The global energy industry has directed a lot of resources towards identifying and reducing methane emissions from its operations over recent years, investing in technology from AI-driven plant simulations to the latest drone-mounted sensors. At the same time, its progress is being scrutinised using increasingly detailed mapping of methane hotspots from satellites, the latest of which is due to be launched in March.
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) satellite, MethaneSAT, will orbit the Earth 15 times a day at an altitude higher than 350 miles, measuring a wide spectrum of methane emissions from oil and gas producing regions. The project uses Google’s AI and infrastructure mapping capabilities to measure methane emissions over time and trace them back to oil and gas infrastructure that created them, such as wells.
To achieve this, EDF, a non-profit science organisation, developed algorithms powered by Google Cloud in collaboration with Harvard University's School of Engineering and Applied Science and its Center for Astrophysics, and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.
MethaneSAT will provide a big step up in monitoring capabilities from EDF’s existing methane detection technology, which mainly uses aerial data. The satellite will be able to collect similar data, but at a global scale and with a higher frequency. Google says findings from the project will be available later in 2024 on MethaneSAT’s website and via Google Earth Engine, an environmental monitoring platform.
It promises to be an important tool to help hydrocarbons companies to identify problem facilities and to show the public what is being done to reduce emissions of one of the most potent greenhouse gases (GHGs). Methane generated by human activities is responsible for around 30% of the rise in global temperatures since the industrial revolution, making rapid and sustained reductions in methane emissions vital to limit warming in the short-term and improve air quality, according to the International Energy Agency. Agriculture accounts for around a quarter of emissions, with the energy sector -- coal, oil, natural gas and biofuels – close behind.
Kazakh blow-out
Should there be any doubt over the scale of the problems still to be overcome – and the growing importance of satellite monitoring in identifying them – a methane leak from a remote exploratory well in Kazakhstan following a blow-out in 2023 has been called one of the worst ever recorded, according to a recent BBC report.
The leak was investigated through analysis of satellite imagery by the French geoanalytics firm Kayrros and verified by the Netherlands Institute for Space Research and the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain. The scientists reported high concentrations of methane from the well on 115 separate occasions between June and December 2023, which, they estimated, resulted in the escape of 127,000 tonnes of methane. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency’s GHG calculator, those emissions from just one well are equivalent to the CO2 emitted by almost 700,000 homes in one year in terms of global warming impact.
Buzachi Neft, the Kazakh firm that owns the well, has said the well only contained a "negligible" amount of gas, and denied a major leak had taken place, but the scientists say they are confident their findings are accurate, the BBC reported.
