resolution or wide spatial coverage that allows them to observe the entire globe in a short period of time.

“MethaneSAT is the first satellite of its kind to offer the ‘best of both worlds’ in terms of space coverage and emissions sensitivity,” he said.

The project, which has faced delays due to the pandemic and supply chain issues, can detect emissions as low as 500 kg per hour in areas as small as 1 km², while scanning an area 200 km wide.

Awareness of methane’s role in global warming has increased over the past decade.

More than one hundred countries led by the United States and Europe committed, in 2021, to a global agreement to reduce methane emissions by 30% by the end of the decade. China, the world’s largest emitter of the gas, committed last year to tracking and reducing methane emissions, but remains outside the pact, as do Russia and India, which are also among the world’s largest emitters.

EDF said the partnership with Google will allow the MethaneSAT team to utilize Google Cloud, artificial intelligence, mapping and satellite imagery to provide the first comprehensive map showing how different types of equipment contribute to methane leaks over time. .

“By the end of 2025, we should have a very clear global-scale picture of the 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 combat methane emissions as the U.S. and other nations begin implementing financial and other penalties.

At COP28, the UN climate conference held in December, companies representing about a third of global oil and gas production, including ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, BP and Shell, pledged to stop routinely burning surplus methane and eliminate almost all gas leaks by the end of the decade.

Scientists using alternative satellite systems to detect methane leaks, such as the Tropomi instrument aboard the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, said MethaneSAT will fill important gaps in the world’s current detection system.

“This satellite is specifically designed to detect methane and will provide data in the public domain, so it’s a really important next step,” said Ilse Aben, senior scientist at the Netherlands Institute for Space Research.