Shortly after 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time, MethaneSAT successfully separated from SpaceX Transporter-10 , which carried the emissions monitoring equipment into space. The ground-breaking satellite is designed to help protect Earth’s climate by accelerating the reduction of powerful greenhouse pollutants, focusing primarily on oil and gas activities, which are known to be major sources of methane.
The digital media package containing photos, videos and graphics is available HERE .
Developed by a subsidiary of the global nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, MethaneSAT will cover large areas and quantify total methane emissions, identifying large emitters in locations that other satellites cannot. Data from MethaneSAT enables both companies and regulators to monitor emissions. Stakeholders – citizens, governments and investors – also have free access to the data in near real-time and a unique opportunity to benchmark results against emissions targets and commitments.
“Reducing methane pollution from fossil fuel activities, agriculture and other sectors is the fastest way to slow the pace of warming as we continue to decarbonise our energy systems,” said EDF President Fred Krupp. “This requires comprehensive data pollution on a global scale. MethaneSAT fully demonstrates this potential by following emissions all the way to their source.”
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Krupp announced MethaneSAT at a 2018 TED talk as part of the TED Audacious Project . EDF has been a world leader in methane science and solutions for more than a decade and brought the issue to the fore by organizing a groundbreaking series of 16 independent studies that showed methane emissions in the US oil and gas supply chain were 60% lower than EPA estimates at the time is higher . The implementation of MethaneSAT is a direct result of these efforts.
“MethaneSAT’s greatest strength is its ability to provide accurate, high-resolution measurements of methane levels over large areas, including the smaller, scattered sources that are responsible for most emissions in many regions,” said Steven Hamburg, EDF Principal Scientist and MethaneSAT project manager. “The most important thing is to know where the methane is coming from and how the amount of methane is changing.”
MethaneSAT, which orbits the Earth 15 times a day, will measure changes in the methane concentration, as low as one in three billion. The high sensitivity, high resolution and wide field of view together allow MethaneSAT to map the entire emission.
SOURCE: Businesswire