Satellite To 'Name and Shame' Worst Oil and Gas Methane Polluters (theguardian.com) 53
A washing-machine-sized satellite is to "name and shame" the worst methane polluters in the oil and gas industry. From a report: MethaneSat will provide the first near-comprehensive global view of leaks of the potent greenhouse gas from the oil and gas sector, and all of the data will be made public. It will provide high-resolution data over wider areas than existing satellites. Methane, also called natural gas, is responsible for 30% of the global heating driving the climate crisis. Leaks from the fossil fuel industry are a major source of human-caused emissions and stemming these is the fastest single way to curb temperature rises.
MethaneSat was developed by the Environmental Defense Fund, a US NGO, in partnership with the New Zealand Space Agency and cost $88m to build and launch. Earlier EDF measurements from planes show methane emissions were 60% higher than calculated estimates published by US authorities and elsewhere. More than 150 countries have signed a global methane pledge to cut their emissions of the gas by 30% from 2020 levels by 2030. Some oil and gas companies have made similar pledges, and new regulations to limit methane leaks are being worked on in the US, EU, Japan and South Korea.
The EDF's senior vice-president, Mark Brownstein, said: "MethaneSat is a tool for accountability . I'm sure many people think this could be used to name and shame companies who are poor emissions performers, and that's true. But [it] can [also] help document progress that leading companies are making in reducing their emissions." The oil and gas industry knows how to stop leaks and the cost of doing so is usually very modest, said Steven Hamburg, the EDF's chief scientist and MethaneSat project leader: "Some call it low hanging fruit. I like to call it fruit lying on the ground."
MethaneSat was developed by the Environmental Defense Fund, a US NGO, in partnership with the New Zealand Space Agency and cost $88m to build and launch. Earlier EDF measurements from planes show methane emissions were 60% higher than calculated estimates published by US authorities and elsewhere. More than 150 countries have signed a global methane pledge to cut their emissions of the gas by 30% from 2020 levels by 2030. Some oil and gas companies have made similar pledges, and new regulations to limit methane leaks are being worked on in the US, EU, Japan and South Korea.
The EDF's senior vice-president, Mark Brownstein, said: "MethaneSat is a tool for accountability . I'm sure many people think this could be used to name and shame companies who are poor emissions performers, and that's true. But [it] can [also] help document progress that leading companies are making in reducing their emissions." The oil and gas industry knows how to stop leaks and the cost of doing so is usually very modest, said Steven Hamburg, the EDF's chief scientist and MethaneSat project leader: "Some call it low hanging fruit. I like to call it fruit lying on the ground."
Private satellite (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/climat... [www.cbc.ca]
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> and all of the data will be made public.
They don't need to do this. You'll be able to check the data yourself and call out whoever you want.
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That said, a large scale mine probably leaks way more than a residential development ever could. Wouldn't surprise me if some poorly regulated
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The article doesn't really point out the remarkable part about this, which is that it's a privately funded satellite. This really shows a change in the space economy.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/climat... [www.cbc.ca]
Does that mean a planet should trust their results to be devoid of all corruption and manipulation driven by the multi-trillion dollar Global Industrial Complex that intends to save a planet via highly-profitable scaremongering statistics?
You know, cause that would be a first..
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This was built by a US environmental NGO in cooperation with New Zealand.
The data will be public.
Hopefully, no fossil fuel influence.
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Hopefully, no fossil fuel influence.
Wonder what century it was when that last happened..
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We'll see if the pictures it takes line up with the absolutely unadulterated and 100% factual no reason to doublecheck data the moderately-profitable energy sector self reports.
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We'll see if the pictures it takes line up with the absolutely unadulterated and 100% factual no reason to doublecheck data the moderately-profitable energy sector self reports.
I could turn that around and point out this is a private organization with an agenda to shame people emitting methane using sensors that we have no idea were properly calibrated. This was a big deal with satellites measuring surface temperatures and there were the ground stations intended to calibrate the readings but the surface stations were put in suspect places. One example was an airport weather station placed where it would routinely get blasted with jet exhaust. If that station was being used for
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Granted the barriers to entry have been lowered somewhat... But privately owned satellites have been around since the first commercial telecommunications birds back in the 1960's.
Uh oh... (Score:2)
I hope it doesn't spend too much time over my house...
Finding those methane sources... (Score:2)
I hope it doesn't spend too much time over my house...
That depends, is your house a Taco Bell?
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That's racist.
If farts are racist, I’d love to know what part of the human race is magically immune, and missing out on the undeniable hilarity of Dutch ovens.
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*Sigh* it's a joke.
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I hope it doesn't spend too much time over my house...
Why? Do you keep cows in your basement?
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At least not on Taco Night .
Russia and China (Score:2)
They aren't going to like the "shaming" part, especially the Chinese.
And both have the capability to shoot it down.
Interesting times...
Re:Russia and China (Score:5, Insightful)
And both have the capability to shoot it down.
No one needs to shoot anything down. That's saber-rattling, that's grandstanding. Russia and China excel at this game, I've been watchign them do it since the 70's. They'll put out angry statements, maybe a few angry-sounding soundbites, and then no missile will be launched, no bullets unleashed.
What will likely happen instead is the people with the money and reason to be embarrassed (China, Russia, and anyone else who stands to get egg-on-face about this) will apply pressure to the people they've compromised in the US, and nicely ask them to stop with the naming and shaming bit... or else, the money stops. No money, no running the satellite, no publishing the results.
That's how this game is played. Not with bullets or missiles, but with bucks.
That's how this game's played.
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In Canada, they might also shame Alberta as well.
And Canadians from coast to coast will stop filling their tanks and heating their homes in disgust. Or probably not.
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They don't even need to 'apply pressure'. Those pushing the climatism agenda seem to focus almost exclusively on western countries when it comes to castigation and punitive regulation.
One could wonder the reasons...but that's none of my business [sips tea].
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They aren't going to like the "shaming" part, especially the Chinese.
You’re talking about a country that to this day still claims less than 6,000 COVID deaths for well over a billion citizens. And the other country has been relentlessly warmongering on their own border and under “sanctions” that have proven to not deter a damn thing..
And both have the capability to shoot it down.
Interesting times...
Making it disappear is a lot harder than simply not giving a flying fuck about “shaming”, which is exactly what China and Russia do. American media tries to sell otherwise, which is laughable at best.
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Russia and China are not going to pay the slightest attention to anything these guys say - if in fact they even know they are getting "shamed".
Russia is invading other countries with no provocation and threatening to start nuking people almost daily, The Chinese are rapidly planning to invade a sovereign country over a similar specious claim. That is, when they aren't shipping out toxic baby food and putting the Uyghurs in concentration camps.
I guarantee they do not care one in
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Russia is on the list, but China barely qualifies. Their methane emissions are a fraction of those of just Texas. Canada and Turkmenistan are in for a shock, as is most of the middle east.
No one is going to shoot this down. This satellite confirms with more accuracy what is already actively measured. You can already find shame maps.
Methane haiku (Score:2)
Stinky companies
Named and shamed, choking us out
Stock price high as clouds
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I'm writing them. They amuse me and the format provides some challenge to deliver a message in a (somewhat) poetic way while still remaining in proper format.
If they were truly poetic then I'd get in a seasonal reference to spring/summer/fall/winter or some other aspect of nature but that's not strictly required of a proper haiku, just strongly preferred to be considered a quality poem.
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Yes it was, I caught that 2 seconds after I hit submit, sorry.
No one else seems to like my haiku. They get ignored or voted down as over rated or other nonsense. I thought /. of all places would appreciate something different but apparently not.
Thanks for the positive message.
Re: Methane haiku (Score:2)
The US, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan (Score:1)
The US for blowing up the NordStream pipelines.
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan for not putting out those fires in their backyards for decades.
But if I were such I country, I would just invest in this company and kick out the CEO.
Nothing that money can't buy.
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The fires are the solution, not the problem.
If you have an oil well or processing facility which produces Methane as a waste product you have three options, vent it, flare it (burn it), or capture compress and store/sell it. The third is ideal but very expensive, particularly at smaller scale facilities. Flaring is cheap, but looks bad, you get people circulating photos with fields of venting fires. Venting just dumps the gas into the atmosphere, which is terrible for the globe, but cheap, invisible and
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The US for blowing up the NordStream pipelines.
Putting blame aside: How would blowing up a gas pipeline that has been shut down release much methane?
NOT the first (Score:3)
The methane maps from this existing satellite can be found here: https://earth.sron.nl/thema/me... [earth.sron.nl]
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I've not looked at the processing chain but I suspect that getting an accurate measure on the methane concentration requires correcting for a lot of atmospheric state parameters. So the processing probably has to wait for inputs from a lot of meteorological data sources, both on the ground and in orbit.
Seems like this is an odds-on bet (Score:2)
Let's see... hmm...could it be:
Gazprom
PetroChina
Sinopec
ExxonMobil
BP
Chevron
Royal Dutch Shell
Total
Rosneft
Lukoil
Name and shame? (Score:2)