We need to talk about methane: How satellites can bring transparency to the fight against climate change
Details
- September 19, 2022
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11:00 am - 12:00 pm EDT
- Issues:
- Climate & EnvironmentData & Tech
Methane is one of the most detrimental gases that contributes to global warming, second to carbon dioxide, and is more than 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere in the first 20 years.
Over the last two centuries, methane concentrations in the atmosphere have more than doubled, largely due to human-related activities. But until a few years ago, our limited capacity to detect and measure methane emissions prevented us from doing much about it.
New satellite-born captors and advances in satellite image-processing technologies have changed that, and we now know more than enough about the causes of man-made methane emissions, and have acquired more than enough capacity to monitor them in real time, to start reducing them in a big way.
While methane monitoring and reporting will undoubtedly continue to improve, the question before us now is how can we best leverage current detection capacity, and accelerate adoption of the new methane measurement technologies, to deliver meaningful reductions in our greenhouse gas footprint and slow the pace of climate change? And how can these tools help industry and market participants comply with an expected tightening of the regulatory environment, and turn methane abatement from cost center to profit center?
This talk will offer never-before-seen data on methane sources over select US basins from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite.
Location of the event
Methane is one of the most detrimental gases that contributes to global warming, second to carbon dioxide, and is more than 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere in the first 20 years.
Over the last two centuries, methane concentrations in the atmosphere have more than doubled, largely due to human-related activities. But until a few years ago, our limited capacity to detect and measure methane emissions prevented us from doing much about it.
New satellite-born captors and advances in satellite image-processing technologies have changed that, and we now know more than enough about the causes of man-made methane emissions, and have acquired more than enough capacity to monitor them in real time, to start reducing them in a big way.
While methane monitoring and reporting will undoubtedly continue to improve, the question before us now is how can we best leverage current detection capacity, and accelerate adoption of the new methane measurement technologies, to deliver meaningful reductions in our greenhouse gas footprint and slow the pace of climate change? And how can these tools help industry and market participants comply with an expected tightening of the regulatory environment, and turn methane abatement from cost center to profit center?
This talk will offer never-before-seen data on methane sources over select US basins from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite.