Rahul Rao
Mon, September 18, 2023
A view of the spectrometer being slid into a vacuum test chamber. The view is from within the chamber.
On Sept. 12, a mirror-walled box arrived in the clean room of Planet Labs in San Francisco. This box contains a spectrometer, designed specifically to observe carbon dioxide and methane on Earth's surface.
Forged at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) further south in California, this spectrometer’s stop in San Francisco will see it mounted onto a satellite called Tanager. That satellite, if all goes according to plan, should launch in 2024. The nonprofit Carbon Mapper hopes to use Tanager to pinpoint greenhouse gas "super-emitters" on our planet.
This newly-arrived spectrometer is a key component of that mission.
Related: NASA sensors could help detect landfill methane from space to help limit climate change
This device is designed to observe infrared light reflected from Earth's surface, then separate that light into its spectrum. Different gases in Earth's atmosphere each absorb different wavelengths of light, leaving characteristic gaps in the spectrum and allowing observers to reconstruct what gases were present at a certain point.
Before sending the spectrometer north, JPL staff tested the mechanism's ability to perform this duty. Inside a vacuum chamber, scientists placed a methane sample in clear view of the spectrometer. And, by JPL's account, the spectrometer succeeded.
"We are thrilled to see the exceptional quality of the methane spectral signature recorded," Robert Green, an instrument scientist at JPL, said in a statement. "This bodes well for the space measurement soon to follow."
Carbon Mapper — a collaboration between JPL, Planet, the California Air Resources Board, Rocky Mountain Institute, Arizona State University, and the University of Arizona — already launched EMIT, an instrument aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that monitors mineral dust blown from Earth's deserts. Eventually, this spectrometer will join it from an orbit that wraps around Earth's poles.
Major UK methane greenhouse gas leak spotted from space
Esme Stallard - Climate and science reporter, BBC News
Sat, September 16, 2023
The main sources of methane are oil and gas production, farming and waste
A major UK leak of the extremely potent greenhouse gas methane has been spotted from space for the first time.
The leak - seen by satellite - occurred over a three-month period at a gas main operated by Wales and West Utilities. The amount leaked could have powered 7,500 homes for a year.
Satellite detection shows the potential of picking up methane gas leaks quickly so they can be stopped sooner.
Methane has 28 times the heating potential of CO2.
It is responsible for about 30% of the rise in global temperatures.
The leak from a pipeline in Cheltenham, revealed exclusively to the BBC, was discovered in March.
It was detected by Leeds University with the help of specialist satellites.
Emily Dowd, a PhD researcher at the university's School of Earth and Environment and the National Centre for Earth Observation, had been using satellite imagery to assess methane leaks from landfill sites.
But she noticed on the images the distinct marker of a methane leak some miles away, coming from a gas pipeline owned by Wales and West Utilities.
Identifying and tackling methane emissions is a crucial objective of the UK and other countries seeking to tackle climate change.
Upon discovering the leak Ms Dowd worked with GHGSat - whose satellites provided the original images - to take further surveys from space, while a team from Royal Holloway University made on-the-ground round measurements.
Ms Dowd said: "Finding this leak brings a question of how many there are out there and maybe we need to be looking a bit harder to find them and take advantage of the technology we have."
Wales and West Utilities said they became aware of the leak after a member of public reported the smell of gas. They said they were in the process of obtaining the necessary permissions for replacing the gas mains when the leak was picked up by satellite.
The cause of the leak is unclear but methane leaks in gas pipelines are not uncommon with ageing infrastructure.
However, the satellite detection process has shown the potential of picking up methane leaks quickly.
Sat, September 16, 2023
The main sources of methane are oil and gas production, farming and waste
A major UK leak of the extremely potent greenhouse gas methane has been spotted from space for the first time.
The leak - seen by satellite - occurred over a three-month period at a gas main operated by Wales and West Utilities. The amount leaked could have powered 7,500 homes for a year.
Satellite detection shows the potential of picking up methane gas leaks quickly so they can be stopped sooner.
Methane has 28 times the heating potential of CO2.
It is responsible for about 30% of the rise in global temperatures.
The leak from a pipeline in Cheltenham, revealed exclusively to the BBC, was discovered in March.
It was detected by Leeds University with the help of specialist satellites.
Emily Dowd, a PhD researcher at the university's School of Earth and Environment and the National Centre for Earth Observation, had been using satellite imagery to assess methane leaks from landfill sites.
But she noticed on the images the distinct marker of a methane leak some miles away, coming from a gas pipeline owned by Wales and West Utilities.
Identifying and tackling methane emissions is a crucial objective of the UK and other countries seeking to tackle climate change.
Upon discovering the leak Ms Dowd worked with GHGSat - whose satellites provided the original images - to take further surveys from space, while a team from Royal Holloway University made on-the-ground round measurements.
Ms Dowd said: "Finding this leak brings a question of how many there are out there and maybe we need to be looking a bit harder to find them and take advantage of the technology we have."
Wales and West Utilities said they became aware of the leak after a member of public reported the smell of gas. They said they were in the process of obtaining the necessary permissions for replacing the gas mains when the leak was picked up by satellite.
The cause of the leak is unclear but methane leaks in gas pipelines are not uncommon with ageing infrastructure.
However, the satellite detection process has shown the potential of picking up methane leaks quickly.
Optical gas imaging cameras used on the ground have previously identified methane leaks in the UK
The main sources of methane are the oil and gas industry, farming and landfill sites. UK methane emissions have fallen significantly since 1990 but in recent years progress has slowed.
Currently, methane leaks are detected through routine on-the-ground surveys - a very challenging prospect when there are thousands of miles of pipes and sites. And the UK's methane emissions are only an estimate gleaned from economic activity data.
Jean-Francois Gauthier, senior vice-president for strategy at GHGSat, told the BBC: "It's important to highlight that satellites are just one piece of the puzzle. But satellites have a very unique value... that they can come back [and collect more images] very frequently and they can do so without the need to deploy people on the ground so they can do so effectively and also affordably."
The company has nine satellites in their constellation, which orbit at 500km overhead, and are some of the highest resolution devices able to see gases at 25m resolution.
The company has recently signed a £5.5m partnership with the UK - funded by the UK Space Agency - to provide satellite data on methane emissions to UK organisations such as Ordnance Survey.
The UK Space Agency's CEO, Dr Paul Bate, said: "Satellites are getting smaller and more powerful, giving us an ideal vantage point from which to monitor global greenhouse gas emissions and inform decision-making on the path to Net Zero."
There are still limitations with the satellites that will need to be developed.
Prof Grant Allen, lecturer in atmospheric science at the University of Manchester, told the BBC: "There is still some work to do to fully validate the precise magnitude of such emissions estimated by satellites like GHGSat, but the capability is already proving super useful for identifying where big (preventable) sources may be."
Methane from Oil and Gas Are Worse Than Reported to UN, Satellites Show
Aaron Clark
Thu, September 14, 2023
(Bloomberg) -- Observed methane releases from global oil and gas operations are 30% higher than what countries estimate in reports to the UN, according to a new study that analyzed satellite observations of the potent greenhouse gas.
The world’s four largest oil and gas emitters, the US, Russia, Venezuela and Turkmenistan, account for most of the overall discrepancy, according to the report published last month in Nature Communications. The satellite data challenges figures reported to the UN, which rely on so-called emissions factors — estimates for how much methane equipment might normally release — applied to production and use rates.
The real-world data recorded by satellites suggests those estimates are way too low. The authors used a “top-down” approach to model and estimate emissions for most of the world with fossil fuel production by using 22 months of detections from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5P satellite.
“Satellite data should be used to monitor the accuracy of the national emission inventories submitted” to the UN, said Daniel Jacob, one of the authors and a professor at Harvard University’s department of earth and planetary sciences.
Adding top-down methods to the bottom-up estimates currently used would more accurately pinpoint who and what is responsible for methane emissions and offer governments a clearer picture of how to make the cheapest and most effective cuts. The new research is notable for its breadth, covering 96% of global emissions from oil and gas and bolstering previous studies that have detailed underreporting of methane emissions.
Methane is the primary component of natural gas, but it can also leak from the Earth during oil and coal production. The potent greenhouse gas has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere. Curbing releases of the gas could do more to slow climate change than almost any other single measure.
Three of the ten largest oil and gas methane emitters identified in the report — the US, Canada, Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia — have signed the the Global Methane Pledge, which targets a 30% reduction in global emissions of the gas by the end of this decade from 2020 levels. If methane generated from human activity is responsible for a larger share of the world’s total emissions, including from natural sources, then a 30% cut from that activity would have a bigger effect on overall methane concentrations, according to Jacob.
Read more: The Cheap and Easy Climate Fix That Can Cool the Planet Fast
The study identified significant opportunities to reduce methane emissions in Venezuela, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Angola, Iraq, Ukraine, Nigeria and Mexico, all of which have methane intensities between 5% and 25% for their oil and gas industries. Lowering those intensities to the global average of 2.4% would reduce emissions from the sector globally by 18%.
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
People are absolutely ‘livid’ about this deceptive new Tennessee law: ‘Name it what it is — bribery’
Laurelle Stelle
Mon, September 18, 2023
In April, Tennessee adopted a law that requires the state government to consider planet-overheating methane gas a “clean” energy source, Heated reports.
Methane gas — sometimes called natural gas, which is mostly methane but contains other gases — is an energy source similar to oil and coal. Burning natural gas creates air pollution and heat-trapping gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), though relatively less than oil or coal.
Methane gas is also a heat-trapping gas itself; when it escapes into the atmosphere due to leaks and faulty equipment, it has up to 80 times the effect on our planet’s temperature that carbon pollution would.
However, according to the Tennessee legislature and Governor Bill Lee, “natural gas” is a clean energy source on par with wind, solar, and water power. The bill lays out a list of 17 “permissible sources of clean energy” that must be allowed by any “ordinance, resolution, or other regulation” that “imposes requirements or expectations related to the source of clean energy used by a public utility.”
In other words, government agencies or programs in Tennessee that encourage clean energy use have to include natural gas.
Tennessee isn’t the first state to adopt a measure like this one. In December, Ohio passed a similar law labeling natural gas as “green energy.” Outlets, including the Energy and Policy Institute and The Washington Post, reported that The Empowerment Alliance, a group involved with earlier bribery scandals, had been behind the Ohio bill’s support.
The same group was involved in the Tennessee bill, Heated suggests. Governor Lee and bill co-sponsor State Senator Page Walley have signed The Empowerment Alliance’s “Declaration of Energy Independence” to support natural gas. Heated claims that other officials who supported the bill have also received money from the oil and gas industries.
Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, governments and businesses across the globe have been looking for ways to produce less heat-trapping gas and cool down the planet while investing in affordable, clean energy sources.
However, leaders and lobbyists from polluting industries like oil, gas, and coal have become an obstacle to this development. They stand to lose money if the world switches to less expensive and less polluting fuel sources, like solar and wind, and many have opposed efforts to switch.
Reddit commenters were enraged by the news from Tennessee. Many commented on a post that moderators have since removed but left visible. “‘Industry-funded,’” said one user. “Name it what it is. Bribery. The lawmakers and the industrialists paying them need to be behind bars.”
“At some point folks are going to get angry with this bulls***,” said another user. A third replied, “I’m already livid.”
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