EDF announces satellite mission to locate and measure global methane emissions

Krupp unveiled MethaneSAT in a TED Talk at TED’s flagship event in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), as part of The Audacious Project, the successor to the TED Prize. MethaneSAT is part of the inaugural round of world-changing ideas for which a coalition of philanthropists have contributed and helped raise US$400 million and counting. MethaneSAT is the newest chapter in EDF’s ongoing effort to advance peer-reviewed science focused on oil and gas methane emissions.

Cutting methane emissions from the global oil and gas industry is the single fastest thing we can do to help put the brakes on climate change right now, even as we continue to attack the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions most people are more familiar with. By providing reliable, fully transparent data on a worldwide scale, MethaneSAT will help transform a serious climate threat into a crucial opportunity, Krupp said.

Targetting oil and gas industry

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas; emissions from human activities are responsible for a quarter of the planet’s warming. The oil and gas industry is one of the leading sources of human-made emissions, releasing an estimated 75 million tonnes of methane into the atmosphere each year – enough gas to generate electricity for all of Africa twice over.

Simple, cost-effective steps can cut these emissions dramatically. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates the industry can feasibly reduce its worldwide emissions by 75 percent – and that up to two-thirds of those reductions can be achieved at zero net cost.

Years of data gathered by earth-bound researchers confirm that the oil and gas industry has a serious methane issue. We also know that it’s possible to solve it, and some companies are starting to. But the pace today doesn’t match the size of the problem. We need to go much farther, much faster. Data from MethaneSAT will give everyone involved a crucial tool to accelerate the process, said Mark Brownstein, EDF Senior Vice President for Climate & Energy.

MethaneSAT is designed to measure areas of interest with a level of precision not previously available. It will use a wide, 200 km view path at intervals of seven days or less, making it feasible to regularly monitor roughly fifty major oil and gas regions accounting for over 80 percent of global production. MethaneSAT will also be capable of measuring emissions from feedlots, landfills, and other man-made methane sources.

Work on the mission is well under way, with the goal to lift off in late 2020 or early 2021. EDF has partnered with Harvard University and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory to complete the basic science and technical strategies for the mission, and expect to complete final mission requirements and set a launch schedule later this year. These critical early stage efforts were made possible by support from the Robertson Foundation.

Turning data into action

The project defies current paradigms in orbital detection. Most satellites originate either from research and space organizations as large-scale projects requiring multi-purpose platforms or from private sector ventures selling data to corporate and government users. MethaneSAT combines the economic advantages of each model.

As a core part of the project design, EDF plans to make MethaneSAT data available for free to stakeholders and the public, engaging the oil and gas industry, key governments, institutional and individual investors, and regional and global institutions to ensure sustained long-term data analysis and integration of the results into their thinking on emissions mitigation and verification.

We believe in the power of cutting-edge science to change the world, producing actionable data that can greatly increase businesses’ and government’s ability to make effective policy decisions. Transparent data that shows where there are problems and opportunities creates faster and more effective solutions; that’s the goal we’re after, said Dr. Steven Hamburg, EDF’s Chief Scientist.

EDF has organized an extensive and influential body of scientific work on methane, including a five-year, US$20 million series of studies involving more than 140 researchers from over 40 institutions, examining every link in the US oil and gas supply chain. The research, which has generated 35 peer-reviewed scientific papers, shows that emissions are significantly higher than previously estimated. EDF has also examined the industry’s emissions in Canada and Mexico.

Methane emissions, especially from the oil and gas sector, are a huge driver of climate change. To help companies and countries cut these emissions faster, we need better data that will enable quick, cost-effective action. EDF’s MethaneSAT project will help fill this gap, and make us that much smarter as we tackle this threat, said Erik Solheim, Head of UN Environment.

EDF has also engaged with ten oil and gas companies representing 20 percent of worldwide production that together formed the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) around methane issues, and worked with governments and industry to catalyze the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP), a coalition of eight global producers committed to better reporting to reduce methane emissions.

EDF, OGCI, and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) are collaborating on a series of new peer-reviewed studies to measure oil and gas methane emissions in key locations across the globe, which will complement the data collected by MethaneSAT.

Our analysis at IEA has consistently emphasized that an effective response to the problem of methane emissions requires good data. Today’s announcement is a major step forward and continues EDF’s pioneering work in seeking to tackle these emissions worldwide. said Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the IEA.