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Why are there so many methane satellites?

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Re: Why are there so many methane satellites?

#71

Post by omgJustTest »

jjcm wrote: post #59
jimnotgym wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the carbon released by putting all the satellites up there!

I was curious on this so did some quick searching around. Average satellite launch releases 57 tons of Co2 [1] 2.75 million unplugged wells in the US that output "6.6m tons of Co2 worth of methane" [2], or put in another way each well puts out 2.4T of Co2e each per year. With these numbers each sat would have to prevent 23.75 years worth of a well being uncapped to recoup the cost of launch (so would have to close on…

Clearly the utility of these instruments is not a single item.

One would imagine that monitoring of this sort is critical infrastructure for monitoring remote & continuous emitters.

Someone has already motivated many of these science missions, and they are not funded, to my knowledge, by industry. These are already rolled into govt investments so really the argument is not total CO2 balance, but what technologies can be deployed next year that will give you continuous reductions over time.

_Many_ people will argue their clean-tech _will eventually_ provide savings, not many can be installed next year at scale.

This is an obvious choice IMO, if for no other reason than people cannot out-right emit with no consequences.

Re: Why are there so many methane satellites?

#72

Post by dotancohen »

jimnotgym wrote: post #58
omgJustTest wrote: post #42

Methane detection from space![1] will aid in the detection of greenhouse gas emissions from abandoned well-heads, oil-fields, landfills and other large environmental polluters contributing to climate change. The IEA[3] has attributed nearly 30% of global temperature rise to methane, so the detection of the sources is becoming a critical factor in mitigating direct and indrect impacts of climate change. The sensors ab…

Imagine the carbon released by putting all the satellites up there!

For what it's worth, Spacex's next generation rocket burns methane directly, into CO2 which is a less potent greenhouse gas. That means that if solar power is used to create methane from the CO2 in the atmosphere, then the rocket will be carbon neutral. And if waste methane is used (commonly vented to atmosphere because the market is small yet it is expensive to capture) then each launch will actually be a net benefit for reducing atmospheric greenhouse gases.

Re: Why are there so many methane satellites?

#73

Post by khaki54 »

I think this is overall a positive and good approach to control climate change. 1. It targets methane which has a huge short term effect on global warming vs CO2 2. It doesn't blame or target consumers with high annoyance, low value solutions like paper straws. 3. It reduces waste. We shouldn't be wasting natural gas, it's a valuable resource, and it may be economically viable to use even minor resource pockets in the future. 4. Companies shouldn't be able to freely pollute, including long term flaring, if it's so simple to cap these things. 5. This is something that's actually measurable and trackable. Analysts can identify the top 100,000 sites and governments and NGOs can go down the list to close / capture them and also show progress publically.

Re: Why are there so many methane satellites?

#74

Post by jessriedel »

seadan83 wrote: post #49
jessriedel wrote: post #16

Putting aside the climate aspects and just concentrating on companies that are trying to identify methane leaks: If I have a device that can accurately see methane leaks, I am very surprised it's really more economical to put them on satellites than to operate them locally. Yes, I get that you can have one device in orbit that can do the job for multiple companies, but satellites are just fantastically expensive. Unl…

> why can't companies just survey from the ground? From a layman's perspective: (1) the incentive is not aligned to accurately report leaks [1][2][3][4][5] (2) Satellites provide global monitoring. This reaches to places/countries/regions that are not regulated, and secondly provides monitoring for natural sources of methane emissions (eg: permafrost). For the latter, even if there is nothing to be done about natural…

I'm specifically referring to the cases in the article where companies pay for this.

Re: Why are there so many methane satellites?

#75

Post by [deleted] »

SECProto wrote: post #68
jjcm wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was curious on this so did some quick searching around. Average satellite launch releases 57 tons of Co2 [1] 2.75 million unplugged wells in the US that output "6.6m tons of Co2 worth of methane" [2], or put in another way each well puts out 2.4T of Co2e each per year. With these numbers each sat would have to prevent 23.75 years worth of a well being uncapped to recoup the cost of launch (so would have to close on…

> 2.75 million unplugged wells in the US that output "6.6m tons of Co2 worth of methane" [2], or put in another way each well puts out 2.4T of Co2e each per year. Per the article you cited, the 6.6m tonnes (not tons) of CO2e does not have a lot of empirical measurements behind it, and it may be much higher. That's one of the things these satellites can help to improve. I think a better way to look at it is comparing…

[deleted]

Re: Why are there so many methane satellites?

#76

Post by metaphor »

codeflo wrote: post #35
metaphor wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So first you have the multiple times worse effect of CH4 and then you're left with CO2, which is still a greenhouse gas. In case anyone else was wondering, the EPA[1] puts a layman figure on that notional multiple: >> Methane's lifetime in the atmosphere is much shorter than carbon dioxide (CO2), but CH4 is more efficient at trapping radiation than CO2. Pound for pound, the comparative impact of CH4 is 28 times gre…

But note that at the end of that century, the CO2 is still there and will continue to heat the atmosphere indefinitely. We really need to stop adding carbon to the cycle; optimizing the form of that carbon can only ever be a secondary goal.

> optimizing the form of that carbon can only ever be a secondary goal.

If I may be permitted to reiterate: 28x GWP impact factor. Cherry-picking CH4 is hardly premature optimization...it's pure low-hanging fruit!

Consider this paper published in Nature Communications[1] which analyzed CH4 emissions from just low production natural gas well sites in the US. From the abstract:

>> Here, we integrate national site-level O&G production data and previously reported site-level CH4 measurement data (n = 240) and find that low production well sites are a disproportionately large source of US O&G well site CH4 emissions, emitting more than 4 (95% confidence interval: 3—6) teragrams, 50% more than the total CH4 emissions from the Permian Basin, one of the world’s largest O&G producing regions. We estimate low production well sites represent roughly half (37—75%) of all O&G well site CH4 emissions, and a production-normalized CH4 loss rate of more than 10%—a factor of 6—12 times higher than the mean CH4 loss rate of 1.5% for all O&G well sites in the US.

...and further into the paper:

>> At low production well sites, field observations report a common theme revolving around the issue of well site equipment negligence and disrepair as the primary driver of CH4 emissions. Most proximately, recent work by Deighton et al. documents several of these maintenance-related issues, including, for example, (i) leaks at fittings and joints, (ii) leaks and vents from rusted pump jacks, tanks, and other onsite gathering infrastructure, and (iii) evidence of well site neglect or poor maintenance, such as wellheads or casings covered in weeds or fallen trees.

In summary, an estimated 4 teragrams (4 million metric tons) annual CH4 leakage as a direct consequence of operations/maintenance negligence in just the US. Scaled by 28x GWP factor and now we're in the ballpark of 112 million metric tons CO2 equivalence.

Sounds like a big number, but I need a more relatable proxy to square that figure. This source[2] suggests a typical adult human generates 0.9 kg CO2 per day just breathing. Therefore, the value prop of dropping the penal hammer hard on negligent US low production natural gas site operators implies a CO2 sequestration equivalence of offing 341 million warm adult human bodies...effectively the entire US population! Apologies for the morbid anolog, but it's perhaps much easier to internalize impact by this measure.

Only a secondary goal? Sorry, the notion doesn't pass this layman's ballpark sniff test.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29709-3

[2] https://www.globe.gov/explore-science/scientists-blog/archiv...

Re: Why are there so many methane satellites?

#77

Post by mattgrice »

jessriedel wrote: post #16

Putting aside the climate aspects and just concentrating on companies that are trying to identify methane leaks: If I have a device that can accurately see methane leaks, I am very surprised it's really more economical to put them on satellites than to operate them locally. Yes, I get that you can have one device in orbit that can do the job for multiple companies, but satellites are just fantastically expensive. Unl…

I can't imagine it's cheaper to do terrestrial search for methane leaks unless your goal is to only find the methane sources you are incentivized to find, and the cost of the satellite gets amortized over thousands of sources and millions to billions of stakeholders.

"putting aside the climate aspects" (???) It's 2024, this is the equivalent of putting a bit "#if 0/#endif" around your comment. I'm taking the time to post this because I hope if you reflect on it, over time, you might realize that the devil actually doesn't need an advocate.

Re: Why are there so many methane satellites?

#78

Post by angiosperm »

ianburrell wrote: post #43
angiosperm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If SpaceX cared, the Starlink fleet (both satellites and ground stations) could be the biggest, most sensitive radio telescope in the world, without compromising its usefulness as a network. It points in all directions at the same time. With such sensitivity, a very short "exposure" time is plenty. Each node records a few cycles of analog waveform at a certain atomic-clock time determined by its position, and forward…

The Starlink satellite antennas all point at the Earth. The antennas are also small compared to radio telescopes. They also listen to specific frequencies. They would make the best radio telescope for detecting Starlink customers. The customer antennas would make poor radio telescope because the antennas are small. If using array of small antennas as radio telescopes were possible, we would see them. Using interferom…

People who have not done a thing can always make up reasons why it would be impossible. People who do things learn to ignore them.
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