Google, EDF team up to launch MethaneSAT to reduce emissions, planet warming

19 / 02 / 2024

• news

Google has teamed up with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)’s satellite for “MethaneSAT” to orbit the Earth soon to collect satellite data to help cut methane emissions and reduce planet warming.

“Today, we’re announcing a partnership with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) that combines our science and technology to reduce methane emissions. This is one of the most powerful, short-term actions we can take to reduce warming,”Yael Maguire, Vice President and General Manager, Geo Developer & Sustainability, Google, said in a press release.

Every year, the planet gets hotter because of greenhouse gas pollution. In fact, 2023 was the hottest year on record, and the last ten years have been the hottest years since 1850. Reducing this warming is essential to decreasing the risk of wildfires, drought and other extreme environmental events, and results in cleaner air and healthier communities.

Methane from human sources is responsible for about 30% of global warming today, and a big contributor of methane in the atmosphere comes from extracting fossil fuels, like oil and gas, from the Earth. By powering methane detection algorithms with Cloud computing and applying AI to satellite imagery to identify oil and gas infrastructure around the world, our goal is to help EDF quantify and trace methane emissions to their source. With this information, energy companies, researchers and the public sector can take action to reduce emissions from oil and gas infrastructure faster and more effectively.

EDF’s new satellite, MethaneSAT, will map, measure and track methane with unprecedented precision, offering a comprehensive view of methane emissions. Launching in early March on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, MethaneSAT will orbit the Earth 15 times a day at an altitude of over 350 miles. It will measure methane levels in the top oil and gas regions in the world for regular analysis. MethaneSAT is highly sophisticated; it has a unique ability to monitor both high-emitting methane sources and small sources spread over a wide area. To calculate the amount of methane emitted in specific places and track those emissions over time, EDF developed algorithms powered by Google Cloud in collaboration with scientists at Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science and its Center for Astrophysics, and scientists at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

“In addition to detecting emissions, we’re taking it a step further and creating a global map of oil and gas infrastructure, with the goal of understanding which components contribute most to emissions. Just like how we use AI to detect sidewalks, street signs and road names in satellite imagery to display helpful information in Google Maps, we’ll also use AI to identify oil and gas infrastructure, like oil storage containers, in our imagery. Then, we’ll combine it with EDF’s information about oil and gas infrastructure to locate where the emissions are coming from,” he added.

“Once we have this complete infrastructure map, we can overlay the MethaneSAT data that shows where methane is coming from. When the two maps are lined up, we can see how emissions correspond to specific infrastructure and obtain a far better understanding of the types of sources that generally contribute most to methane leaks. This information is incredibly valuable to anticipate and mitigate emissions in oil and gas infrastructure that is generally most susceptible to leaks.”

“To help researchers and organizations, these insights will be available later this year on MethaneSAT’s website and accessible through Google Earth Engine, our planetary-scale environmental monitoring platform. By making MethaneSAT datasets available on Earth Engine, which has over 100,000 monthly active users, it’s easier for users to detect trends and understand correlations between human activities and environmental impact. For example, Earth Engine users can combine methane data with other datasets — like land cover, forests, water, ecosystems, regional borders and more — to do things like track methane emissions in a given area over time. Explore the aerial data or access it for analysis in Earth Engine,” he added.