Google and efforts to monitor methane
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Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc, announced a partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to help track and identify methane emissions observed by the MethaneSAT satellite. This collaboration uses artificial intelligence and mapping expertise from one of the world's most influential technology companies, and applies it to data from a high-powered satellite dedicated to monitoring some of the world's most destructive and avoidable greenhouse gas emissions.
The goal is to better identify opportunities to reduce emissions and take more aggressive climate action by governments and fossil fuel operators, many of which have committed to significant reductions by 2030. Steve Hamburg, chief scientist at EDF, said: “Our mission is to help countries, companies and communities Track and reduce emissions faster while documenting your progress.” He added: “It is also about accountability, which gives policymakers, investors and the public an unprecedented ability to see and compare those results.”
The United States, the European Union and China announced efforts last year to strengthen methane monitoring and reporting in an effort to reduce emissions. More than 150 countries have also pledged to reduce global emissions of powerful greenhouse gases by 30% by the end of this decade compared to 2020 levels as part of the global pledge on methane, and 50 of the world’s largest oil and gas producers also pledged at the climate conference (COP28) to reduce Methane emissions will decrease significantly by 2030.
EDF scientists will use Google's cloud computing and storage to run an algorithm on satellite observations from MethaneSat to identify gas releases and trace emissions back to their source. Attributing methane emissions to individual pieces of infrastructure and companies is difficult because some operators and governments do not disclose ownership or types of equipment.
To help with this, the same Google team behind other mapping services such as Google Maps, Street View and Waze will use artificial intelligence to identify oil and gas infrastructure such as well pads or storage tanks – all of which could develop a leak. – In satellite data.
“Once we have this map, we can overlay the methane data,” Yael Maguire, head of Google’s geographic sustainability team, said during the press conference. This will provide “a much better understanding of the types of machinery that contribute most to methane leaks.” Methane, which is invisible to the human eye, is the primary component of the fossil gas, and has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide during its first 20 years in the atmosphere.
Halting gas emissions from fossil fuels is widely seen as one of the cheapest and quickest ways to limit global warming in the short term, buying time to make the deep cuts in carbon dioxide needed to avoid serious climate damage. Methane emissions from oil, coal and gas operators often represent a trade-off between profits and climate. Although it is possible to eliminate the vast majority of emissions, doing so could increase short-term costs and slow production. For example, underground coal mines actively release methane after gas is released from rock layers to avoid explosions.
But few of them use the available capture technology. Gas operators routinely discharge methane gas when they need to empty a pipe to make it safe for repairs, although recompression equipment can reduce these emissions. Methane emissions from fossil fuels are underreported.
EDF scientists found that emissions from US oil and gas operations were 60% higher than EPA inventory suggested in a 2018 study, and new empirical evidence using satellite observations suggests that methane from global oil and gas operations is 30% higher. From figures reported to the United Nations under the Paris Agreement. Despite commitments from both companies and governments to reduce emissions, it is not clear that more data will necessarily lead to lower emissions in the absence of stronger regulation.
Satellite observations of methane have been available for years, and many of the world's hotspots, such as coal mines in China's Shaanxi Province and oil and gas operations in the Permian Basin in the United States, are well known and continue to release massive amounts of the gas.
According to a December 2023 analysis of satellite data from Kairos SAS, there has been no overall decline in methane emissions from fossil fuel basins in several of the world's largest oil, coal and gas producers that are signatories to the Global Methane Pledge, with the exception of the Bowen Basin in Australia, and the study used satellite observations and examined emissions rates since 2020. Operators are not always receptive to new satellite data that reveals their emissions.
Some companies, including Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-owned energy giant known as Pemex, have retracted widely accepted science and peer-reviewed reports that documented the leaks, arguing that researchers mistook nitrogen or water vapor for methane in the satellite data. Industrial.
The International Methane Emissions Monitor, a UN-backed effort to reduce methane emissions, notified stakeholders about 127 emissions from March to November last year, but was only able to verify that emissions had stopped in one case. The group observed other outages but did not receive enough information to verify specific actions taken by operators. “We believe that by using these tools we can empower businesses and the public sector with technology and information to take collective action,” Alphabet's Maguire said.
Aaron Clark*
*A Bloomberg journalist writes about the impact of energy sources on climate change.
Jessica Nix**
**Journalist at Bloomberg.
Published by special arrangement with the Washington Post Leasing and Syndication Service.
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