GHGSat has partnered with Kairos Aerospace on a new project called Developing Methane Emissions Inventories by Fusing Airborne, Satellite, and Modeled Assessments funded by the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). GHGSat’s role will be to make satellite observations of methane emissions from sites in the Haynesville and Anadarko basins over the course of a year. The coordinated campaign will utilize cutting-edge technology to conduct satellite and airborne emissions surveys across both basins, determine trends over time, and leverage state-of-the-art modelling to comprehensively characterize emissions. The other project partners are Stanford University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and MiQ.
Under a program called Innovative Methane Measurement, Monitoring, and Mitigation Technologies (iM4 Technologies), the U.S. DOE is funding a number of research and development projects to accelerate the development of emissions mitigation technologies that will help reduce methane emissions across oil and gas producing regions in the United States. Funding R&D toward a “leak tight” natural gas value chain supports the goals outlined in the Biden-Harris administration’s U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan which reflects an overall goal to cut methane emissions by 30% from 2020 levels by 2030.
Scientific studies have consistently reported that methane emissions in the energy sector are characterized by skewed distributions in which a small number of sources account for most emissions (“super emitters”). This understanding of the characteristics of leak distributions drives the need for the multi-scale monitoring strategy that will be demonstrated in the DOE funded project, an approach that employs satellites, airborne instruments, and modeling in a tiered system-of-systems approach.
“The science around methane emissions is rapidly evolving,” said Dr. Elena Berman, Chief Science Officer at Kairos Aerospace and principal investigator for the project. “This project gives us an opportunity to deepen our understanding of these emissions and make tangible and pragmatic strides towards a cleaner future.”
GHGSat will be launching later this year three additional sensors dedicated to high-resolution emissions monitoring, expanding GHGSat’s constellation to 12 instruments in orbit. GHGSat has the largest constellation of commercial greenhouse gas monitoring satellites in operation that has enabled in the last two years the mitigation of 5.6-million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions from industrial facilities around the world, which is equivalent to over 1.2-million gasoline-powered passenger vehicles driven for one year.
Read the Kairos Aerospace press release.
