A new satellite is launching from California today, Monday, on a mission to monitor methane emissions from the oil and gas industry from space, supported by Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, and the Environmental Defense Fund. The "MethaneSAT" satellite will join an increasing fleet of orbital spacecraft aimed at combating climate change by providing data on invisible greenhouse gas emissions.
While both the European Space Agency and another satellite-based tracking system named "GHG Sat" already provide data on methane emissions, "MethaneSAT" will offer more detailed information and a much broader field of view, according to the supporting organizations. The Environmental Defense Fund stated that the data will help hold accountable over 50 oil and gas companies that committed at the United Nations climate change conference (COP28) in Dubai last December to eliminate methane emissions and end routine gas flaring. It will also assist those preparing to comply with upcoming methane-related regulations in the European Union and the United States, including pollution fees for the gas.
Mark Brownstein, Vice President of Energy Transition at the Environmental Defense Fund, said, "We will be able to identify the laggards, but we hope they will use this information constructively to improve their performance." He added that "MethaneSAT" was developed in collaboration with the New Zealand Space Agency and Harvard University, among others, and its data will be available to the public later this year. Google Cloud will provide the necessary computing capabilities to process the data.
Methane emissions, resulting from fossil fuel production, agricultural waste, and landfills, are several times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. The American Petroleum Institute stated that emissions data from third parties should not be used for regulatory purposes without verification. Aaron Padilla, Vice President of the Institute for Policy, said, "Environmental authorities will remain of paramount importance in this regard as the entity responsible for verifying the data."
