The $88 million satellite backed by billionaire Jeff Bezos, which detected that the oil and gas industry's emissions from powerful greenhouse gas methane have been lost in space, the group told Reuters on Tuesday.
Methane is an effective greenhouse gas, and within 20 years, the warming power of carbon dioxide is 80 times higher. But many methane leaks were not detected, making the scale of contamination unclear.
The Environmental Defense Fund, which leads the initiative, said Methanesat has been collecting emission data and images from drilling sites, pipelines and processing facilities around the world.
Its last known location was on Svalbard, Norway, and the EDF said it did not expect it to be restored due to the loss of power.
“We think it's a setback, not a failure,” Amy Middleton, senior vice president of EDF, told Reuters. “We have made a lot of progress and have learned a lot, and if we didn't take risks, we wouldn't have any of that knowledge.”
In a 2024 campaign, Methanesat was launched in March 2024 to undertake more than 120 countries that promised to curb their methane emissions in 2021.
A groundbreaking satellite called Methanesat has been launched into space to track global methane emissions. Scientists hope the technology will help keep oil and gas companies accountable in the fight against climate change.
It also seeks to help 50 oil and gas companies established at the Dubai COP28 Climate Summit in December 2023 to deliver on further commitments to eliminate methane and conventional gas combustion.
Scientists say
Given the strength of methane, scientists say capping leaks from oil and gas wells and equipment is one of the fastest ways to start solving global warming problems.
A new McGill University study shows that methane leaks from abandoned oil and gas wells in Canada are almost seven times as expected, and residents living near them are calling for urgent action by the government.
While Methanesat is not the only project to release satellite data on methane emissions, its supporters say it provides more details on emission resources and works with Google to create a publicly available global emission map.
The EDF reported the missing satellites to federal agencies on Tuesday, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the U.S. Space Force.
The EDF said the cost of building and launching the satellite was $88 million. The organization received a $100 million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund in 2020 and received other major financial support from Arnold Ventures, Robertson Foundation and Ted Autacious Project and EDF donors. The project also works with Space New Zealand.
It said it will continue to use its resources, including aircraft with methane detection spectrometers, to look for methane leakage.
In a report last year, the United Nations said in a report last year that despite efforts to increase transparency in emissions, methane “super transmitters” said in a report last year that they were spilling methane, rarely taking action.
