
Bezos-supported methane tracking satellite lost in space
A $ 88 million satellite supported by billionaire Jeff Bezos, which explored the emission of the powerful greenhouse gas methane of the oil and gas industry, is lost in the space, which the group operated it, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, with 80 times warming power of carbon dioxide over a period of 20 years. But many methane leaks become undetermined, causing the measure of pollution to become unclear.
The methansat was collecting emissions data and images from drilling sites, pipelines and processing facilities since March, but about 10 days ago, the Environmental Defense Fund, which led the initiative.
Its last known place was more than Svalbard in Norway and EDF said it would not expect it to be recovered as it had lost power.
“We are looking at it as a shock, not failure,” senior EDF Vice President Amy Middleton told Reuters. “We have made so much progress and have learned a lot that if we had not taken this risk, we would not have learned any of these.”
A good start Methansat in March 2024 There was a milestone in a one -year long campaign by EDF, holding more than 120 countries accountable, promising to curb its methane emissions in 2021.
A groundbreaking satellite called Mentensat has been launched into space with the target of tracking global methane emissions. Scientists hope that technology will help in the fight against climate change to make oil and gas companies accountable.
This demanded 50 oil and gas companies to help in implementing another promise from 50 oil and gas companies at the Dubai COP28 Climate Summit in December 2023 to eliminate methane and regular gas flaminging.
Caping methane is a fast way to deal with climate change, scientists say that
Given how powerful methane is, scientists say leaking capping from oil and gas wells and equipment is one of the fastest ways to start dealing with global warming problems.
A new McGill University study shows that methane leaks from Canada’s abandoned oil and gas wells have already been thought of, and the residents living near them are calling for immediate action from the government.
While the methanessat was not the only project publishing satellite data on methane emissions, its backers stated that it provided more detail on emission sources and participated with Google to make a publicly available global map of emissions.
The EDF on Tuesday reported lost satellites to federal agencies including National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, Securities and Exchange Commission and US Space Force.
According to EDF, the cost of satellite constructs and launchs $ 88 million. The organization received a grant of $ 100 million from Bezos Earth Fund in 2020 and received other major financial assistance from Arnold Ventures, Robertson Foundation and Ted Audius Project and EDF donors. The project was also participated with the New Zealand Space Agency.
EDF said it was insurance to cover the loss and its engineers were investigating what happened.
It said that it will continue to use its resources including aircraft with methane-detecting spectrometers to look for methane leaks.
The United Nations said in a report last year that despite efforts to increase transparency on emissions, Methane “Super-Emines” rarely took action when they are leaking methane, the United Nations said in a report last year.
The pressure on him for the United States under the second administration of President Donald Trump has reduced the pressure on him as an American program has been effectively terminated to cancel the rules of biden-era with the aim of collecting greenhouse gas data from major pollutants and curbing methane.
Methane Reduction of Canada
Since 2021, 155 countries have signed a global pledge to reduce methane emissions by 2030, by 2030, With canadaCanada was one of the first countries to establish the national methane rules for oil and gas sector, and set a target to cut methane emissions from at least 75 percent of the oil and gas sector at least 75 percent of the 2012 level in December 2023.
There are other attempts to detect methane from space.
A private company in Montreal, GHGSAT, has developed a high-resolution greenhouse gas emission technique to detect satellite emissions as to detect the methane-article and their source.
While GHGSAT does not have public data like methansat, it still provides information on oil and gas and other sources such as landfill methane. In June 2024, the latest action was taken by the federal government Reduce methane emissions The draft rules were to be issued to reduce landfill methane emissions.
The GHGSAT also provides data to the International Methane Emission Observatory under the United Nations Environment Program. He also launched two new satellites in June 2025, bringing a total of 12 satellites into orbit.