Methane Detection That’s Out of This World

As natural gas producers continue to look for ways to prevent, detect, and mitigate methane gas leaks, companies are deploying satellites that will measure methane flows, some down to the facility level.

“Aircraft are very expensive” for methane monitoring, so “it’s not something that happens on a daily basis,” said Wes Jickling, the chief executive of Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance. And restrictions on drones limit their utility. “What you get from satellites is constant monitoring,” he said.

GHGSat has two methane-detection satellites in orbit and plans the launch of eight more. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is set to launch with MethaneSAT next year. And Bluefield Technologies is planning to launch a group of satellites in 2023.

“The discovery and quantification of gas leaks from space is a game-changer in the interaction of atmospheric sciences and climate change mitigation,” said Thomas Roeckmann, professor of atmospheric physics and chemistry at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. “We will likely be able to detect smaller and thus potentially many more leaks from space in the near future.”

FROM JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY

By focusing on the wavelength of methane, the specifically designed satellites can measure flow rate far more accurately than is possible with general-purpose climate observation satellites. During a presentation at CERAWeek, Stéphane Germain, CEO of GHGSat, said its satellites can tell if a leak is “coming from a particular facility and even tell what part of the facility it is coming from.”

GHGSat said its satellites, which are about the size of a microwave oven, can measure methane from an elevation of 310 miles and up. They are placed in polar orbit, which allows them to cover the globe every two weeks as the Earth rotates. Launching more satellites will allow for more frequency.

GHGSat’s unique sensing technology is able to detect methane emissions from sources 100 times smaller than any other satellite, but with a resolution 100 times higher.

You can view an interactive global map of GHGSat’s data to view current levels and look back at past trends. 

While GHGSat is focused on pinpointing smaller details, EDF is thinking bigger. Its satellites can survey areas 160 miles wide, much broader than the facility-level focus of GHGSat’s technology. Fred Krupp, president of the EDF, said, “It will be the first satellite that can give us [methane-emission] concentrations for all major oil facilities on land.”

Conventional monitoring methods, while highly accurate, are ultimately costlier than satellites, because they must be tended to by human workers. Manual methane checking also has poorer temporal coverage, argues Yotam Ariel, CEO of Bluefield. As a result, she says, three out of every four methane leaks are missed by oil and gas operators. 

More—and more granular—data about methane emissions is expected to help researchers and companies better understand emissions levels and sources, bringing a level of accountability previously not possible. Leaks and emissions can’t hide from producers or regulators now that a satellite is always watching.